In recent years, Middle College High School has been making changes. One of these changes includes the increase in the student population, and with this growth in numbers, we have also added new teachers to the staff. Starting the 2024-25 school year, MCHS has added two new teachers to its staff, but who are they?
Ms. Campoverde
The first interaction I had with Ms. Campoverde was through email. I requested an interview with her and she responded in a very friendly and direct way, stating that she would prefer the interview be in person rather than writing down her responses. She used the font “Comic Sans MS” in a dark green color with a smiling emoji. This already gave me a window into who she was.
On the day of the interview, I walked in as students were leaving her classroom. The first thing I noticed was the room decorations. There were small cards above the desks that were grouped, the posters along the walls were colorful and cartoony and the overall room gave me a sense of nostalgia. It reminded me of an elementary classroom in the best of ways. She was helping one of her students as I looked around the room, appearing calm, supportive and present.
Once she had finished helping her student, she came up to me, introduced herself, made small talk and welcomed me to sit down. As I conducted the interview, I got a sense of who she was. She is passionate about numerous things. She places great value on her family and she loves teaching. I asked her what she would do if she won the lottery or if money didn’t matter and she responded by saying that she would like to hire a chef and do something for her family.
“I want to eat more plant-based, and I would like somebody to prepare the healthy foods for me. I’d make sure that my mom is eating right. Helping my family, you know. They’re immigrants, so they have struggled. Some of them are struggling, some of them are doing great, but I wish I could do that. Then I would love to travel with them, maybe go on a cruise ship as a whole family that I would pay for… Or go to an all-inclusive resort where we can just do our own thing, and I know everybody in there is safe. We would meet where we want to meet and still have some cohesiveness,” Campoverde said.
I learned a lot about her, from small likes to who she is in and out of school. Her favorite color is blue, she’s a dog person, loves the beach, and her favorite foods are hot dogs and soups. In her free time, she likes to listen to Latin Pop and her favorite artist: Luis Miguel. Outside of school, she has an extensive list of things she enjoys doing.
“That is my problem: too many hobbies. Tennis is my primary hobby at the moment. I do have a lot of interests, so I rotate habits, but I’m focused on tennis at the moment. But I also love the piano, which I can’t play yet, calligraphy, hiking, walking, and anything that involves the beach or big bodies of water,” Campoverde said.
She also shared that she enjoys yoga and has even become a yoga teacher. Additionally, one of her many hobbies includes reading, just like many other teachers at MCHS. Her favorite genres range from romance and mystery to spiritual books.
“If I’ve been doing a lot of learning and my mind is heavy with content and I just need to tune out, then I’ll listen to romantic comedies or I’ll read. I’ll listen mostly because my eyes might be tired. If I want to ground myself spiritually then I listen to spiritual books, like ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle. If I have the mental power, my favorite books to read are historical fiction. If it has some romance, some murder, who-done-it kind of thing, that’s my favorite,” Campoverde said.
She also shared that she is fluent in Spanish and English, is learning French, knows a bit of Japanese and can speak Portuguese. As for why she decided to be a teacher, Ms. Campoverde shared that she has always wanted to share what she learns with others.
“I don’t think it’s that I love to teach. I think it’s that I love to learn, and because I’m excited about what I just learned, I want to share it, you know. But I would say the first inclination was my sixth-grade teacher. She inspired me to be a nun and to teach… it’s just something I’ve always liked to do. I don’t know what inspired me,” Campoverde said.
Campoverde was born in Ecuador, where she was raised and attended school until the age of 10 when moved to New York. There, her love of learning and quick grasp of the English language led her to skip a year. Once she finished high school, she attended DeVry University in New Jersey, where she was on the path to receiving an engineering degree before deciding she wanted to pursue a career in teaching. She attended UCI, where she received her certificate in human resources, then her teaching credential at Cal State Fullerton and her master’s at National University. She taught fourth grade at John Tynes Elementary and Lathrop Intermediate before transferring to MCHS, where she now teaches Biology and Anatomy.
When I asked her what her favorite school subject was, she replied that she has liked biology from a young age.
“I like science, all sciences in general, and how things work. It could be a human body or a machine, it doesn’t matter,” Campoverde said.
Every teacher has a goal as an educator. Campoverde says that her goals are to provide the mentorship she didn’t have when she was younger and assist students in collaborating with others. She wants to provide students with a chance to learn and discover things for themselves and help them understand that it’s okay to make mistakes and use those mistakes to learn.
“I myself was fast-tracked through education. I finished college at 19 and understand what it’s like to be pushed and to be driven, and I would like to be able to ground some of the students that may be high-strung like I was. To help them temper their drive and help ground them a little bit,” Campoverde said.
She also revealed a goal that she has for herself outside of the classroom.
“I want to have passive income, so I want to invest in properties. My goal is to have apartment complexes, so right now my goal is to have a 25-unit apartment complex so that way I can work because I want to,” Campoverde said.
Although she has only been here since the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, she has already fallen in love with the school and her position here as a teacher.
“I absolutely love it. I love it. I love it. Yes, I love the location, the outdoors. I can step outside. I like that because the students are capable and focused, I can let them explore and learn together and give them guidance in the process. They don’t have to be controlled, so it fits more with my personality. I enjoy it quite a bit,” Campoverde said.
Ms. Villalpando
The first interaction I had with Ms. Villalpando was on the second day of school. Like the other teachers at MCHS, she was focused mainly on getting her students talking, comfortable, and ready for the upcoming school year. The desks in the room were set up in small groups, AVID posters and encouraging signs decorated the walls and her desk sat in the corner with many pictures and decorations aligning the walls. Close by was a small section of the wall where her degrees and cap and gowns were framed.
Villalpando is the new AVID 9 and English 10 teacher and has three years of teaching experience at Nathaniel Narbonne High School and Lathrop Intermediate. She attended California State University, Fullerton, where she received her bachelor’s degree in English. She then went on to attend California State University, Long Beach, where she earned her single-subject teaching credential and master’s in education. Currently, she is furthering her education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where she is working toward earning her master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
“As an educator, what’s important to me is to always give a voice to my students. As a person, I never felt my ideas would be heard or respected, so I want to provide that for my students. I want to be the educator that grows and learns with their students,” Villalpando said.
Although Ms. Villalpando comes off as strict, she’s also fun and hardworking, which has helped her build a strong relationship with her students. She is still early on in her career so she continues to work hard to learn and grow as an educator.
“I wanted to be the teacher that my younger self needed growing up. I had a lot of pressure to get perfect grades, and I felt I wasn’t good enough if I wasn’t perfect… My teaching method has changed as I am still early in my teaching career. This is my fourth year teaching after completing my single-subject teaching credential. It continues to change because I enter higher education, learn to change, and modify my teaching methods and pedagogy to support my students and better myself as an educator,” Villalpando said.
Like many of us, Ms. Villalpando had a few teachers who left an impact on her. Her seventh- and eighth-grade English teachers helped guide and nourish her love of reading and writing by recommending her to honors ELA. Because of the guidance that they provided she was able to become more comfortable in her writing and grow an appreciation for poetry. In high school, Ms. Villalpando had another memorable teacher: her band director who was there to push and support her. With his encouragement, Ms. Villalpando became the drum major in her senior year. As it turns out, her favorite school subjects were the marching band and concert band, which she was a part of for all four of her high school years.
Ms. Villalpando, like many people at MCHS, grew up in Santa Ana.
“My childhood was fun. I grew up with my cousins, and we all went to the same school until high school. In high school, I was very active: in the marching band for three and a half years, concert band for four years, color and winter guard for two years, jazz band for one year, Girls’ League for one year, and softball for one year. I had leadership roles in those years: I was lieutenant for color guard in my sophomore year… and the role of drum major for the marching band in my senior year,” Villalpando said.
Although she has her hands full with teaching and furthering her own education at the moment, she makes time for fun hobbies like playing “Animal Crossing New Horizons” and crocheting. Another thing she enjoys doing in her free time is listening to music, with alternative rock, punk rock, punk pop, classical and jazz being her favorite genres. Her favorite music artist is Mike Shinoda, one of the musicians in her favorite band, Linkin Park. To get a better sense of the music Ms. Villalpando enjoys, try listening to two of her favorite songs at the moment: ‘Rose-Colored Boy’ by Paramore and ‘Anywhere But Here’ by Safety Suit.
She also likes to spend time watching Studio Ghibli films like “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Spirited Away” and anything in the thrillers and mystery genre. She has also recently finished watching season four of “Umbrella Academy” and is excited for the new season of “School Spirits” to come out on Netflix.
“I can’t tell you why, but… I enjoy shows and movies that keep me thinking about ‘Who did it?’ or ‘What happened?” Villalpando said.
Another thing that she enjoys watching is anime, one of which is One Piece, a popular anime that she is caught up on. In fact, her two pets are named after two characters in the anime.
“I have always been a dog person, and my favorite breed is a golden retriever. I have one. He is six years old, and his name is Luffy. I recently got a kitten, and she’s cool and adorable,” Villalpando said.
The new addition to her family is named Robin but her nickname is Menace to Society and although Luffy is no longer a puppy, Ms. Villalpando shares that he still acts like one. Because of their love of anime, Villalpando and her boyfriend want to travel to Japan.
“My boyfriend and I have wanted to travel to Japan for a few years now for many reasons. We both enjoy the culture and the food. One of my friends lived there for a few years, and her description of it was amazing. Also, my boyfriend’s favorite YouTuber lives there, so there’s another plus. We want to go during the Cherry Blossom season, but tickets have been expensive,” Villalpando said.
Besides her goal to travel to Japan, Villalpando wants to experience her goddaughter’s and nephew’s milestones in life. She also wants to stay healthy by returning to her workout routine. When I asked her what she would do if she won the lottery or if money didn’t matter she responded by saying that she would like to pay off her school and personal debt, buy and pay off a house, create saving accounts for both her nephew and goddaughter, and help her parents financially to help them retire.
I learned a lot about who Ms. Villalpando is as an educator and a person. I learned that her favorite food is tamales and that her favorite colors are navy blue, forest green and burgundy. She can solve a Rubik’s cube in three minutes or less. She is fluent in Spanish and English. Her birthday lands on New Year’s Day. One of her favorite novels that she read when she was younger is “To Kill a Mockingbird.” She is very passionate about becoming the best educator she can be and she cares deeply about the people around her.
So far Ms. Villalpando’s time at MCHS has been great.
“It has been amazing. It is like taking a breath of fresh air. In previous years, I was so stressed about finding new ways to manage my classroom effectively that it took time away from teaching my students. Here, I can be an educator and be present in the content, not classroom management,” Villalpando said.
