Sierra Pacific History teacher Gary Griffin, is finishing out his last year at Sierra Pacific after being named the district’s teacher of the year. Griffin has worked at this school since 2011, making a mark on students for the past 14 years. Along with teacher, he was also the school’s first baseball coach.
Griffin is planning on teaching for Hanford Online Charter, starting next school year. He loves his job at SP but the demands of his job as an AP teacher started to become a little too much and he was taking this new job as an opportunity for less stress with more flexible work hours. He is happy he has the opportunity to still work with teenagers but with less responsibility after hours.
Reflecting back on his past 14 years of teaching, Griffin had a lot of good memories that he is sad to let go of.
“I’m gonna miss the kids and talking about history every day,” Griffin said.
Griffin explained how he was sad to leave behind his classroom filled with memories of laughter and teaching. He said he is going to miss the interaction with classes in a group setting but is excited for his new opportunity to build stronger bonds with individual students. And as excited he is for a change of setting and the ability to try something completely new, he expressed how he will miss the atmosphere of SP and his interactions with the staff. He said how much he is going to miss going to rallies and goofing off with all of his classes.
Leaving a legacy behind of laughter and education, students and teachers at SP had a lot to say about him leaving. His hilarious stories and rants about his life always keep his students entertained. His drive for teaching has always had such a significant impact on his students, his love for history and teaching truly shines through every lesson he teaches. He made learning fun again for a lot of students.
Jadyn Padilla, who had Griffin as a teacher, had a lot of good words to say about her teacher.
“You can tell he loves what he does and it truly is such a good environment to be in his class,” Padilla said. I can speak for a lot of people when I say he is going to be missed a lot at Sierra and I’m sad to see him go. I have a lot of really good memories from that class and I’m sad that future students won’t get the chance to witness how good of a teacher he is.”
When asked what is something you want to tell to all the students at SP, Griffin had a great message to share.
“It’s been a joy and honor to work with such a great group of students and I would hope that students at SP would continue to excel and succeed in all areas of life.”