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Schools

Anonymous Thanks Surprise Teacher

El Camino High's Sevana Panosian enjoys a tribute that came as no surprise to admiring students and colleagues.

El Camino High School teacher Sevana Panosian has another accolade to add to her classroom wall, already strewn with student pictures and handwritten notes of appreciation: a certificate from an incoming U.C. Santa Barbara student who nominated her as the teacher with the greatest impact on her life.

“It was really a surprise,” Panosian said. “I’m never expecting these things or nomination. I don’t even know which student it was.”

UC Santa Barbara began the award in the mid-1990s. There is no selection process, essay requirement and no winners or losers. The majority of teachers are chosen from California, although some work internationally.

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“For us it’s a way of recognizing the important work that high school teachers do,” UC Santa Barbara’s communications manager Charles Champlin said. “We want the teachers to know.”

The student who nominated Panosian chose to remain anonymous.

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This year, 660 certificates and letters were sent to high school teachers named by first-year students as “most influential.” About 14 certificates were sent to teachers in San Francisco or South San Francisco.

But if the tribute took Panosian by surprise, it astonished no one else who knows her.

Students call her “Mama Panosian” or “Mama P” because she is so nurturing, English department chair Mary Sobrero said.

"She’s like a mother figure," said former student Jessica Reyes, who took Panosian her junior year for English College Prep. "I got more support from her than my own family to stay in school. My little cousin goes to school there and I hope she gets Ms. Panosian.”

Former Principal Adele Berg of El Camino High School remembers interviewing Panosian five years ago and said she knew immediately that her good energy and communication skills were qualities she wanted in a teacher at the school.

“She has an energy kids connect to and there is an obvious mutual respect and trust,” Berg said. “She absolutely is outstanding.”

Berg said she saw Panosian emerge each year as she taught, embracing the school’s mantra of the 3-R’s of education – Rigor, Relevance and Relationships, by contributing her own time outside working hours to share curriculum with new teachers and help students with their college admission essays.

“I just love what I do and sometimes I wonder why I get paid for it,” Panosian said. ”We’re making an impression and hopefully it is a positive one.”

Panosian has an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She was a nominee and finalist out of six teachers for the California League of High Schools Educator of the Year in 2009-2010 for outstanding work on behalf of high school students in Region 4.

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