Excerpt from 'From the Barrio to the Beach'

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The full text of “Excerpt from 'From the Barrio to the Beach'” by Rey Hernandez, from the Vol 2 — Spring 2019 issue.

From the Barrio to the Beach By Rey Hernandez Rey Hernandez recently retired after 38 years of teaching and coaching football. He worked at both Helix High school and La Jolla High school and also coached for two years at Grossmont Junior College. This excerpt is approved by the author. You can ob - tain copies of the book by emailing coach Hernandez directly at ReyHernandez@lojolla.com. Teachers in our district are evaluated on a biannual basis but may be evaluated up to every five years under certain conditions.

Our collective bargaining agreement has a provision that allows for an alterna - tive evaluation if mutually agreed to by the teacher and their supervisor. These evaluations allow teach - ers to implement plans that will promote student learning and instructional leadership. The option is available to those who have a minimum of five years of effec - tive teaching experience in the district.

I don’t like traditional evaluations because they lack creativity and restrict those who are looking for new ways to address concerns that are impacting student learning and achievement. I prefer to do something that will produce positive results and have an enduring effect on the students. Identifying effective classroom instruction shouldn’t be so complicated. I once had a veteran principal tell me that she could easily tell who was doing a good job in the classroom.

She said that if parents weren’t calling her to complain about a teacher, she was confident they were doing a good job. This sounds rather simplistic, but there is some merit to her statement. Administrators need to rely on more than just an absence of parent phone calls to docu - ment their evaluations, but if a teacher has years of effective instruction, coupled with an absence of parental complaints, then perhaps it is time to try something new.

I once proposed an alternative evaluation plan at Muirlands that involved 8th graders who wanted to play fresh - man football at La Jolla High in the fall. In order to participate in sports, a student had to maintain a minimum 2.0 grade point average in academics and citizenship. We would lose a few players to ineligibility every year, but this particular season we had an increased number who were struggling academically.

Progress reports were issued every six weeks, and the final one would determine their eligibility. Some of these students weren’t enrolled in my classes, and I needed to find a more efficient way to track their academic progress. Our principal agreed to grant me full access to the student data base, and I was able to generate an academic inventory that helped me identify those who were going to have the most difficulty becoming eligible.

I shared the plan with the 8th grade teachers, and they were fully supportive of it.

The academic tracking component was an effective intervention tool, but I still needed to put an additional plan in place to deal with my lowest achieving students. I enlisted the help of David Fipp, one of my former students who went on to play football at La Jolla High. He had a great playing career at the University of Arizona and was now coaching in the NFL. While playing at Arizona, David did a tremendous amount of community service work.

I knew he had a great concern for at risk children, so I asked him if he could help me with my struggling 8th graders. I was hoping he would contact these students and give them any advice he thought might benefit them. He agreed to help and created a goal setting program he wanted me to share with them. I distributed a goal sheet to each student and returned the completed copies to David. This personalized the mentoring process and allowed him to make an emotional connection with them.

I had twelve students who became part of this intervention program. David contacted these boys throughout the school year, and it certainly made a difference. This was an NFL coach who was communicating with them, and it made a big impression. At the end of the first semester I met with the students to discuss the upcoming season. I addressed their academic progress and informed them that we had a number of players who were not meeting the eligibility requirements.

I didn’t have to reveal their names because they already knew who they were. One boy had never reached a 2.0 grade point average on any progress report. He was already bigger than most of my senior players at the high school and had extremely good quickness and agility for a person his size. We were all encouraging him, and he started to make some progress in the classroom. At the end of the school year I met with the entire group and brought with me a schoolwide ineligibility print - out.

Our principal made a copy of it because the students were not going to have their report cards mailed to them for two weeks, and they needed to know now if they were eligible to play. I announced that everyone was eligible and told them to start making plans to join us for summer training activities. When I made the an - nouncement, the big kid got up and paraded himself in front of the group to the cheers of his future teammates. It didn’t matter that he barely reached the standard.

What mattered was that he was eligible and made some academic progress. Thanks to David, there was now a light at the end of the tunnel. There are many profes - sional athletes and coaches who quietly do amazing community service work and continually reach out to help others. They don’t always get the recognition they deserve, but they do impact the lives of young people.