Since it’s Alisal’s 60th year, Activities Director Crystal Soria and the Leadership class decided to celebrate by recognizing teachers. “The students wanted something to bring delight, so we decided on teacher recognition,” Soria said, “Our main goal was to spark a little joy in people.”

The process is pretty straightforward,  a leadership student will come up and say they want to recognize a particular teacher. They all gather up together and discuss who deserves the recognition. “It’s really not a long process,” student Janelle Medina said.

Soria and the leadership students discuss it on Thursdays. In their meetings, they start by asking questions to each other like does someone have a teacher they want to recognize, and if they do she asks why.  

In case there are several teachers to recognize in that following week, they’ll talk it through and pick two teachers at most. “In case we have no one to recognize, we end up looking for  teachers to recognize ,”  Medina said.

So far they’ve recognized six  teachers –  Jay Madrigal, Gloria Estrada, Mick Battaglini, Marisol Rasul, Ramiro Mata, Victoria King, Ignacio Mendez, Michelle Frankel, and Carolyn Cleaves. 

For the recognition, the teachers get a printed certificate with a sentence that describes how the students feel about them. “We print out the certificate and make sure we also recognize them at our staff meeting once a month,” Soria said. “It’s not only a certificate, it’s an honor from work and dedication to the class and students.” 

Many teachers have different reactions when they get nominated. One of Battaglini’s AP students, Lali Solis, nominated him and she brought him the certificate during his prep. “I nominated Battaglini because I truly valued and appreciated his teaching style, and knew I was going to grasp so much in his class throughout the year,” Solis said. Battaglini was pleasantly surprised and unexpected.  “It’s always special when you’re recognized, especially when students recognize and honor you,” Battaglini said.

The feelings were similar for English teacher Ignacio Mendez. “At the moment, I was shocked, but it also made me feel appreciated,” he  said. “This also made me realize that students do appreciate when you give out your extra time just to help them out,” he said. Medina said, “Me and Nayeli wanted to recognize him [Mendez] because we felt he was pretty involved and we’ve learned a lot.”

Based on the positive response this year, ASB plans to extend the recognition beyond this year. “We take notice of how involved, helpful, and encouraging they [teachers] are in and out of the classroom towards students, parents, and other staff, so we plan on continuing,” senior Alena Ruiz said.