Mrs. Peñaranda to leave ASL after 19 years of teaching

Photo by Emily Forgash

Mrs. Peñaranda, middle school Spanish teacher, will leave ASL at the end of the school year.  Mrs. Peñaranda has worked at ASL for 19 years, and she will be deeply missed by the entire ASL community.  

Mrs. Peñaranda has affected many people in the ASL community.  Aziz Ahmed, Grade 8, said, “She really helped us become better students.”  Along with the students, Mrs. Peñaranda has affected and will be missed by many teachers.  “Mrs. Peñaranda is a fantastic teacher,” said Mr. Alvarez, middle school Spanish teacher.  “She’s got everything in place.  She really knows what the students need. It’s going to be a great loss for the World Language department and I will miss her a lot.”

Over the years, Mrs. Peñaranda has perfected the Spanish World Language trip to Valencia which she started. “On the Valencia trip, Mrs. Peñaranda really helped us go around to all of the sights all day,” said Ahmed. “She was really brave to go up all of the steps.”  During the Valencia trip, Mrs. Peñaranda climbed up hundreds of steps to the top of the cathedral to be with the students.

When she leaves ASL, Mrs. Peñaranda said that she is purposefully not planning to start something new.  “I’m looking forward to actually not having plans at the beginning,” she said. “When you’re working at ASL you’re so busy, it’s very hard to make plans.  I will spend the first few months deciding what I want to do, and just enjoying not having a strict timetable.”  

Mrs. Peñaranda will be going to Spain for a month, the day that middle school students return for the new school year.  “I really like the idea to travel when it is not so busy,” said Mrs. Peñaranda.  She will be going to Spain for two to three months a year, on short and frequent visits to her daughter in Madrid.  

Mrs. Peñaranda has some ideas of how she wants to spend her time when she leaves ASL. “I want to start teaching adults, I want to spend a lot of time gardening, and I want to make wedding cakes on a more professional basis.” Once Mrs. Peñaranda leaves ASL, she will still stay in contact by subbing.

Over the course of her 19 years at ASL, Mrs. Peñaranda has seen many different phases of the school. “Before we had the eight day cycle, we saw our students every day for 45 minutes.  It took quite a lot of getting used to. In the previous schedule, you saw the students at the same time every day.  Seventh grade were always the first class of the day, and they were half asleep.  That wasn’t so good!”  

Mrs. Peñaranda also remembers the start of the laptop program, and how different that was at the time.  “I remember my first couple of years when it was still the last century.  Students had to learn how to write the date, and they were having to write 1999 [in Spanish].  I was looking forward to the year 2000, when it was so much easier for them!”

About Eli Nilson ('21)

News Editor (2016-2017)

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