Leaving Lakewood..

This summer Barbara Bein forwarded an email that showed two history job openings at Redondo Union HighSchool. I honestly was not looking for job as I have been at Lakewood for 10 years and its my home. I decided I would apply as its so close to home. I called the principal Nikki Wesley and she encouraged me to apply. I (Dennis) updated my resume and it looked pretty amazing!! I then had to get letters of Recc so Cheryl Cornejo, Lisa Busch and Sean Mcchorter wrote them for me. I scheduled an interview and it was intimidating! There were about 8 people on the panel and they asked many tough questions. I left feeling excited and like I was myself. One of the questions they asked...Is why after being at a school for so long do you want to leave LHS? Deep down I was like "shorter commute, less ghetto kids, air conditioning" hahaha. However I answered with " I would love to teach in the community I live in blah blah blah! I drove home and ready to jump out of my suit and into my sweats and I received a phone call from Nikki Wesley. They offered me the 100% position of MW History and US History...I accepted the position but then reality hit!! WTF did I just do!!! hahah. I am leaving my work family that has been through so much with me!!!! I wrote pros and cons and really thought it over. At Redondo I would have to switch to Kaiser insurance where in LBUSD I have the best benefits. At RUHS I would be bottom of the totem poll!! I made list after list....and finally I thought ....THIS IS MY CHANCE!! I have the opportunity to switch to a better school close to home. I took the job!!


After calling my friends Matt Ruiz offered to host a BBQ to send me off! It was such a great dinner!! They printed pictures for me and gave me a list of all of my funniest comments in the lounge! Thinking about this makes me cry because I know I will never have family I had at LHS. I cried so much for the next few weeks. Packing up my classroom was also so so hard! I prayed I made the right choice!


Meeting friends?


Map activity


Email


Juli and meetings


Students


Ashley and geoff


Final eval