Originally published in TEACH Magazine, May/June 2021 Issue
By Abigail Smurr
“Welcome to the Wildcat family!” said a friendly voice on the other end of the phone. It was the spring of 2019 and Tim Liles, Principal of Sunnyside High School in Fresno, CA, had just informed me that I’d been hired as an ELA teacher.
We had met a few weeks earlier at my job interview. He was a tall, slightly balding man, and he’d greeted me with a big smile on his face. During the interview, he was personable and straightforward, and made an effort to make sure I felt comfortable.
Abigail Smurr currently teaches at Sunnyside High School as an 11th grade ELA teacher. She received her MA in Curriculum and Instruction from California State University of Fresno in 2019.
