By Kyra Williams
Executive News Editor
Mira Costa Vice Principal Dr. Deborah Hofreiter announced on April 24 that she will be departing from her position as a Costa Vice Principal and will teach English for the 2019-20 school year before heading into retirement.
Hofreiter previously taught in the Beveryly Hills school district before coming to Costa in 2000. At Costa, she served as an English teacher, co-chair of the English department, the coordinator of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and a reading specialist before becoming vice principal in 2012.
“My favorite part of being VP has been the kids; it has always been the kids,” Hofreiter said. “A lot of the activities I do with kids are really cool, like This Is Costa and when I arranged the panel of people to speak. Graduation is the best, prom is probably the second best and I also love poetry readings, Drama and Choir. I like anything where the kids are showing what they can do.”
In honor of her last year, Hofreiter will teach Noir Literature of Los Angeles, an English seminar and freshmen English. Noir is a detective genre and many of the noir stories came from California and Los Angeles, such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammitt. The course begins with older literature and goes all the way up to modern noir. Students will study stories as well as films, such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Double Indemnity.” Hofreiter loves literature and especially teaching writing, she said.
“As a teacher and especially as an English teacher, you really get to know people,” Hofreiter said. “Administrators don’t get that anymore, but they are doing things that are really helping the school or the district depending on where they are. I have always missed that relationship that would develop by being an English teacher and seeing [students] everyday.”
After she retires, Hofreiter hopes to be involved with philanthropist Melinda Gates’s mission to help educate girls in countries throughout the world. She also hopes to bring awareness to the problems of climate change and domestic violence.
“I don’t see retirement as something where I put up my feet and watch TV; I would go nuts,” Hofreiter said. “I have to be busy all the time.”
Hofreiter currently encourages all Costa students to get involved with something they love and to pursue it while in high school. For college, she encourages everyone to study abroad because she believes it will open up the eyes of every student.
“I am so happy for [Hofreiter]; she’s happy so it’s fun to see how excited she is to go and reconnect with kids in the classroom,” Mira Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale said. “I think she has stayed connected to kids during her time as vice principal here, but there’s a special bond between teachers and students in a classroom that I know that she missed. For her last year before her retirement she wants to reconnect and I think that shows who she truly is as an educator. It’s pretty amazing.”
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