Ms. Vanessa Villegas is a new English teacher in Glendale High School. Currently, she lives in Paramount, California, and she attended Cal State Dominguez Hills. She is motivated by seeing her students’ successes and teaching them to persevere through challenges. A fun fact about her is that she has a phobia against snakes.

Ms. Villegas describes herself as “patient, caring, and persevering.” At a very young age, she realized that she wanted to be a teacher, because she played around with her cousin using a board that her parents bought and pretended that she was a teacher. 

Ms. Villegas has worked in education for 7 years now, and the best thing about her job is that “it’s not always mundane.” She says that there is “always something different to learn” about her students. 

Before she moved to teaching in Glendale High School, Ms. Villegas was a 7th grade teacher of ELA and ELD. Additionally, she wanted to teach high school again, because she had a hard time relating to middle schoolers. When she saw an opening in Glendale High School, she jumped at the opportunity.

Ms. Villegas feels that she is still learning about Glendale High School. Even though it is her first year teaching here, she recognizes that it “has a big caring community,” and she enjoys learning about students and helping them.

Ms. Villegas likes to spend time with her family and go to the movies. If she did not end up a teacher, she wanted to be a business owner, because she wanted to have her own company.

When the future comes, Ms. Villegas either wants to continue teaching ELD or become an ELD coordinator, because she has been teaching ELD or ELA for so many years. Either way, she definitely wants to continue teaching English Language Learners. Additionally, if she could leave a message for her future self, it would be the following: “Don’t second-guess yourself, [and] don’t stress yourself too much.”