Honoring Teachers of Excellence in a Pandemic Year

Despite a year in which he hasn’t seen any of his students in person for more than three months, Muir Early College Magnet’s Business and Entrepreneurship Academy teacher Mario Hernandez was one of five awardees for this year’s Pasadena Rotary Teacher of Excellence Award. Like most awardees of any stripe, Hernandez—an Honors Math teacher who has worked 26 years in the PUSD—credits his Muir team for the recognition.

As Hernandez told Pasadena Now, “Collaborating with my colleagues makes me a stronger teacher. We challenge each other, we encourage each other, we teach each other, and above all – we support each other. For that, I am grateful to my Mustang family.”

Again, Hernandez sees the honor as one not to himself, but to his school.

“I think we’re doing some great things at our school,” he said, “and I want people to realize that Muir is thriving. We’re a small school that provides that human connection. We tend to know our kids very well because of our small school setting, and I think this award goes a long way toward letting people know that there’s some great teaching going on at Muir.”

Hernandez, who was nominated by Muir Principal Dr. Lawton Gray, was one of over 30 candidates for the award.

Candidates completed three essays of questions on classroom management, classroom instruction, as well as collaboration.

In most years, ten semifinalists and then five finalists are chosen, and from them, one “Teacher of the Year” is then selected. This is after a series of interviews and classroom visits.

Due to school closures during the Coronavirus pandemic, all five of the finalists—Hernandez, Eric Gothold, Rose City High School; Marysia Narvaez, Marshall Fundamental School; John Newell, Jackson Stem Dual Language Magnet Academy; and Lauren Partma, William McKinley School of the Arts—were all chosen teacher of the year.

Teachers of Excellence Co-chairs, Del Lile, a Pasadena Educational Foundation board member, and Lisa Cavelier, CEO, Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena, coordinated this year’s awards ceremony, which naturally took place via Zoom, on June 10.

All PUSD schools were invited to nominate teachers and a selection committee of principals, UTP, parents, previous winners, and Rotarians reviewed the entries. With funding from the Pasadena Rotary Foundation, $1,500 awards were given each year to the five teachers, along with $500, which was presented to each recipient’s school.

For his part, Hernandez is quick to acknowledge the difficulties of remote teaching.

It was difficult at the beginning,” he said. “But as teachers, we are very resilient, though we had to learn on the fly.”

Hernandez said the challenge of remote teaching gave him the chance to “really analyze the way I deliver my instruction. Some of the things that I’ve done differently, like recording lessons for students, are things that I’m going to do from now on, even after we return to in-person classes.”

Hernandez expressed gratitude for the recognition to the Pasadena Rotary Club, his family, Principal Dr. Lawton Gray, and his colleagues, and of course his students at Muir.

“I want to thank my students, past and present. It’s true that they are the reason I do what I do with passion and conviction. They inspire me, they make me laugh, they make me feel challenged, but most importantly, they give me a feeling of youthful hope. I see in them – what our future can be and it reminds me that great things lie ahead. It is my responsibility, and my privilege, to help them make that future a reality. And for that, I am deeply grateful to them.”

Mario Hernandez is the tenth of fourteen children. He emigrated from Mexico at the age of seven to the city of Oxnard, California. Growing up, Mario always knew that he wanted to attend college; however, in high school he was advised that he was better suited for the workforce. It was this experience that made him resolve to go to college and to make sure that other students, like himself, had role models and supporters to make their own college dreams come true. In 1994, Mario graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, becoming the first in his family to receive a degree. He later received his M.A. in Educational Administration from CSULA.