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NEW YEAR, NEW STAFF HANNAH CORR AND EMMA MULLIGAN
Crestina Quesada is the new special education teacher at Peninsula. She originally taught at Peninsula for five years before teaching at Ridgecrest Intermediate School for two years. After missing the Peninsula community, Quesada decided to return. Quesada has always known that she wanted to work in education, but she knew that she wanted to be behind-the-scenes. Specifically, her passion is to tailor help toward students who need extra support, including students with specific learning disabilities such as attentiondeficit disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. During coronavirus online learning, she uses the Microsoft Teams chat frequently to communicate regularly with her students. Quesada views this Teams function as valuable and vital to assisting students who need that additional support. “The needs of students are many, and [I am not] just [focused] on a general education path,” Quesada said. “My line of work is more specific to each student, and [I] get to work with the families as well.”
During the transition into distance learning at Peninsula, the technology staff recruited Jose Carrillo as a technology aid. Having past experience in working with Google Classroom, Carrillo has been focused on fully learning and understanding the functions of several new platforms, including Microsoft Teams, which is what Peninsula is enforcing the use of. Carrillo’s main job is to address any issues that may arise from the application of Microsoft Teams, along with answering questions from Peninsula students or teachers. “With this pandemic comes a lot of [learning] and adjusting to the new school system,” Carrillo said. “To help students during this time, [the tech staff holds] one-on-one calls with them to fix the technology issues that they may come across. Carrillo has been taking steps during this distanced learning period to ensure that teachers are learning the basics of Microsoft Teams’s camera, microphone and screensharing settings. While doing so, Carrillo is adjusting to his role on the Peninsula faculty by collaborating with his fellow staff members. Despite the lack of a conventional, inperson welcome, he is excited to get to know Peninsula through the screen.
Therapist Maria Rodriguez is a new addition to Peninsula’s mental health support team. Rodriguez graduated from the Master’s program at California State University, Los Angeles, where she studied SchoolBased Family Counseling. As a school therapist, she hopes to help students understand how important mental health is. She believes that especially now during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, students need that extra mental health support to help them succeed during an online start to the school year. This year, the school counseling team at Peninsula has a Microsoft Forms link on the school website that anyone can fill out any time to get in contact with the mental health support team. This resource ensures that any student can receive immediate help when needed. “We are going to be doing presentations in every single English class to ensure that every student will [know our contact information] and [the importance of maintaining] [good] mental health,” Rodriguez said. “My goal is for every student who comes into contact with me to feel seen, heard, understood and not alone. That is what is most important to me: building those connections.”
This year, Peninsula’s music program hired a new team member, Mike Lloyd, to direct the school’s jazz band, marching band and concert band. Last year, previous music director Fred Steiner resigned after teaching at Peninsula for 16 years, opening a new spot. Lloyd applied for the position because of Peninsula’s reputation of high-achieving students and its award-winning music program. Lloyd’s inspiration to become a teacher came from his seventh grade music teacher, Maurice O’Kelly, who nurtured his love for music. He later majored in music education at California State University Dominguez Hills, focusing on percussion and drums. After graduating from college, Lloyd worked as the percussion director with O’Kelly at North Torrance High School, his alma mater; this allowed Lloyd to teach the job that first inspired him. However, as the school only offered a small band, Lloyd decided to move to Peninsula, where larger programs were offered. “I really want to continue to grow the [music] program and [continue to] do the things that the program has already been doing,” Lloyd said. “I want to get [the students] out and perform a lot. It is all about what the kids want to do, because the kids [develop] the program and [choose what they want to do.]”
