English department undergoes changes, hires veteran teacher

This past spring, the school posted a notice for a full-time English teaching position. From the posting, more than 100 applications rolled.

New teacher to join department

On May 5 and 6, the final three candidates created approximately 45-minute mock lessons to demonstrate their abilities in a classroom setting to members of the English department and students. They taught to a combined class comprised of students from Kerry Mohnike and Natasha Ritchie’s respective English 11 Honors classes.

Veteran teacher Amy Keys was notified on May 12 that she had received the new position. Keys has worked as a teacher-mentor with the Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley New Teacher Project for the past four years.

“It’s exciting work, because each day is different, and I’m in and out of hundreds of classrooms each year,” Keys said. She helped new humanities teachers in their first two years of teaching by giving them feedback on planning lessons and curriculum.

She began teaching English as a foreign language in Indonesia in 1990. After returning to California to earn her teaching credentials and teaching for one year, she moved to Madison, Wisc., and taught in a high school from 1994 to 2007.

Keys is excited to have her own classroom and students again. “I love teaching literature and film and writing and drama,” she said, “and although I know not everyone immediately shares these passions, it is a class in which you hone your critical thinking, and develop your expression of your thoughts, so there’s usually something for everyone to enjoy in it.”

She is expected to teach English 10 and 12 classes next year, said department head Jason Friend.

“We were looking for someone who obviously had a great depth of knowledge in the field,” Friend said, “who connected well with students, and who was professional, hardworking, dedicated to working at Saratoga. [Keys] certainly had all of those aspects.”

In her model lesson, Keys explained prose and poetry. She used a news report about a child who lost a hand iProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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a machine at the turn of the 20th century and compared it to one of Robert Frost’s poems on the same subject.

“It was an interesting thing she did,” principal Jeff Anderson said. “You could see the poem had a lot more imagery and evocative language. [The lesson] was very well executed and well organized.”

The position was available after English teacher Bill Peck’s announcement that he will not be returning due to medical issues. Peck had not taught for half of last year and all of this year. The school was unable to provide details on his condition.

Mount’s current replacement has enjoyed teaching experience

Following Kevin Mount’s transition to the school administration as assistant principal in February, Catrina Galloway stepped in to teach his two English 12 classes.

Her four-year teaching experience in English at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Jose and in Los Banos helped her smoothly take over classes in the middle of the school year.

“Luckily, students here were easy to get to know and settled into the change extremely well,” she said.

She chose to apply to Saratoga High when she heard “amazing things before ever stepping on campus.”

“I knew that [the school] had a great staff, and I would be in good company,” Galloway said. She also took note that the academically focused students have given her a good teaching opportunity. Galloway has high hopes for her seniors graduating this year.

“[They] are hard workers, driven and goal oriented, fabulously talented, and genuinely good people,” she said.

Galloway will teach through the end of this school year but does not know where she will teach next year.

As for the English 12 students who faced an abrupt teacher transition halfway through the school year, the shift has been bittersweet.

“At first it was kind of sad [when Mr. Mount left] because he was a really good teacher, but Mrs. Galloway is good too,” senior Christopher Chien said. “I feel like we would have had more work if he was still our teacher, which is both a good and a bad thing.”

According to Anderson, no replacement for the two classes will be found due to budget cuts, as the classes will be cut from the English department next year.