BY ISRAEL MALDONADO

Ellen Lopez is one of the many new teachers here to help at WCHS. Lopez is a graduate from San Gabriel High School and three different colleges, UCLA, CAL State LA, and Point Loma Nazarene University. Though she is new here, she is not new to teaching. She has been teaching for 24 years at Walnut Grove Intermediate School. She was the Special Ed teacher there, and she doesn’t plan on changing that here.

“I wanted to become a teacher once I started volunteering at my mother’s special ed class,” Lopez said, “And my future goals here at WCHS is the beginning of our community based instruction program and to get to know the WCHS family.”

Lopez teaches a variety of subjects for special ed students and she is very friendly, just like the bulldogs, so she fits in perfectly.  

“Everybody here is so welcoming and always wanting to help me and my students” Lopez said.

Besides working here at WCHS, some of Lopez’s hobbies are running 5ks, gardening, and on her free time, she enjoys watching movies, reading, and watching her children play sports.

“I love how happy my students get when they master a new skill and when they learn something new that will help them throughout their life” Lopez said.

Obviously, the best thing Lopez enjoys here is putting smiles on students’ faces.