At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, English 9, English 10 Accelerated. IB Literature Higher Level 1 and English Language Development 1 (ELD) teacher Veronica Mendez will start her new journey at Eastlake Middle School (EMS) to co-teach English 8 classes. Mendez shares her overall experience working at BVH.
“My favorite thing about this school is the students. Some students that are seniors now [were my students] since they were in eighth grade during the pandemic year. It’s nice to see how much they have grown as students,” Mendez said.
Mendez started teaching at BVM before she became a BVH teacher. The middle school initially let her go due to the lack of experience she had compared to the other teachers. However, she was offered a position to work at BVH, which she took, believing that it was a perfect opportunity. With this, she has built interest and passion for BVH students.
“I’m not leaving because I’m unhappy or anything. I really am happy at BVH. However, I graduated from Eastlake High School (EHS) and I know that’s the rivalry here. My heart is with BVH, but I live in the Eastlake community,” Mendez said.
During the years Mendez taught at BVH, she became familiar with the IB courses and its curriculum, taking a liking to that aspect. She plans to continue her journey with an IB course at EHS.
“I love the way that the IB courses are taught. I feel like I can apply a lot of project based learning and developing your own lines of inquiry. As well as having more student input into what they’re doing in school,” Mendez said.
Mendez is most excited to familiarize herself with new EHS teachers, while making new connections. Through this, she hopes to understand the various ways of teaching and learn something new. One of Mendez ‘students for the duration of this school year Junior Sophia Hirsch shares her favorite things about Mendez.
“My favorite things about her is her ability to understand each of her students and how she is able to easily communicate with students. She has always contributed her time and effort to making sure that her students are always in the best place possible,” Hirsch said.
Throughout the school year, she has gotten to connect with Mendez and view the way she interacts with other students. Hirsch believes that Mendez takes the time out of her day to get to know each of her students and assist them in anything they need.
“Mendez has taught me a lot of life lessons that I’ll take with me wherever I go in life. These lessons being to trust myself and have more confidence in myself. She has always been someone that has pushed me to the best of my ability and someone that reminds me that I shouldn’t dwell on little things,” Hirsch said.
Mendez has been an integral part of Hirsch’s life, teaching her many life lessons and pushing her to have confidence in herself. Furthermore, Mendez has helped her students get out of their comfort zone. Students express their anxiety with public speaking, but admire the persistence of their teacher to help them boost their confidence. Junior Prisilla Aguilar, shares her fondest memory of being Mendez’s student.
“I have many favorite memories with her, but the one thing me and many of her students can remember is if a student is slacking or not paying attention, she will get the whole class to say ‘We believe in you.’ While it might embarrass the student, it shows how she’s truly engaged with her teachings,” Aguilar said.
Many of Mendez’s students explain that she is an observant teacher, allowing her to be approachable. Mendez brings forth a supportive classroom environment where she has helped many students overcome challenges. Aguilar expresses that next year she will be disappointed not to have Mendez as a teacher, but will continue to honor the moments she did have with her.
“Mendez is a good teacher because she actually enjoys what she does and she’s always looking forward to teaching a new lesson each day. Sometimes she’s exhausted or tired, but you will never hear her say she doesn’t want to be here in the moment with her students,” Aguilar said.
