By Amanda Tsao
Staff Writer
Mira Costa students are not the only ones who participate in a wide variety of extracurricular activities that are specific to their passions and interests.
Outside of his teaching career at Mira Costa, Advanced Placement and College Preparatory United States History teacher Steve Singiser has been an active writer for a major political website called Daily Kos Elections since 2005. Starting out as an election and polling analyst, Singiser was promoted to contributing editor of the website in 2009 and has been writing for the front page of the website since the promotion.
“The elections site I write for is the analytical, while still partisan, cousin to the main site,” Singiser said. “It has opinion articles and calls for activism. My stuff is not as partisan as the rest of the website, though I would not be naive to call my work nonpartisan.”
In 1998, Singiser won the All Politics election prediction contest, which was sponsored by Cable News Network. To win the contest, Singiser predicted that the Senate seats would remain the same as the previous term.
“I was very happy to win the award, and I felt extremely proud of my achievements,” Singiser said. “I am still extremely honored to have been recognized for my predictions by such a well-known organization.”
Singiser incorporates his extensive knowledge of politics into the classroom.
“Singiser really enjoys incorporating information about politics into his class lectures,” junior Sarah Keneipp said. “It is actually really interesting to learn about all of the upcoming political elections as well as elections that took place over a hundred years ago.”
Writing for Daily Kos has enabled Singiser to meet and work with politicians, including United States senators Mazie Hirono, Chris Murphy, and Brian Schatz, several members of Congress and a number of people who work in campaigns for the national Republican and Democratic political parties.
“I have gotten to meet political leaders that I ordinarily would not get a chance to meet,” Singiser said.
According to Singiser, during election time, his writing becomes a second full-time job in addition to teaching his classes at Costa.
“There is a lot of writing to get done when the elections approach,” Singiser said. “I have learned to balance my time between my writing and teaching, but election month is a busy time of the year.”
Singiser also writes about other topics than politics, including education issues, which he can easily relate to. He is also able to write about his personal life in some of his articles.
“I have read one of Singiser’s stories about dealing with the death of friends and family,” junior Gunner Robinson said. “It was quite moving, and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely read more of his articles.”
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