March 28, 2024

Mira Costa Hires New Staff Members

Mira Costa's librarian Bridgette Sullivan stands in the library next to the "Welcome to the Library" sign on Sept. 22. This is Sullivan's first year working at Mira Costa.

By Isabelle Chiu

Sports Editor

This year 12 new teachers, counsellors, or administrators dropped their old schedule and were added onto Mira Costa’s staff.

Emily Sommer joined the guidance counseling department and is taking over the students that were previously under Sue Bertran. Sommer has worked as a counselor at schools in Orange Country and Watts, which varied in class size.

Click here for a photo essay on the new teachers

“The students here are completely awesome,” Sommer said. “Everyone’s been nice, respectful, funny and good at communicating. The staff has been really helpful so far.”

Bridgett Sullivan is Costa’s new teacher-librarian. Sullivan, who has a master’s in library media, previously taught elementary and middle school art before becoming a part-time librarian at Santa Monica High School. Sullivan has many ideas to revamp the library, which include converting old storage closets into conference room for students.

“I want to put in tall tables and tall chairs with charging stations near the entrance so kids can come in and have an area that is cooler because of the doors and lit well,” Sullivan said. “We are also going to try to make the current storage closet useable by cleaning it up and opening a window because there’s a lot of space that we want to be able to use that we aren’t using right now.”

The College and Career Center will be adding Elizabeth Reiken to its staff as a full time college and career counselor who will be available to students and parents in the evening. Reiken has worked at Los Angeles Unified School District as a guidance counselor for eight years prior to taking her job at Costa.

Click here to see the new changes to the CCC

“It has been an adjustment between being a guidance counselor and solely focusing on college,” Reiken said. “It’s fun because it’s very concentrated and I get to learn about the different colleges and help kids find their fit.”

CP Biology teacher James Locke and English 9 and 10 teacher Lindsey Valbuena are both coming in from Manhattan Beach Middle School. Locke says that adjusting to Canvas wasn’t too drastic, as the middle school was all digital. He also wants to continue having the work be digital as well.

“The opportunity to teach at Costa just came up and I thought that at this point in my career I had been at the middle school for 12 years, and that it would be a great change for me to do something different,” Locke said. “When the opportunity presented itself I had three days to decide, and I decided to do it and I’m really glad that I did.”

Jarrod Parra has just finished his student teaching at Mt. Gleason Middle School in the San Fernando Valley where he taught life science and physical science. This is Parra’s second year teaching at the high school level and he is currently teaching Earth Science and Biology CP.

“Costa’s department is the nicest, most well-run science department I have ever been involved with,” Parra said. “The labs and support we have here are incredible. I am honored to join you all here at Costa and I hope to stick around here for a long time!”

The principal’s secretary Carol Meeks and vice principal secretary Nancy DiRado, who are Manhattan Beach Unified School District Parents and South Bay residents, will be joining the administrative staff. Meeks has been a music teacher for 15 years, and she says that the experience of being a teacher and working with the administrative staff has been the best of both worlds.

Read: Dale’s message to all students and staff about the new school year

“When I’m in the classroom I get to work one on one with students and have a variety of groups every day and now I get to do work as a secretary in a lot of the behind-the-scene items that I didn’t know existed when I was just a teacher,” Meeks said.

The three new people to Costa’s special education staff include a full-time special Ed teacher, Costa’s longtime water polo coach, Dave Halushka. They also include Amber Aleman and Caroline Robinson as the new special Ed aids. Overall, they have been adjusting well.

“We just started off, but they seem to be very enthusiastic, many of them [the new staff] seem to have adjusted very well,” principal Ben Dale said. “It’s a steep learning curve here and they are obviously up to the task.”

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