New faces of Hollywood High

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Sergio Espejo in News

Sergio Espejo and Estefania Valencia

Chronicle Reporters

Freshmen are not the only new members of the school community. This year, the school hired new faculty and staff to fill in vacant classrooms. Among these are seven teachers, an administrator, and a new PSA counselor. Here is some information to get to know them better:

 

Jeff Srack

A new addition to the school came with the arrival of Jeff Srack, World History teacher for PAM, who begins his first full-time teaching career this year.

Before he became a teacher he was interested in journalism and majored in communications. In college, Srack worked on the student newspaper editing, designing and writing for the entertainment section. Once he graduated he was writing for small magazines and bartending full-time, and said he thought about teaching. He  decided to go back to college to gain his teaching credentials and graduated with a Masters of Arts in Education from USC.

“So far I really enjoy Hollywood High,” Srack said. “Everyone’s been really helpful.” The experience is new to him and it’s been so quick, like a whirlwind. But it has also been fun and different because the kids are talkative. He is still getting used to his new job but overall he really likes it.

Fola Adisa

Fola Adisa, the new calculus teacher, graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in business and administration. “Education is the way out” is Adisa’s mentality towards difficulties he had to face throughout his childhood.

Adisa was born in Ghana but immigrated with his family to Nigeria during his early teen years. He lost his father at the age of 15 while he was still new in Nigeria, and considers a miracle how he got through in Nigeria. Adisa eventually came to the U.S. on a government scholarship to study industrial engineering at USC.

Once he finished school, Adisa returned to Nigeria to perform youth service for a year. He worked for a couple of years for a British company called Coopers and Lybrand before returning to the U.S. to become a certified teacher. Adisa has been teaching in California ever since.

Sharon Teich

Sharon Teich, the new special education teacher, has taught in a variety of schools in the Burbank, Pasadena, and Las Vegas school districts. She graduated from the University of Phoenix with a master’s degree in counseling and a bachelor’s degree in special education from the University of Nevada.

She prefers public schools over charter schools because “charter schools are run                more like a business,” Teich said. She believes that parent participation is a key                    development to the overall effectiveness of schools. She applied to Hollywood High          because of the location and high school setting. Despite her master’s degree, she did         not apply for a counseling position. “I would like to be a counselor eventually, but I           feel I am effective in the classroom. I’m using a lot of my counseling skills in the                    classroom,” Teich said.

 

Earl Yi

Earl Yi is one of the new math teachers. He went to William Taft High School and graduated from UC Riverside. He believes that life starts after college and that the college you go to does not determine the person you will be. College is what you make of it.

He loves sports and supports any sports team that represents Los Angeles.  “I love Southern California, I don’t think there is a better place.”

Before working at Hollywood High he was a teacher at Los Angeles High School. He spent his summer break taking care of his newborn child.

Johnathan Lee

Johnathan Lee graduated from Hollywood in the year of 2008. He felt that his high school years at Hollywood were rewarding and  had good times. This is his first year ever as a teacher. He sees many of the teachers that were teaching him back in 2008. He joked around ”I think that my former teachers still see me as their student rather than their colleague.”

He went to Georgetown University at Washington DC. He took a semester          abroad in the Czech Republic. He states that the food was meat heavy, but         everything was fresh. There is no organic label in produce because organic       is  something normal in Europe. One oddity is that they use green                            mayonnaise as guacamole.

Lee returned to California to finish grad school at USC. Ms. Brown and the          Gates Millenium Scholarship Program influenced his decision to become a        teacher.

 

Mrs. Alexander

Michelle Alexander went to Dorsey High School. She decided to be a teacher when her mother (a retired teacher) came to her class as a sub. She says that her mother is her motivation and mentor.

She graduated from CSU Long Beach with a masters degree in Professional Studies and a BA in Child Development. As an educator of child development,  Alexander has taken the role of a counselor, a parent role and someone that can be an outlet for students to express themselves. She has to expect the unexpected In order to have such a connection with her students.  Alexander lets the students voice their own respectful opinions about issues in life.

Alexander has an innovative approach to getting her students to be open to communication and active participation. She has something called “Real Talk Tuesdays,” a process in which students anonymously submit real life questions related to the topic they are learning. Every Tuesday,  Alexander holds an interactive seminar in which  students discuss the questions that were submitted. The topics  include things such as teen pregnancy and child abuse.

 

Mr. Antonyan

Although you may never have to find out the tangent line of a quadratic formula in “the real world,” Hacob Antonyan, one the new math teachers, believes that math is important because it exercises one’s logic and helps a person make quick, smart, and wise decisions.

He was born in Armenia.  Ironically, Antonyan was failing math until his dad’s friend starting tutoring him. Antonia’s tutor influenced him in his decision of becoming a teacher.

Antonyan immigrated to the U.S. after his sophomore year when he was still in the Polytechnical Institute of Armenia. He was frustrated and embarrassed because he could not communicate in English.

He decide to attend Evan’s Adult School and eventually took advance English course at Los Angeles Valley College. He started working for a mechanical engineering firm when he started taking extensive math classes that were required in order to get a degree in mechanical engineering or architecture (two of the professions Antonyan was leaning toward instead of becoming a math teacher).

He graduated from Cal State Los Angeles with a BA in pure mathematics and a Masters in Education from National University in 2013 and has been teaching math ever since.

Ms. Torres

Although she is not a teacher at Hollywood High Ms. Torres, the new PSA counselor, teaches a parenting class on Saturday mornings at Cal State University, Los Angeles. However, she is not a professor in that university.

Ms. Torres can recall beautiful memories about her childhood in Cancun, Mexico. One of her favorite memories she recalls is at Xel-Ha, an island that you could feed fishes that would nibble on your finger. She remembers it much more beautiful than how it is now. Back then it had fresh water and was abundant with coral reefs. Now, Xel-Ha is a commercialized eco-tourism hot spot with damaged reefs and salt water.

Torres immigrated with her family when she was ten. She spent the remainder of her childhood in Lynwood. She graduated from CSULA with a bachelor’s degree in child degree in Child Development and a master’s degree in school counseling.

She has a 15 year old son whom she took to Silicon valley this summer as a vacation destination. It was the equivalent of Disneyland but for tech savvy people. She recalls seeing the headquarters of technological giants such as Google, Yahoo, Intel, Motorola, and NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Mr. Dovlatian

Samuel Dovlatian , the new assistant principal stated “I strongly believe that education is the great equalizer in our society and that is why I made a career in studying how best to provide all students access to rigorous coursework that will prepare them for college and careers.”

Dovlatian believes that the gap between social classes can be closed through education.

Although Dovlatian found an interest in art, architecture, and law, he decided to study English at UCLA. He came back to UCLA after a few years of teaching to get his masters degree in education.

He believes that there are many opportunities out here in this school that students should take before it’s too late.

Dovlatian champions the spirit of adventure, out there to try new things. Dovlatian has learned Spanish, knows how to surf, and has traveled around the globe to see at work of his favorite artist,Caravaggio.