By Sabrina Pickett
Staff Writer
When incoming sophomores first take a glance at their school schedules at the end of summer, many are immediately intimidated when they see they have the famously challenging Charlotte Shales-Clark for Honors chemistry. As the year progresses, students realize that the subject matter is quite the challenge.
For 13 years, Shales-Clark has seen her students develop from amateur science students to confident chemists. Shales-Clark is planning to hang up her lab coat and retire from teaching at the end of the year (2013-14) in order to spend more time with family and close friends.
Shales-Clark began teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School Disctrict right after receiving a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1984.
“There was a shortage of math and science teachers, and I had a degree,” Shales-Clark said. “Costa administrators handed me keys, and right from then, I fell in love with teaching here.”
Despite the fact that Shales-Clark has been teaching at Costa since 2000, her students still manage to teach her something new everyday.
“I still get attached to the kids that I teach,” Shales-Clark said. “They bring fresh ideas to the classroom. They are so insightful.”
Although she has been teaching for nearly three decades and has seen many new ways of teaching throughout the years, Shales-Clark has stuck to her original methods of lecturing at the pace of the students as well as running a dialogue classroom.
“I really loved the way Mrs. Shales taught,” former Advanced Placement chemistry student and senior Meghan Burns said. “She explains each problem thoroughly and takes great pride in her students. She always pushes her students to shoot for the stars.”
Although chemistry is often considered difficult, Shales-Clark enjoys the challenge of teaching advanced chemistry to high school students.
“There’s nothing like watching a student understand a new concept for the first time,” Shales Clark said. “I went into teaching because I have an addiction for the moment when the light bulb turns on in a student’s head.”
Students who have Shales-Clark are exposed to a different outlook in her class, and she really tries to get their brains working. Shales-Clark establishes strong relationships with all of her students by giving out her home phone number if anyone needs help or assistance.
“I encourage my students to do research on their own and decide what’s true and what’s not true,” Shales-Clark said. “I challenge them all the time and point out falsehoods which we always discuss in class.”
Shales-Clark plans on retiring from Costa at the end of next year. One of the struggles she faces with retiring is her attachment to her students.
“If I do teach next year, hopefully I’ll only teach AP chemistry so I can keep my kids I had this year in Honors,” Shales-Clark said. “I really enjoy watching my students grow into further educated chemistry students as they progress from Honors to AP, and it would be hard for me to leave my honors students after one year.”
After retirement, Shales-Clark plans to spend time gardening, reading, quilting, relaxing and traveling around North America with her husband.
“It will be so nice to go on vacation and not have to worry about getting home in time for school,” Shales-Clark said. “If I go to Yosemite, I want to be able to stay there for two weeks. I have worked so hard, I am looking forward to relaxing.”
According to her students, Shales-Clark works hard to help her students develop a passion for chemistry and the sciences in general.
“Shales-Clark’s pending retirement will have a huge impact on our AP chemistry program,” Vice Principal Jaime Mancilla said.
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