Looking Into The Myth

Looking+Into+The+Myth

Since almost the very start of our yearbook, The Myth, in 2005, Mrs. Wertz has been the yearbook sponsor and teacher; she worked on The Myth for 11 of its full editions, even selling out of last year’s edition. At the end of the 2015-2016 school year, she decided to retire.

So, who was the teacher that was left to take Mrs. Wertz’s throne? That teacher was Mr. Cox. He was initially approached by Mr. Gruno and a few other colleagues to become the yearbook sponsor in the wake of Mrs. Wertz’s announcement that the 2015-2016 school year would be her last year as a teacher here at Chavez. When asked why Mr. Gruno thought Mr. Cox would be a good candidate for yearbook sponsor, he said, “I thought Cox would be a good yearbook teacher, because he’s a very hardworking and personable teacher who wants what’s best for the kids. I also just felt that he would really excel at teaching an elective class.” Though Mr. Cox had never thought of being a yearbook teacher or sponsor and had only been a teacher at Chavez for one year at the time, he accepted the offer because he wanted to be a “team player for CCHS” and thought it sounded fun.

Mr. Cox has been teaching in total for about twelve years, but has only been at Chavez for two of those years. He has never been a yearbook teacher at any of the other schools he has taught at, but he was on the yearbook staff while he was in high school. Since Mr. Cox is still fresh to managing a yearbook, he occasionally texts or calls Mrs. Wertz for tips and opinions on ideas he has for The Myth. When asked what he believes has been the biggest difficulty for yearbook as a whole and for himself personally, he stated that the most difficult thing for yearbook as a whole has been figuring out how to manage everything yearbook has to cover and the biggest difficulty for himself has been having to prep for two other classes while managing the yearbook. I also asked him if there was an added pressure to being Mrs. Wertz’s successor since she had been the primary yearbook teacher since the beginning of The Myth and he said, “I haven’t felt any pressure from anybody, but myself to make this really a quality book. That being said, I have really high expectations and sometimes I have to adjust my expectations to match the reality of what we can accomplish this year.”  

In addition to having a new yearbook teacher, most of the yearbook staff is either first-years or second-years. What difficulties has this caused the yearbook staff, if any? When I asked Diana Villalobos, a first-year yearbook student and senior, what the most difficult thing for the yearbook staff to accomplish she said, “The most difficult thing is how the majority of our yearbook staff are first-years so we be struggling!” I followed this question up by asking Diana if it was hard coming into yearbook as a first-year staff member with a first time yearbook teacher and she went on to say, “No it was not hard. He has been patient and open-minded and I feel like if he wasn’t, the class would be a mess. We all [the class and Mr. Cox] work together as a team and help each other overall.” Additionally, Diana mentioned that by being in yearbook, she has learned just how important deadlines and productiveness really are. She added, “You definitely cannot slack off. You are making a book that many students are paying a lot of money for. So, it’s actually a lot of pressure and you want to make everything PERFECT!”  

All of the editors of the yearbook are second years, therefore, they have experienced how it was like working with a more experienced staff and teacher. I asked Yesenia Rivera, the editor of the athletics section of the yearbook and senior, if she thought it was challenging to work with first-year yearbook staff and if the transition between having Mrs. Wertz to Mr.Cox as the yearbook sponsor has been difficult and she stated that, “It hasn’t really been difficult to work with first-years, because the people I have in my group grasped everything quickly. So, it was easy teaching them and some of the first-years do better than some of the people that’ve had yearbook before.” She also went on to say, “The only difficult thing about switching from Mrs. Wertz to Mr. Cox was getting used to the transition and not having access to the schedules, but other than that it’s been good.” She finished by saying, “Obviously, we were going to run into challenges, because it’s his first year and a lot of people are new in the class, but it’s up the editors to teach and guide everyone.”

On that note, support CCHS by buying the 2016-2017 yearbook in our student store!