The 2017-2018 school year came with a new building, a new parking lot, and new staff members.

Here at SJHHS, we have 12 new teachers ready to teach in the 2017-2018 school year.

Our newest addition to the language department, Ms. Keane, has come all the way from the East coast.

Keane said,  “I taught French I and Spanish I at a middle school in New Hampshire, and I taught there for nine years. One year before then―my first year of teaching, I taught French II and Spanish II at a high school in Massachusetts.”    

Other stallion staff members’ positions include additions to special education, biology, math, science, history, health, and a new librarian and assistant principal.

All ranging from different backgrounds and experiences, the new staff members contribute to the already diverse culture of SJHHS.

Mrs. Kalk, our new librarian, finds the most rewarding part of her job to be “putting a book in a student’s hands that they’ve been searching for forever, or finding something that they love.”

Making the move from Aliso Viejo Middle School and switching over to a more rigorous class, Mrs. Heavlin-Martinez has become one of our two AP Gov/AP Econ teachers at SJHHS.

She believes that “patience, knowledge, and being able to communicate, trusting the kids, giving them a little bit more difficult work to let them fail, to show them that they can succeed again,” are qualities in which make a teacher effective.

Getting to know the new responsibilities of being an administrator, Mr. Kim is incorporating himself well in SJHHS. He’s previously taught math at the middle school and high school level and is now ready to take on his new role.

He’s found out that “as an administrator you see more of a direct growth or change in students and tend to see the same kids; you see kids with great hope and dreams, kids with lots of issues…you deal with them more consistently so I think you’re able to see more changes in positive or negative ways.”