By Max Zaninovich, Sports Editor
Every year the Mills community welcomes new teachers and staff members. This year we have five new teachers and two new counselors: Mr. Debois (Biology and Ap Environmental Science), Ogechi Ibanusi (Ethnic Studies and Modern World History), Ms. Do-le (Algebra 2, Geometry, and Geometry support), A. Reyes (Woodworking, Engineering Teach, and Architectural Design), and K. Reyes (Chemistry), who also taught at Mills last year, although only online. There are also 2 new counselors, Ms. Nieve and Mr. Fong who teach a class called “College and Career Success” as well.
Recently there has been little turnover in the Mills counseling department, but this year we are lucky enough to have two new counselors! Ms. Nieve and Mr. Fong are both very excited to be at Mills this year. Mr. Fong has been working in education and counseling for over a decade, and for the last eight years, he has worked at Lowell High School in San Francisco. Even in just his short tenure here, he already “likes Mills more than Lowell” and says “all of the students and coworkers have been so supportive and welcoming”. He wants to specifically mention “Mr. Christian and Michael Duer for their support, as well as Mr. Slager for being a great conversationalist”. Ms. Nieve on the other hand has never worked in the counseling field before, but has been working in schools for 6 or 7 years. She was formerly a pre-school teacher and “loves playing with play-doh and in sandboxes with little kids.” Ms. Nieve also taught and counseled at Skyline Community College last year. However, this is her first high school counseling position. She stated that wants to thank “Ms. Mack and Ms. Vasquez who have been amazing in supporting me and Mr. Fong and have made it the least stressful experience possible.” She added that she hopes she can, “Advocate for students and make the high school experience and learning, in general, more fun.”
Both Mr. Fong and Ms. Nieve teach a class called College and Career and Career Planning which helps 10th and 11th-grade students get college credit while getting CTE credit. Ms. Nieve actually worked with Ms. Laux last year to help create the class. The class combines two courses that are taught at Skyline College. They hope that in the future the class can be expanded to include all four grades at Mills.
Both A. Reyes and K. Reyes taught online last year, however, this is each of their first years at Mills in person. Both of them are fairly new to teaching having only taught online last year. A. Reyes teaches woodworking, architectural design, and engineering tech and K. Reyes teaches chemistry. K. Reyes wants to thank the Mills community and Mr. Wangfor being super supportive and adds that she loves bread. A. Reyes added that she can shed light on “the importance of building because it is a part of our everyday lives but is so often taken for granted.”
Mr. Debois is another new science teacher here at Mills. He teaches biology and AP environmental science. This will be his 8th year teaching having taught for 7 years in New York before recently moving here. He taught at a middle school in Queens for a while and then taught a year as an instructor at NYU. He really wants to try to introduce project-based learning to the Mills curriculum and make it more mainstream stating, “Project-based learning can put the learning into the hands of the students and have them be the center of knowledge rather than the teacher.” Both Mr. Debois and K. Reyes wanted to give appreciation to Mr. Wang for his help and support as new teachers at Mills.
This year there are a lot of new teachers and staff at Mills and we hope that we can all welcome them to the Viking family to the fullest extent.
