In honor of Alisal’s 60th Anniversary, we will be profiling teachers and staff who are alumni in an ongoing series.

It’s Alisal’s diamond anniversary, and this school wouldn’t be how it is now if it wasn’t for the teachers changing the students’ lives and preparing them for the future. What makes Alisal special is the number of the teachers who were once Trojans as well. Milton Grant, a member of the Class of 2009, came back to teach the next generation. 

During high school, Grant played football, basketball and baseball. He was even MVP his senior year for football. Looking back at his high school years, Grant regrets not being in the golf team, “I didn’t do golf, and that’s the thing I wish I did the most, because when you think about it, you can’t play football when you grow up, I can’t really play basketball [because] I’m vertically challenged right?” Grant said, “I can’t really play baseball at a high level right now, so there’s just golf.” He would’ve given up baseball to play golf because he believes he could’ve played college level golf.

When it comes to academics, Grant’s favorite teachers were Mr. Battaglini, Mr. Mendez and Mr. Freilich. He really likes how Mr. Battaglini taught him how to write creatively and how he taught the basics. He believes that Mr. Mendez would assign projects that were ahead of their time, and he really liked how he turned everything into a project. He liked Mr. Freilich because he is the teacher who introduced him to Chico State and without him he wouldn’t have gone to Chico State.

Grant feels that Alisal hasn’t changed since he was a student here. However, he said he finds it astonishing seeing the teachers who are still teaching at Alisal. “On a personal level, we have a deeper connection because they’ve seen me grow, and I’ve seen them grow as well,” he said. Grant says that he now looks back with a teacher’s perspective and observes his previous teachers’ classes and realizes why they did things the way they did.

After graduating, Grant attended Chico State University and studied Health Administration and Health Science. He started teaching after he graduated from college in Wellington M. Smith Jr. School, which is a juvenile hall, as a substitute teacher where he taught English. “So I took over an English class and I taught English to students and that’s where I developed my passion,” Grant said.

Although he enjoyed teaching at Wellington Smith, Grant said he also found it depressing. He believes teaching at a juvenile hall taught him how to work things around the classroom and he likes seeing the kids excited to learn. “It was mostly sad because when you get to leave, they don’t,” Grant said. He also believes that weekends were the hardest for his students since class time was their only time to get out and do something that will help them learn.

In 2019, Grant became a Health education teacher at Alisal, but was later moved to teach AVID after the pandemic. Grant believes it was a sudden change and a new experience to be moved from teaching health to AVID. He learned a lot about teaching AVID and freshmen from other AVID teachers such as Mr. Madrigal, Mr. Patel, and Mr. Bunden. “It was really hard. It was a crazy adjustment period because there was a lot to learn,” Grant said. “It was just a new experience, you know?”

 For Grant, Alisal holds a lot of memories and friendships, and is the heart of the East side. “I think as a Trojan you have an ability to live what you preach,” he  said, “I went to school here, I want the best for my students, I love the school and there’s no other school I’d rather be at because it’s like a home, like a family.”