Community rallies behind English teacher Mark Giller

Alina Gomez

By The Numbers

In November of 2022 English teacher

Mark Giller went on medical leave for the remainder of this school year after being diagnosed with cancer. On January 30 a GoFundMe fundraiser was launched to support Giller. According to the fundraiser page, the funds are intended to help Giller with the costs of the chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments he is undergoing. As of March 3rd the fundraiser has raised $29,921.

Once the fundraiser launched, it immediately went out to the larger AHS community. English Teacher and Future Academy co-lead Kay Zimmerman said as soon as she saw it she showed it to her students and it took off.

“Really all I had to do was share it with my DPC (Developmental Psycholoy of Children) class students and they just spread it. They did a really good job. I mean once it got posted on social media a lot of former students became aware of it.” Zimmerman said.

The main way that the word got out was social media. And once it hit social media many students and former students started to donate to the cause. One of the students that donated was Senior Kammi Hallett. She had Giller for three years and once she heard about the GoFundMe she wanted to help.

“I had Giller for three years and he was one of my good teachers, probably my favorite teacher. And so I just wanted to help him because I knew that with the teachers’ pay that it’s not a lot. And it’s to help him. I wanted to help him. And with all the expenses of radiation and chemo I knew that anything could help.” Hallett said.

Hallett was surprised by how many students were able to contribute. This surprised her because most of the money that the students donate is coming from their pockets, not their parents. But even with all of the students that donates $10 or even $5 when it all came together it totaled to a big number that helped the GoFundMe get closer and closer to the goal.

“I donated about $100 and my mom said ‘here this is to donate’ and so I know that it comes out of a lot of students’ pockets not their parents. So knowing that some students donated at least $100 it was pretty shocking, but it also made me

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29,921 feel happy to know that students wanted to help Giller.” Hallett said.

For other students, it didn’t come as a surprise when large numbers of other students donated to Giller’s GoFundMe. Another student that donated was Senior Maya Ochoa; she was motivated to donate because of the good connection they formed during her junior year. Because of this she knew that Giller formed a good relationship with each of his students so when the number of students that donated increased she wasn’t surprised.

“Knowing Giller, I know he has a good relationship with each of his students so I wasn’t really surprised, but I was surprised by how quick the growth was and spread.” Ochoa said.

Like Hallett, Zimmerman was also surprised with how quickly the fundraiser took off. With all of the students sharing the link and promoting the fundraiser a lot of students came to donate. But even with the GoFundMe passing the halfway mark, people are still donating whatever they can.

“I was surprised I guess some people were saying you often get halfway and then people stop donating cause they already did it.” Zimmerman said. “But I was surprised by just how many people showed up and wanted to donate. There were a lot of anonymous donors there too that donated really generously, and that was really surprising too.”

Since the goal for the GoFundMe is already halfway reached the donations have slowed down a bit. To make sure that the goal is reached. The Future Academy Teachers are planning to relaunch the link to make sure that the students and other teachers remember the link. And will maybe donate again so that the goal can be reached quickly.

“We will be rereleasing the link. Not change the GoFundMe at all but just rerelease it until we hit the goal so we think for example, teachers get paid once a month at the end of the month. So one of the ideas that we had was to release it again when the teachers have pay day. So that people feel like they can afford to contribute again. So that’s kind of the plan right now.” Zimmerman said.

AP Lang’s Next Line

Junior Lizbeth Garibay discusses AP Language after Giller’s leave.

Q: How is it not having your teacher in class?

A: We really miss him, and I feel like a lot of us [the students] miss him because he is a good teacher. He is super engaging, really nice, and I remember one time he gave me cookies because I kept nagging him about it. It was really fun. It was really just an enjoyable class just overall because he was so open with us. I mean he’d be able to joke with us and we wouldn’t feel like uncomfortable.

Q: Is it difficult not having your teacher in class?

A: Yes, I’d say that because a lot of us don’t really pay attention to videos that we watch. We watch the videos but we don’t learn as we would with a teacher there who’s engaging us. We were more engaged with Mr. Giller because there was a person not through a video. Because of the switch, it’s more difficult to connect and learn.

Q: Do you feel prepared for the AP test?

A: From a scale one to ten, I’m at a fiveand-a-half because we just started today to learn to write a FRQ and I didn’t even know what the question was asking. I didn’t even know the prompt and that was a bit difficult to understand until I heard someone else say it and I was like ‘Oh this is what it’s about!’ you know. When you hear someone else tell you what to do or sort of like speak about it other than a video that’s when it clicks.

Q: Do you think there is anything the school can help you with prep for the AP?

A: By having someone engage us and asking us do we understand, do you guys need any help, maybe being able to write more because right now the class feels like a free