Learning Matters: GUSD features share of homegrown employees

A few weeks ago, a colleague and I went to Daily High School to meet with the new principal Rene Valdes, about a school-to-career grant we’re working on. Deb Rinder, whose responsibilities include the high schools, joined us for the conversation.

I’ve known Rinder and Valdes for quite a few years and was familiar with their personal and professional experience in the district. I knew, for instance, that Rinder played high school basketball alongside school board member Christine Walters. But my colleague, who is new to Glendale, was surprised when she heard that both administrators were graduates of Glendale High.

“It’s not that unusual around here,” I told her. Glendale Unified likes its graduates, and quite a few have returned to work for the district.

I suspect that among school districts, Glendale ranks fairly high in its percentage of homegrown employees. The district’s public information office doesn’t have a handy list of teacher-alums, but I sent out emails to several I know, asking for brief reflections on what’s different now than when they were students here. Here are some of the common themes they’ve shared.

Cultural diversity has been the norm since the 1980s, but the challenges of a diverse student population have eased somewhat.

“There’s not as much segregation now,” according to Wilson Middle School teacher Betsy Beuzet, an opinion echoed by colleague and former Wilson student Aylin Gharabighi.

Columbus Elementary Principal Elena Heimerl, another Glendale High graduate, wrote, “One thing that has been a positive change… is the diversity. There has been diversity since my youth, but now it just seems more embraced.”

Brian Landisi, who grew up in the Crescenta Valley and now serves as assistant principal at Glendale High, used similar language in describing his experience: “…Glendale Unified has taught me about embracing diversity,” he wrote.

He said he’s glad to have been able to learn from classmates and families of different cultures, and he’s grateful he can use the Spanish he learned in middle and high school to communicate with students and parents on a daily basis.

Both Valdes, who formerly taught in the special-education department, and Beuzet stressed how much more effectively the district now recognizes and supports students’ diverse learning styles and needs.

In her student days, Beuzet told me, students were deemed “normal or not.” Special-education classes included everyone from the most severely-developmentally disabled to very high-functioning students, those who are now more successfully accommodated and advanced in mainstream classes.

As for new English-language learners in years past, Wilson teacher Gail Dunham remembers them getting little support from teachers and less understanding on the part of their native English-speaking classmates.

“We thought they were stupid,” Dunham ruefully admitted. She pointed out that one of those classmates went on to attain a very high level position with the Glendale Police Department. Dunham now teaches English language-development classes whenever she has the chance.

Valdes shared his own experience. “I realized that I was…not challenged academically. I did not know about Advance Placement classes. I wasn’t given the opportunity. I remember being told by my high school counselor that I should consider trade school,” he wrote. “That’s probably the reason I did eventually get into education…[to give] all kids an equal-opportunity education regardless of ethnic or socio-economic status.”

Surely, some of the qualities that make Glendale a desirable place to live — safety and a reputation for good schools — make it a good place to teach. But the sense I have from the educators who have contacted me is that they weren’t drawn here by the statistics; they were drawn by the people, and by the desire to share their experiences with another generation of students.

“It’s about continuity,” Glendale High (and former Crescenta Valley High) teacher and coach Alan Eberhart told me. He feels the district took good care of him, and he has tried to treat his students the way he was treated. He left the district for a while to teach in Arizona, but he missed being among people he knew.

Valdes, Rinder, and Landisi all had Eberhart as a coach or a teacher, and they are among the many Glendale Unified graduates who, like him, appreciate the joys of continuity.

Glenoaks Elementary teacher Matthieu Hamo loves “…the perk of being able to work alongside some of the very same teachers who inspired me.”

Wilson’s Mary Dall loves giving students “some of the same lasting memories I hold dear.”

As Heimerl wrote, “…While many things have changed, so much is the same….Kids are kids are kids…and I LOVE IT!”

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JOYLENE WAGNER is a former member of the Glendale Unified school board. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.