Hugo Martinez He/Him CTE Multimedia Teacher

One moment that comes to mind is the first year I was teaching my BVTV class, they had several substitutes due to the fact that the main teacher transferred to a school suddenly. After a week of the students being resistant to me being in the classroom, one of the students looked at me and said ‘Mr. Martinez, I got you. I am going to help you.’ From that moment on everything changed. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the capacity to teach effectively, it was because of the experience they had as a class, so we built a bridge and connected.”

Michelle Mardhal  She/Her AP Biology/Accelerated Biology Teacher

I remember this one, and it was very funny. There was this student, named Diego, and he was lab partners with another student. He asked her out for Baronial using a science fair poster board that he constructed entirely from science fair. He put a whole board, with an intro, materials and methods, a results section and a conclusion section [involving their relationship]. I helped him do it. He asked me if he could set it up in the classroom. He initially asked me if I had a board, some scissors, so I facilitated it. She walked in and saw that there was this big board and she said yes.”

Jared Phelps He/Him IB Coordinator

I have a very distinct moment where a student came by after graduation to get his IB Diploma. I had to tell him ‘You didn’t get your diploma, you missed it by one point.’ [He replied by] saying he wasn’t mad  because he had learned so much about who he was. He said ‘When I started this I was all about the college credit and being the most competitive. Now that I’ve started college, I have realized who I am is the most important thing.’ I then requested that his exam be rescored and they discovered it was incorrectly scored. He got the extra point and got the IB Diploma.”

Jessica Vargas She/Her AVID Teacher 

My most remarkable memories are from when I am with my students and get to take them on trips to different colleges. They see for the first time a college they already researched or they had been interested in and it is almost this emotional, magical and spiritual experience. They see themselves on the campus and they get excited. For many of them it’s the first time they feel like they belong in college. I think school is an amazing thing, but there is so much power in [going]  outside our classroom, doing things hands on and seeing things a little bit differently.”