School alumni choose to become teachers and return to California

Courtesy of Alex Ruemmler

Class of ‘19 alumna Alex Ruemmler smiles for a picture with her junior year history teacher Faith Daly, who inspired her to become a teacher.

As the symphonic wind ensemble prepared for their 2019 end-of-year concert, the group struggled to master James Barnes’ “Symphony No. 3” during rehearsals. Music director Jason Shiuan was nervous whether the piece would be a success in concert. 

When the students finally played the piece on stage, Shiuan, a Class of ‘11 alumnus, recalled how, in that moment, everyone “truly felt like they were making music.” Two of his students ran up to him after the concert, exhilarated. They expressed their amazement at managing to execute their piece; Shiuan recalls one of them telling him, “I’m so glad I did this.”

Although the two students played in band throughout high school, he was never sure if they truly enjoyed being a part of the music program. However, after the interaction, he understood the profound effect their musical education had on them. 

The interaction embodied the joy he has found in teaching. “There is no pay that would make me happier than hearing something like that,” Shiuan said.

Shiuan, like Class of ‘19 alumna Alex Ruemmler, started as a student at the STEM-focused school and took an unconventional path to enter the public service field to become a teacher. 

Alumnus declines Fulbright scholarship and becomes teacher at SHS

Shiuan knew he wanted to be a teacher going into the summer before eighth grade at Redwood Middle. At the time, his older brother, Class of ‘06 alumnus Kevin Shiuan, was entering his first year of college as a bioengineering major, which led Shiuan to seriously consider what he wanted to pursue in the future. 

When Shiuan realized that music was his passion, he had to grapple with the pros and cons of teaching in comparison to playing professionally. He knew he didn’t have the intensity to be a professional performer, but because he enjoyed being around people, teaching seemed like the perfect “logical next step” for him. 

“When I was playing piano and [other instruments], technique was always something that took me a long time to grasp,” Shiuan said. “But the musical side of things always came very naturally to me. My musical maturity was always way ahead of what I could do technically.”

As a music teacher, he wouldn’t necessarily need to know the specifics of the technique required to play each instrument, but being able to understand the musicality behind each piece helped him easily give guidance to students.

Even though the school’s competitive culture and like-minded parents tend to push graduates toward jobs at Google or in professions such as medicine, Shiuan stayed committed to his dream of teaching music when he picked his major at Northwestern University.

“I was lucky that the pressures didn’t really ever affect me,” Shiuan said. “My parents were pretty supportive of what I wanted to do and it definitely helped that this was something I was aiming to do since middle school.”

Along the way, Michael Boitz, his high school music teacher and now fellow music director, Shiuan’s decision to go into teaching. 

In his sophomore year, Shiuan had what he described as an “oh my god musical moment” while playing the transcribed band piece, “Sleep,” by Eric Whitacre. The rehearsal still sticks with him today as remembers how special it was to be able to influence a group of musicians and work with them to achieve a delicate and beautiful sound. 

In 2013, two years into his undergraduate degree, Shiuan went to volunteer in India helping teach various middle and high school classes in English, History and Economics. He returned to India in January 2016, right after graduating, and was an artist in residence under the program Arts Ignite, originally known as A-Step, teaching piano, choir and voice lessons to all ages of students as well as elementary school music.

Shiuan recalled how access to “things as simple as water and electricity” offered to him back home was a privilege that many of his students did not hold there. Seeing how fortunate he was to have music and education be a prominent part of his life, he was thankful for all the seemingly small but influential opportunities he benefited from. 

He also found importance in the community as the school Shiuan taught at in India consisted of smaller class sizes and students who grew up alongside each other since childhood.

“After the first time I walked on campus, the teachers and community had immediately brought me into the family,” Shiuan said. “There was a very palpable sense of community because the school was really small and I think that creating that sense of family is a really important aspect of what teachers do, especially in the music program.” 

However, Shiuan didn’t plan to teach in Saratoga so soon after graduating college. He hoped to step out of his comfort zone and push himself in a new direction before starting to teach. 

In pursuit of his dream to teach internationally, Shiuan applied to the prestigious U.S Fulbright Scholar Program, where accepted participants receive a grant that allows them to pursue graduate study, teach specifically English abroad or conduct research. Shiuan would have taught mostly English abroad, but he knew he would have been able to work out a way to teach music simultaneously. 

Originally waitlisted from the program while in India in February  2016, he flew back home the month after and ended up interviewing for teaching positions at Redwood Middle School and SHS. A week after his first interview here, he was accepted into the Fulbright program.

This was an important turning point for Shiuan: On one hand, the Fulbright was a prestigious opportunity to travel and teach internationally, eventually earn his masters and see what new teaching positions would open up afterwards. But on the other hand, a teaching job offered much more stability — and more importantly, would allow Shiuan to continue working in music. Ultimately, he chose to forgo the Fulbright.

“It forced me to really have a heart to heart with myself and question what I wanted to do,” he said. “Taking the scholarship and being away sounded fun, but being away from teaching and music didn’t.”

He found it took a lot of questioning his own desires and dreams to find that turning down the scholarship was the right move and he never looked back. However, going into public service does raise concerns, one of the most prominent being relatively low wages while living in a high-cost area. 

Fortunately for Shiuan, he has been able to live in Saratoga with his parents as he pours dozens of hours into his job each week. Shiuan notes that many of his colleagues make long commutes from Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay to their teaching jobs, and are also extremely frugal in order to keep up with the cost of living.

 While the district is not the lowest paying school district in Santa Clara County, in a place as expensive as Silicon Valley, the pay doesn’t stack up to the cost of living. The school district has a salary average of $105,500, while just a few miles away, the Mountain View-Los Altos school district has an average teacher salary of $152,500, the highest average teacher salary in all of California. In Silicon Valley, a software engineer in a first-year position averages just under $130k, while in the current school year, an LGSUHSD teacher would need to have a master’s degree and have taught for at least 19 years to earn the same amount.

Even with the obstacle of pay, Shiuan has never regretted becoming a teacher as he cherishes the opportunity to watch his students grow from their freshman to senior year. As an ambitious high school student, he never expected that teaching would allow him to play such an important role in the lives of future generations of students.

Class of ‘19 alumna navigates student teaching at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee

Ruemmler is in her final year student at Vanderbilt double-majoring in chemistry and education, while balancing being a sophomore chemistry student-teacher at Hume-Fogg Magnet School, a high school specialized in advanced academic courses in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Ruemmler grew up in a family full of public service professionals: Her maternal grandmother was a teacher and her maternal grandfather was a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. Their influence empowered Ruemmler to feel more confident in choosing a service-oriented profession as well. However, she faced pressure at SHS to pursue a higher-paying career due to her academic proficiency in STEM classes. But excelling in these classes and being a teaching assistant for history teacher Faith Daly solidified her goal to become a teacher. 

 “I really enjoyed being in [Daly]’s class and seeing how she very intentionally planned things out to help us learn,” Ruemmler said. 

She chose to be Daly’s teaching assistant because she found her to be a strong example of an effective teacher, from whom she could gain a background in general education before focusing on chemistry. Despite teaching history requiring vastly different skills than chemistry, Ruemmler learned skills transferable to all aspects of teaching.

Although Daly left the most impactful impression, Ruemmler was also inspired by other staff at SHS who spent their time helping students succeed, including chemistry teachers Kathryn Nakamatsu and Janny Cahatol.

Ruemmler’s choice to become a high school college prep chemistry teacher boiled down to two criteria: flexibility in teaching material and impact on her students’ lives. Being an Advanced Placement (AP) teacher would have required Ruemmler to stick to a rigid schedule to fulfill College Board requirements, whereas teaching regular chemistry enabled Ruemmler to pace the course herself and tie in real world applications. Additionally, Ruemmler was interested in being a high school teacher as she wanted to become a positive influence during a major turning point in her students’ lives.

“Teaching students who are about to become a real part of society is definitely an appeal of teaching high schoolers,” Ruemmler said. “It’s a big shifting point in their life.”

Entering Vanderbilt as a double major in chemistry and secondary education, Ruemmler was one of only five students in the entire university, and the only one in her grade, with this combination of majors. Vanderbilt’s teaching program requires students to double major in teaching and the subject they want to teach in order to earn accreditation. 

There has also been a national decline in the number of collegiates pursuing education. From 1970 to 2020, the number of bachelor’s degrees in education plummeted more than 50%, results which experts chalk up to stress or “burnout,” restrictions on teaching material and low wages. All three are obstacles that Ruemmler has witnessed in her year of teaching at Hume-Fogg and anticipates having to work around as she prepares to graduate and enter the workforce.

Ruemmler stressed the importance of a work-life balance for teachers who take on additional responsibilities like volunteering at after-school events and advising clubs, on top of classroom teaching. 

“I spent [one day] from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with the Science Olympiad team, and I loved it,” she said. “But if you’re taking on a lot of those kinds of extra roles, it’s really easy to get burnt out.”

Nevertheless, Ruemmler has also seen how teachers can maintain a healthy work-life balance even with additional responsibilities. For instance, her mentor teacher, who is in charge of the Environmental Science Club, tries not to take on too many extra roles — as a result, the students have taken on a lot more organizing responsibility for the club, learning to become more independent.

Ruemmler also wishes to use her platform as a teacher to be a driver of social change. Unfortunately, she said restrictive laws in Tennessee make it more difficult to provide students with perspective outside of their “bubble.” However, she believes that with widespread access to the internet, students are less affected by restricted access to the books presented to them in school.

Nonetheless, Ruemmler has already found that these laws impact where her fellow student teachers choose to continue their careers. She hopes to return to California after receiving her degree to be closer to her family and enjoy the fewer limitations California imposes on teachers. California also has the third-highest average teacher wages of all states.

In contrast to many of her high school counterparts who may be pursuing higher education in STEM fields, Ruemmler is entering the job market by the end of this year. No matter how her path diverts from her peers, she feels continued motivation to pursue teaching and avoid burnout.

“I hope that I can sustainably be in this career for the rest of my life, or until I retire,” Ruemmler said. “I’m ready, and I’m excited. I think I’ve spent my last four years really learning as much as I can about the teaching profession, so I’m ready to jump in and get some of that experience and further my learning there.”