By David Zaragoza Martinez
Mrs. Stevenson was born in Huntington Beach and was raised in Rialto California. She happened to graduate from Eisenhower High school in 1999, during which she was in color guard from freshman to senior year. She went to RCC, planning to major in computer science, however that was not her ideal major and ended up receiving two degrees from RCC (AA and AS) before transferring to CSUSB, majoring in liberal studies with a concentration in Math, then going to University of Redlands for her teaching credentials.
Teaching wasn't Mrs. Stevenson's ideal plan, but it fell in her path and she ended up loving teaching. Having been teaching since 2006 and soon later began teaching the AVID program, which she loved teaching because she got to help other students with the college pathway and become the “mom” of the school. As an AVID teacher, not only did she get to help kids through that crazy time, she got to build amazing relationships with them and even though she is no longer teaching AVID, she will always be there to support them!
Teaching AVID was something she was passionate about and loved, however there was an opportunity for her which was also one of the hardest decisions she had to make. HP (the past ASB director) found a new job and offered Mrs. Stevenson the opportunity to take that big role, BUT, Mrs. Stevenson was so passionate about the AVID program, however ASB was something new and challenging, so she decided by making a list of pros and cons of both teaching AVID and ASB. The only thing that made her leaving AVID possible was that there is such a great team of teachers in AVID that she knew would keep the program going with as much drive and passion that she had. With HP leaving, Mrs. Stevenson wanted to be able to keep ASB going with as much drive and passion she had.
Taking the position of being the ASB director, however, was difficult due to the fact that she has to teach during a pandemic and try to keep school spirit as much as previous years. Mrs. Stevenson dislikes distance learning as much, if not more, than the rest of the students at Eisenhower. She is the type of teacher who learns best by doing, yet this year, there isn’t much doing. This year, with distance learning, all of the ASB training and conferences have been on Zoom or Google Meets and it makes it very hard for her and, she has had her struggles. Thankfully, there's a great group of ASB students this year who go with the flow and help Mrs. Stevenson with whatever they can. These students are amazing and have made this transition to ASB pretty smooth. Mrs. Stevenson is also thankful for working with Mr. Cortez and Mr. Quintero for 9th and 10th grade ASB.
Overall, Mrs. Stevenson loves teaching ASB and is blessed to have the title of the ASB director. She enjoys teaching and knows that once things go back to normal, she will truly love ASB more! This year they are all doing the best that they can, so it's not fair to judge new things based solely on this year. ASB has been difficult as well, as she has to learn requirements she never knew about, however she has amazing students helping her out, as well as Ms. Peters. ASB can also be stressful due to the fact that it is extremely hard to get students to show up to events. With that said, Mrs. Stevenson is loving ASB and all of the fun that goes with it!