Alumni launch program to honor inspiring teachers

Under the tutelage of her journalism teacher, Alice Engh spent two years laboring over the Crescenta Valley High School student newspaper, assigning stories and hitting deadlines.

“She taught me to be not just a good editor and a good writer, but to be a strong person,” Engh said of Joyce Yamaguchi, who retired in 2010. “She just has this way about her.”

After graduating in 1991, Engh went on to UCLA and Loyola Marymount, and a successful, bi-coastal career in investment banking. She later married Crescenta Valley High School classmate Darren Engh, and together they are raising their children in San Antonio, Texas.

But Engh never forgot her mentor, and working in collaboration with several fellow Crescenta Valley graduates, she has launched Small Change for Big Change, an alumni effort dedicated to recognizing and supporting the work of staff members at the school.

“Teachers don’t get thanked enough,” Engh said. “Hopefully, this will let them know that people are thinking of them.”

She presented the concept to staff members while on campus Tuesday.

“This is the first time we have had an outside group step in wanting to make some small change for big change for our teachers,” said Principal Michele Doll. “I think it is a wonderful resource and I think our faculty really was excited about it this morning, and felt appreciated and valued.”

Three years in the making, the organization will seek to affirm the work of Crescenta Valley teachers and staff in big ways and small, Engh said. It will function primarily as a fundraising operation with contributions going to purchase classroom supplies.

But the mission of Small Change for Big Change is not solely monetary. All alumni are invited to participate by acknowledging the contributions of their former teachers via letters that can be submitted on its website. The organization also intends to establish a “teacher of the year” award to be bestowed upon one current and one retired teacher, Engh said.

In addition to Engh, Small Change for Big Change officers and board members include 1991 graduate Kevin Grigg, head of publicity and media relations for the Detroit Pistons, and 2000 graduate Patrick Chun, a venture capitalist with presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital Ventures.

Linda Evans, who retired as Crescenta Valley principal in 2010 and is helping to roll out the alumni group, said she always tried to remind her colleagues about the impact they were having on the lives of their students. But sometimes that impact is hard to discern in the middle of a bustling semester, and doesn’t become apparent until years later, she said.

“I sense what this group is trying to do is give former students a chance to voice some of what they learned that was maybe more than English or math or science of social science — that enriched their life or their sense of self,” Evans said.