Staff and student features

Staff Feature: Paul Koestler

By: Caleb Bison, Stella Piccioli, and Lola Gallagher

Mr. Paul Koestler currently teaches Algebra 2 and Probability and Statistics to the seniors and juniors at Hilton Head High School. He has been teaching since 1985. He is also the girl’s lacrosse coach for the school. Mr.Koestler was born in Buffalo, New York, and went to the State University of New York, Canisius College, and Ohio State University for college. When he was younger he played hockey and lacrosse, Hockey was his main sport. Mr. Koestler says his favorite thing about this school is, “The students who are eager to learn and have fun.” He says he has good relationships and gets along with his students. Mr.Koestler wants to relate to his students and he portrays that in his teaching.

Who is Noemi Perez?

By: Emeli Perez

Q: How old are you and what grade are you in?

A: I am 17 years old and currently in my senior year.

Q: What classes are you currently taking?

A: I am actually taking nail tech at ACE and English IV Honors

Q: Who is a teacher that left an impression on you? And why?

A: Back in my freshmen year, I had Mr. Scalise for English. He was a cool teacher who taught me well.

Q: What is your favorite subject in school?

A: My favorite subject was math because it was easier to comprehend than any other subject.

Q: What do you plan to do after high school and what is your future career plan?

A: I plan to attend TCL for about two years and then transfer to the University of Charleston to study marketing. I want to become a marketing manager for an amazing company.

Q: What are your life mottos?

A: My life mottos are “find a way or make one” and “what is meant to be will always find its way to you.”

Teacher Feature: BJ Payne

By: Stella Piccioli & Lola Gallagher

Coach BJ Payne is a PE and health teacher at Hilton Head Island High School. He was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then moved to Massillon, Ohio when he was five years old, he lived there for the majority of his life. He moved to Hilton Head Island 10 years ago. He has been teaching for 19 years, nine years in Ohio, and ten years on Hilton Head.

Coach Payne is also the varsity football coach for ten years at HHIHS. His favorite part about working here is the students and student athletes he teaches. Couch Payne helps players get recruited to college football teams with his coaching knowledge and connections with other coaches. He tries to make all of his players the best they can be, with hard work and dedication.

Holiday Celebrations with Traditions

by Juan Leyva P & Jonathan Alarcon A

Margaret (Maggie) Simms

Meet Maggie Simms, who is currently a sophomore at HHIHS. She stated that she’s, “from Atlanta,” and she is Italian. When asked about what holidays she celebrates around the wintertime she answered, “For Christmas, we always drink peppermint hot chocolate while going Christmas tree hunting.” Also, her mother makes beef bourguignon for Christmas. And for New Year’s Eve & New Year’s, she responded, “We make steak with a yellow sauce called, Hollandaise sauce.” Maggie and her family watch the Times Square Ball Drop on live television.

When she was asked about her earliest and latest memory, she said, “My earliest is to go to Disney for Christmas. And my latest is, getting a big rubber duck for Christmas, named Jerry.” Her rubber duck, Jerry, has goggles and a chain.

After finishing up the interview, I asked her about her favorite holiday, Maggie answered, “My favorite holiday is Halloween because you get to dress up and you get to eat candy and watch scary movies and it’s underappreciated”

Izabella Delgado

Izabella Delgado, a student who is currently a junior at HHIHS, was being interviewed about her holiday celebrations and traditions. Izabella and her family, “Are originally from Colombia.” She was asked about what celebrations she does around the wintertime with her family, and she responded, “In the wintertime, we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate New Year’s, and there this celebration called- In Spanish is ‘Día de las Velitas’.”

Dia de las Velitas, or known as in English, Day of the Little Candles, is celebrated in Colombia and they are celebrated by, “going outside with their neighbors, and we turn on candles in the streets.” They also bake and eat ‘buñuelos’ which are made with bread filled which cheese or sweets (caramels).

When asked about her holiday traditions, she answered, “Holiday traditions? All my family reunited together at my grandma’s house.” I asked her about her earliest memory, she stated, “My earliest holiday memory… I remember getting books for the first time.” Also, Izabella’s latest memory is, “When I got my drawing tablet.” I added one more question to the interview, and I asked her about her favorite holiday, to which Izabella responded, “My favorite holiday is Halloween, and it’s because I love making my own dresses for the occasion.”

Aites got Game

By: Matt K. , Michaela E.

For our administrator feature we interviewed Mr. Aites. As one of three administrators, he has a great deal of responsibility, including handling discipline for the second alphabetic half for grades 10 through 12. Most of the day-to-day disciplinary activities involve dress code and ID violations. More serious incidents involve students cutting class and wandering around the building or even leaving school.

Mr. Aites also handles work orders for upkeep and maintenance of the building. This extends to making sure every teacher has adequate supplies and desks. He is sensitive to teachers’ needs because he began working at HHIHS in 2012 as a math teacher before being promoted to assistant principal. Previously, he worked for two years at Lady’s Island Middle School, and before that lived in Pennsylvania. As a teacher, he used to coach wrestling and oversaw Rocket Club.

As a result of his extensive responsibilities, he sometimes doesn’t eat lunch until 4 o’clock. Pushing the cart around the school and disciplining misbehaving students is very strenuous. In addition, teacher evaluations are currently going on, which are very time-consuming as a result of 3 administrators having to meet with around 80 teachers. Nevertheless, Mr. Aites noted that he enjoys his job a lot.

Mr. Jordan math journey

By: Nicole Antonio Jonathan Alarcon

How long have you been teaching?

He says he's been teaching for 33 years

Was math the first subject you taught?

Mr. Jordan says “Always, I've always taught algebra 1”

How are you liking this school?

“It’s a new school, new environment. I'm starting to fall in love with the kids, I'm starting to get to know the adults. You don't transition into one semester. It's going to take time, but I'm starting to see the successes that I think these kids can actually attend. I'm starting to see the growth that I'm happy with, and i'm excited to see where I can help these kids find there strive”

What is something you love about Hilton Head Island?

“First of all, the location where you all live is amazing. It's a fun place to be, it's a great place to be, I come from a beach community so going to work everyday in a beach community I'm pretty used to. I love being in a beach community as far as the rest of the location. I mean it's warm here, New Jersey's cold. I’d much rather be in a warm place than a cold place.”

What is something important you want the students to learn?

“I want the students to learn that first and foremost their education is their responsibility, so if they want to achieve the success that they hope to achieve it doesn't come from a teacher, it doesn't come from a mom or a dad it comes from them and every student is capable of that kind of success. For some students it takes a little bit more work for other students it comes a little more naturally but with the guidance of their teacher and the help and support of their parents every student will hopefully achieved that success level were they realize they are ultimately the catalyst for their own growth and their own success.”

Q and A with Mr. Lorenz

By: Maeve Dolan and Molly Dean

Q: Why did you become a teacher?

A: “The reason why I choose teaching is because when I was in Middle School, actually all through school I struggled. So I struggled with school I was dyslexic, so reading, writing, and spelling are really difficult for me and so I absolutely hated school, and it was very, very hard. So I had a dream and goal to go play in the NFL and play college football at Wisconsin, and with the help of amazing teachers, administrators, my parents, and family I made my dream come true. I got a full scholarship to play football at the University of Wisconsin. There I had a great college career and then I had the opportunity to go to the New England Patriots, my 2005 NFL draft with a free agent, unfortunately, somebody cut me, as one of my students one time said “NFL stands for Not For Lorenz” so I didn’t make the team but then I went ahead and became I teacher. I taught for 10 years.”

Q: What is your favorite part about being a teacher?

A: “For sure it is helping the kids, any time you can help a student overcome adversity, any time you can help them get closer to their dreams and you can see and they learn something, and they better themselves that’s the reward.”

Student of the Month: October

By: Isabelle Drake

Benjamin Gutierrez was nominated for the student of the month for the word courage. He thinks that he could use this award to help him get into universities and jobs. “ Although it’s not going to be a main driving force for future events it’s always nice to include ‘Oh I was a student of the month’.” He thinks that it is interesting because “ I was not expecting it and it kinda just showed up and it makes me feel good because it’s exciting.” When asked why he got the award he said that he thinks it’s because he involves himself in the school and he has been shown to be upstanding. He overall feels that this is a great opportunity for him and he is grateful that out of the whole school he was chosen.

A Day in the Life of Mr. Lorenz

By: Matthew Korneluk and Michaela Elam

At the beginning of the school day, Mr. Lorenz stands at the entrance to check for dress code and make sure no one is in possession of anything dangerous. He spends most of his day in meetings and pushing his cart around the school dealing with whatever problems arise. His usual tasks include disciplining misbehaving students, dealing with tardiness, talking to parents, and making sure teachers are meeting learning targets in class. Recently he has been especially focused on cracking down on vaping. Managing sporting events, holidays, and so on is another of his responsibilities. He noted that in disciplining students his goal is not just punishing but educating them to make better choices in the future and push the student body forward.

Ms. Spisz’s Day in the Life as a Teacher

By: Emeli Perez

Q: When do you wake up?

On days where we do not have morning meetings I usually wake up at 6:05, but on days where we have department meetings or a staff meeting I wake up around between 5:30 to 5:45 in the morning.

Q: What is your morning routine?

After waking up I usually take a quick shower, get dressed, do the hair, do my makeup, and make a cup of coffee. I usually leave the house around 6:30 for a non-meeting morning, so I am usually here by 7:00 o’clock in the morning. So I come in and put my lunch in the fridge, turn on all my computers, post the lessons, objectives, and agendas to Google Classroom, answer any emails, upload the News Show to the News Show website, prep the News Show computer for the day, help any teachers with technology stuff that they need help with, and gather morning announcements and put those into the different segment orders. And then hall duty starts at 8:15 in the morning.

Q: What do you do throughout the day?

Throughout the day, my first block is planning, so during planning, I am doing anything from meetings, lesson planning, grading, answering emails, working on the News Show, working on the newspaper, finding sources for my English III classes, occasionally covering or subbing a class, and by 9:30 in the morning I have to go check my mailbox one more time for any last-minute morning announcements to air the next day. And then I have SLT so I am doing some type of mediation with students during SLT. My second block I have English III. So I am teaching by the bell, and depending on what we are doing that day, we are either reading, writing, grammar warmup, and lesson. Right now for example, we are essay writing, so they come in and do a warm-up and we are working through introduction paragraph and body paragraphs, and just doing writing workshops type of activities. Then journalism is fourth block and that is filming announcements, helping students get in contact with their newspaper sources, answering emails throughout the day, and by the end of the school day it is putting the New Show together, downloading it, getting it on the News Show computer onto my school computer, uploading it to desktop, and on to the teacher share drive and then Google Drive, and then usually touching base with any teachers or administrators that I need to talk to before leaving for the day.

Q: What is the most difficult part of your job?

The most difficult part of the job would probably be paperwork side things because it is very time consuming. So, if I have a student misbehave then I have to write them up that is a lot of documentation that I have to get through then I have to call their parents for that, so I any of the documentation paper side of things because it is very time consuming.

Q: What is the funniest part of your job?

Definitely the students, interacting with students throughout the day is definitely the best part of the job. No two class periods are the same, no two semesters are the same, no two days are the same because students are unique in their own ways. They’re funny, so definitely just interacting with students is my favorite part of the day.