Interview With José Melgoza: Interim Upper School Director

I started in 2004 as a history teacher teaching senior electives, freshman world cultures classes, and Western civ. I plugged into different courses at Poly, which got me up to speed quickly in terms of curriculum and being connected to other grade levels and students. I also got to know my colleagues very well. Part of the reason I came to Poly was for what was known as the Skills Enrichment Program (SEP), now Partnership for Success or PFS. It is a unique program that allows me to continue to be involved with public school education but also work in the independent school realm. I attended public school until 8th grade, and then private school for high school, so I got to see both sides of the spectrum in terms of education and educational access. I saw Poly as a great opportunity to be involved in both. My role as PFS site director is similar to the Upper School director job because I am responsible for curriculum, funding, program, mission, and making sure different sites incorporate what trustees have in mind for the school. 

Eventually, working in the history department, I was able to get involved on the ground floor with the Global Initiatives Program (GIP).  I was there for the first meetings and helped with the framing of what the program was going to be and offer support. I was involved in a lot of the first trips to get them off the ground. I also love the fact that Poly has an Outdoor Education component. I grew up in a city, and it wasn't until I came out to California that I realized there was wilderness. I have been able to share that passion with students and teach them how to go out into nature and appreciate nature. The beauty of being at an independent school is that it takes everyone going above and beyond what they signed up to do to keep the school afloat. Everyone gets involved in the life of the school and leaves an impact on student lives. 

Having gone to public school and then independent school, it is so crucial to have small classes and allow the teacher to set goals as to what you expect and where you expect students to be. It is also important to allow teachers some autonomy as to how to get there, which creates authenticity when connecting with students. What really drew me to Poly at the outset was that teachers were really trusted to be teachers and be professionals. That freedom and privilege to teach and find your own path keeps things exciting for me. Whenever I talk to new teachers, they ask how I plan for the year. There is no set plan and it can be scary for folks. I have an idea of what worked well in the past but I like to include new lessons as a way to support debate. I think let’s try it this year and see if it is something that will stick in the future. That ability to experiment and encouragement to experiment keeps teaching exciting and has kept me going at Poly for so long.

A lot of times schools can get stuck on the scores and finding a formula that will guarantee the highest amount of top scores on the test and that’s what will get students there. That’s where you get the robotic teaching. It’s important for teachers to be enthusiastic; if the teacher isn’t excited, students aren’t excited. It’s easy and tempting for administrators to find that formula and then prescribe it. We don’t really have that at Poly. I was able to learn from Garine Zetlian and Greg Feldmeth what they did, but there wasn't an expectation that I do exactly what they did. We are given tools and those are important, but we are allowed the freedom to figure out what the right tools are for you. It’s helpful to try things on and see what worked. Poly is supportive of professional development and equipping teachers with new tools. At the end of the day, I love history, I always did. I am always constantly reading and finding out what I want to share with my students. I develop lessons around that and students respond to that. I learn along with them and in some sense am a partner. It makes it exciting for them, grappling with the information, along with them, and that creates investment.

I never got into teaching to be an admin, it was always about teaching for me. I think that working for PFS there were a lot of opportunities for someone to step up and help in different areas be it planning curriculum, developing programs, parent participation, or building a new school. It only started in 1990 and getting involved in that work was really exciting. It feeds into my interest and passion for teaching by developing something new. I found a new way to engage by contributing and being part of a construction process. It gave me the bug to get involved in admin work and be more and more involved in the leadership at Poly. I am not rah-rah at the front of a room. I like being silently involved in the background. I am a studious person who enjoys the paperwork, planning, chart-making, and the structural parts of things. That has given me the opportunity to be involved in a lot at Poly. The circumstances for my new role are not ideal, but with my experience being a frontline person, with different aspects of leadership, I felt like I could contribute to helping us have stability this year and make sure we don’t lose any momentum. There was a lot of good work that was started in the fall. It wasn’t something that I sought out but something when I was called upon, I knew I could contribute. I always talk to students about who creates history. There is an understanding that we have these people that seem amazing, but they’re just people. There’s a ton of people behind them doing the work. You don’t need to be one of those people up front to make history. The one thing those two people have in common is that there’s an opportunity to do something, to contribute, and to pitch in. It’s not something you want at that moment, but you hope through what you learn based upon those values you make that decision to be on the right side of history. I felt at that moment I could be of help, completely altering my schedule, expectations, and life, but there was an opportunity to contribute in a bigger way.

I think that first and foremost we're a school, and we’re here and exist for students. I’m involved in education because I believe fundamentally that schools can form students and have an integral role in informing our future because our students will have an impact on the sort of society we become. We have to care for these students and have to take that work seriously, and Poly does, and in that I see the next six months holding true to those values. We cannot take any one student for granted. We need to develop new systems, making sure students are getting support and resources in order to find a voice and come out of school feeling like they’re empowered and contributing to society. We had a lot of positive energy and momentum and ideas at the start of the school year. I don’t want us to lose that. The fact that there needs to be an interim has caused some of those ideas to be muddled, but I hope to help us come back and make progress to those ideas, and make this the best experience we can. We have big things to focus on.

Oh my goodness! The values I espouse are ones I hope that our leader in the future has. We always say student-driven, but it’s starting there and then understanding how those support systems including teachers, curriculum, students, and parents working together to create that student driven result. You can't separate them all out. All of those have to be coordinated together—that's key—and I also think that’s the sort of coordination that can sometimes put you behind a computer all day. You can't be that as a leader, you have to remember you're dealing with a human element and making sure everyone feels valued in the community. It’s a tough job and I don’t quite know what I've gotten myself into yet. There’s definitely a lot of empathy for the role in the future for whoever fills that seat, and I hope the person is going to be able to have the humility to listen, the willingness to reach out, and understand that it is a community effort. There is a lot riding on you and trusting the community to make different pieces work so we can all be on the same page for the students.