The 22-23 year is a going to be a big year for new faces. We only said goodbye to one teacher at the end of last year, and have added ten new faculty, not counting the new AP, Mr. Oh. We have added positions increasing the size of the faculty, allowing us to offer more electives.
Ms.Leos is joining the faculty as a co-teacher replacing Ms. Severino who left at the beginning of last year. Two new teachers join the Spanish department -Ms. Tapia and Ms. Garcia allowing us to have more advanced Spanish classes. In Math, we welcome Ms. Naomi Fried Kokason. Both Math and Spanish had unfilled vacancies when we ended in June, which are now filled. Ms. Van Zyl will be taking over the 9th-grade Health classes. We are excited to add a new Art program with Ms. Nicole Pollard who will be teaching photography.
The counseling staff has also grown with a new 4th counselor, Ms. Vanessa Giron. Now though, each of the four have alpha assignments, each will also have a focus grade level to oversee. Also in counseling, Ms. Dena Antoun joins us a the new A-G counselor and Ms. Jessica Salinas is the new PSA Counselor. The extra support personnel will help us meet the social/emotional needs of our students. Additionally, a new instructional intervention coordinator has been found in Ms. Maricela Sandoval.
Mr. Black has taken an out-of-classroom role as the new Title 1 and Social Media Coordinator. He will also oversee testing and data. Mr. Kent has volunteered to take over his yearbook class, combining it with the journalism class that supports this website. Mr. Chan has added a Computer Science class to his roster and Mr. Johnson is picking up a couple of P.E. classes.
We have added an additional support person in the main office, Mr. Khash Nikazmrad, and a new paraprofessional to aide teachers in the classroom, Mr. Edwin Aguilar. Other new aides will be joining us later, as well.
It is truly a year of growth with an abnormal abundance of funding sources. We are almost running out of space to house everyone. Several offices have had to shift around. But we are gladly making it work.
See the full faculty list here.