Students who have had AP Language and Composition and English 10 teacher Ken Nguyen know him to be humorous, witty and skilled at teaching. So it came as a shock when they learned he wouldn’t be around to complete the year.

Nguyen has taken a one-semester leave of absence to return to his hometown of Seattle and help his mother care for his father, who has since passed away from lung cancer. In the meantime, his classes are being taught by substitute Deborah Caterina.

To demonstrate their appreciation for him, Nguyen’s AP Language students held a farewell party the week before first-semester finals during a Wednesday tutorial.

After decorating the classroom and preparing food for the occasion, Nguyen’s seniors presented him with their main gift, which senior Linus Lu described as “a small but affectionate booklet filled with student-signed messages and a collection of classroom highlights from that semester and years past.”

The farewell party might be considered only a small reflection of Nguyen’s reputation as a talented and caring a teacher who has been at the school for seven years.  

“I always liked his sense of humor, the way he made the class interesting,” Lu said. “It never hurt that he was also, to me, immensely intelligent and a great writer, which made his high expectations and probing questions all the more stimulating and worth working towards.”

In his absence, Caterina will fill in for all of Nguyen’s classes. She is a graduate of UCLA and has been a lecturer at San Jose State University, teaching writing and communication with a focus on environmental science to engineering students at the university.

Many of Nguyen’s students, having formed a strong attachment to Nguyen, are finding the adjustment difficult, but are open to experiencing a different teaching style.

“Ms. Caterina is trying her hardest in adjusting to this new job and has good intentions,” said sophomore Emma Kovac. “We aren’t really used to her teaching style, but I’m sure we can all adapt.”