8 minute read
New Year, New Staff
from Issue 1
MADDIE YEH / THE PEN
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.]”
A CHEF'S PRIDE
Senior goes viral for cooking TikTok
JAMI GALDONES
Seeing as the coronavirus (COVID-19) has forced people to remain socially distanced from others, many high school students have found new hobbies to occupy themselves with from their own homes. Among them, senior Alexis Ferguson has encountered success through posting videos on TikTok of her cooking and recreating meals from various restaurants. TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows creators to make 15-60 second videos on any subject. She currently has about 38,600 followers and 1.5 million likes on her account, @culinaryjourneybyalexis. Ferguson’s love for cooking began prior to her newfound fame when she took a cooking class in Italy at 10 years old.
“My perspective on food changed when I took the class, and ever since then, I have just been cooking,” Ferguson said. “I love to experiment with food and try out different flavor profiles and [other food] combinations.”
As she grew older, Ferguson continued to cook for her family and friends, who love to eat the foods she makes. Julia Kate Bradley, a senior and friend of Ferguson’s, has experienced Ferguson’s talent in the kitchen firsthand. "I always get to taste test her food and she teaches me [delicious] recipes," Bradley said. "I try some of the recipes she posts on my own, but I mostly end up eating the food she makes. Her food always turns out a lot better too."
On March 19, Ferguson posted her first video to TikTok. At first, she was only creating cooking and baking videos for fun and did not expect her account to get so much attention. She posted about 15 videos before her account went viral, with a cooking video reaching 1.3 million views and 261,800 likes as of Oct. 2.
The most popular videos on her account are her videos about Chick-Fil-A. In these, she recreates a variety of their most popular menu items, including their drinks, main meals and desserts. Although Chick-Fil-A is a mainstream fast food chain, Ferguson does not support them because the company donates to anti-LGBTQ+ groups. In total, she has 17 videos of her recreating their food, including their Chick-Fil-A sauce, chicken strips and frozen lemonade. By making these videos, Ferguson shows her audience an alternative to supporting and buying Chick-Fil-A products.
“When I found out [that they do not support the LGBTQ+ community], I was really sad because I think Chick-Fil-A is one of the better-tasting fast food restaurants,” Ferguson said. “[It] was sad to SHAI BECKER / THE PEN
hear that such a popular company was doing this.”
Not only does Ferguson post these recipes to explore her love of cooking, but she also posts these videos to raise awareness for social injustices; this includes educating her audience on Chick-Fil-A's donations to anti-LGBTQ+ groups and their support
of conversion therapy. She strongly believes in equality among people, which is why she voices her opinions in her videos.
Although she sometimes receives comments claiming that she is spreading false information, Ferguson stands by her beliefs and continues to
create videos about the topic. To further emphasize her viewpoints, she posted a separate video to tell her followers that equality among people is more important than chicken strips. Despite some negative responses from the internet, all of Ferguson's friends and family support her for upholding her beliefs. Melina Durre, senior and friend of Ferguson's, is extremely proud of Ferguson for all of her accomplishments.
“I am extremely happy for her,” Durre said. “I have seen her passion for cooking grow over the years, and watching her utilize that important [aspect] of her life in a way that reaches so many [different] people is definitely such a rewarding experience for me.”
Along with addressing the need for equality to everybody in the LGBTQ+ community, Ferguson is also bringing attention to other situations happening around the world currently, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. In the future, Ferguson hopes to continue using her platform to inspire others to cook the meals she prepares and to spread awareness of important issues.
