Before the barrage of traffic begins every morning before school, campus supervisor Mark Hernandez arrives at a quiet campus an hour earlier. After opening the Large Gym, he directs the morning drop-off and sets up an array of bright orange cones in the front parking lot to designate safety zones.
When the school day is in full swing, he helps out with attendance reports and tardy detention slips, supervises the quad and basketball courts during lunch and concludes his work day by guiding traffic in the same parking lot where he started in the morning.
Since the fall of 2009, Hernandez has been the “gatekeeper” of the school, running errands for the office and performing a variety of campus tasks.
“I like to help out as much as I can,” Hernandez said. “I love working with the faculty and kids here. It’s fun getting to know the students and seeing the activities they’re involved in, [like] sports, drama and band.”
Because he interacts with the students on a daily basis, he has had the unique opportunity to watch them mature over the years.
“You see students coming in as freshmen and next thing you know, they’re graduating and you see what college they’re going to and how they’ve grown,” Hernandez said.
Prior to working here at the school, Hernandez served as the Campus Safety Officer at Santa Clara University for six and a half years, a job that he described as “pretty wild and crazy.” Theft was common at the university, and he noted that college can be dangerous and overwhelming for some.
However, work hours at the university often came into conflict with family time — he was committed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
At SHS, he has a more appealing schedule: a workday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“The SHS job seemed like a good opportunity at a good school with nice kids,” Hernandez said. “The hours also allow me to pursue my outside interests.”
He has kept up a pastime of coaching JV football at Lincoln High School in San Jose for the past 17 years. Growing up in this area, he graduated from Lincoln and has maintained close ties within the neighborhood. His two kids — an 18-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, both students at Lincoln — and a dog keep him busy at home.
Long past his own school years, he still chooses to work in a school environment brimming with the positive energy of a student community.
“Kids here have a fresh outlook on life that keeps me feeling younger,” Hernandez said. “They’re just more real and fun to be around than adults. I always tell them, ‘Enjoy being a kid, because it’s the best time of your life.’”