Educator of the Year has been at Central Continuation High School for 10 years
Published in the December 25, 2013-January 7, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Alexa Mateos, a junior, takes a photo of Educator of the Year Irene Macias-Morriss and junior Alexa Rodriguez.
Irene Macias-Morriss has 145 “babies.” That’s what she calls the continuation high school students she works with in her role as the principal of Central High School. Her personal dedication to these young people’s lives led the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce to choose her as its 2014 Educator of the Year.
“I think she’s a passionate advocate for students who have struggled academically and socially,” said Claudia Rossi, a member of the Morgan Hill Unified School District. Rossi has been involved with Macias-Morriss with various district events including the annual Project Roadmap conference that encourages local students to attend college after graduation. She knows that the principal is so devoted to her “babies” that she will visit students’ home and engage with their families if that’s what is required for their school success.
“She is someone who possesses the insight to intuitively know what they need, and that changes from student to student,” Rossi said. “She’s more than educator. She is their advocate.”
Macias-Morriss recalled when she found out Nov. 19 that she had been selected as Educator of the Year. She was expecting a one-on-one meeting with Chamber president/CEO John Horner that afternoon. She looked out the window and saw a large group of people coming into her Central High School office with Horner. She suggested that they transfer the meeting to the teachers’ lounge where there would be more room.
“John said, ‘We’re going to do it right here,’” she said, describing the surprise announcement of her honor. “He starts talking and his mouth was moving but I’m not registering nothing because the flowers came on one side, the plaque came on another. It’s like: what is this? What is happening here. I was floored….When they said, ‘Irene, this is you’re turn this year,’ it’s like ‘Oh my goodness, I’m amazed.’”
One major reason Macias-Morriss received the honor is her role in bringing Central High School from its former site next to the railroad tracks on Monterey Road to its new site on Tilton Avenue in the Madrone district of Morgan Hill. The new Central High School is a modernized facility in the former Burnett Elementary School site where students and the six full-time and two part-time teachers have access to updated computers and communications system in the remodeled classrooms.
“The kids are so unbelievably excited about this new place,” she said. “The kids are like, this doesn’t even feel like a continuation high school. It feels like a college campus. The kids are more focused and teachers are more focused. They are happier. They ‘own’ this place, keeping it clean because they have a pride in this place.”
Central High School Principal Irene Macias-Morriss crys when she finds out she’s the 2014 Educator of the Year
Macias-Morriss was born in East Los Angeles and started her education career as a teacher in the barrios there. When her husband got a job in Rochester, New York, the couple moved there for five years. Returning to California, she worked as a teacher at Brownell School in Gilroy and later as an assistant principal at South Valley Middle School. She was a principal at P.A. Walsh Middle School in Morgan Hill for 11 years, and has served as principal at Central for the past 10 years.
She has worked hard to change the public perception of students who attend continuation schools.
“I have students here who are very intelligent, who are considered GATE – gifted and talented,” she said. “But they were bored in the high schools and so they shut down and they didn’t get their credits. So now they’re here, they’re able to accelerate and graduate early so they are given a real chance to follow their dream faster. I think our students have a lot of pride. They don’t like the labels that people put on them and so it drives them to show them, ‘We’re like any other students, we’re regular students that have come here to get an education.’”
