For new English teacher and cross country head coach Hannah Batchelor, her path toward joining the education profession took longer than usual – four years, in fact.
Even though she grew up with family members working in public schools, Batchelor said she wanted to pursue other interests.
“I was like, ‘No, I want to do something else,’” she said.
In her senior year at Brea Olinda High School in Brea, two of Batchelor’s favorite classes ended up being Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition and Environmental Science.
“[English is] a subject I always enjoyed and did well in,” the new instructor said. “My two favorite books that I read in high school were The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby; they both explored a lot of the human condition and different experiences that people can have in society and culture.”
Interestingly, Batchelor said she enjoyed exploring what some might view as the polar opposite of language arts.
“Science was really interesting to me, and I really liked being able to study something that was so atypical,” she said.
So, after graduating in 2016, Batchelor said she ended up choosing to major in English when she enrolled at Mt. San Antonio College [Mt. Sac]. After obtaining an associate of arts degree in that subject, she enrolled in California State University, Long Beach, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and policy.
Four years later during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she completed her undergraduate work in that major and decided to attend graduate school at California State University, Fullerton, where she earned a master’s degree in environmental studies two years later in 2022.
It was within those two years that the idea of interacting with students like some of her family members have been doing came back to mind. To pay for the cost of her graduate school tuition, Batchelor said she took on a job as a long-term substitute teacher and assistant cross country coach at her alma mater.
She cited her time babysitting her Mt. Sac cross country coach’s two children in helping her transition to working in a school environment.
“I already liked working with kids, so it wasn’t a huge jump,” Batchelor said.
She said she applied to be a substitute teacher for the Brea-Olinda Unified School District in 2020 since she wanted a job that followed COVID-19’s protection orders. She continued to work as a substitute teacher at her alma mater for three and a half years.
“My journey was about finding my place and what I wanted to do,” Batchelor said. “I knew I wanted to make the world a better place. That’s why I went into environmental science.
“But it was about realizing that that’s a really stressful field.”
The English teacher and new cross country head coach said she realized that she wanted to help people more one-on-one and was drawn to having an impact in and out of the classroom.
She said her interaction with students as a long-term substitute teacher also played a major role in her decision to switch her focus to education as a career.
“This is a good way to make the world a better place and something that I think is really fun, and it’s more direct,” said Batchelor, who substitute taught in subjects ranging from science in 2021 and English in 2022.
She said she especially found it emotionally difficult to see her spring 2022 English class come to an end.
“I was so sad that the class was over, and I wouldn’t get to teach anymore, and I was supposed to go into another field,” Batchelor said. “I was like, ‘This is really where I want to be and what I want to do.’”
FROM WILDCAT TO LANCER
Ironically, the instructor opted to get her first full-time teaching job at Sunny Hills instead of her alma mater.
“I wanted to be in a new place and have new experiences,” Batchelor said.
To obtain that goal, she earned her English teaching credential in December 2023 from National University in Costa Mesa. And then five months later in May, when searching on edjoin.org, a website that lists job openings in public education in California, she said she found out about the possible openings at Sunny Hills for a cross country head coach and English instructor. The latter position was open after English teacher Tom Wiegman retired at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.
Batchelor said she interviewed for the cross country head coach position first before she had her interview with principal Craig Weinreich for the English teaching job.
“I felt pretty confident about my interview,” she said. “But still there’s always the uncertainty of whether or not the people on the other side of the table were as excited about it as you were.”
Weinreich said Batchelor was at the right place at the right time when she submitted her application for the two positions.
“We had an English opening,” he said. “Then, [Batchelor] stepped into that spot, and it was a nice, easy fit for her there.”
After her English interview, Batchelor said she was offered to teach one session of English 1 for summer school, and she accepted that opportunity as well.
“It was a really good experience to be able to meet some people on campus, get to know some of the students and get ready for the school year,” she said.
Batchelor said she also had a positive first impression of Sunny Hills because of the Fullerton community and encouraging colleagues.
“When I told them [family and friends] I got the job here, [everyone] was really excited for me and kept telling me, ‘That’s such a good school district and high school,’” she said. “So, all positive things.”
POSITIVE STUDENT FEEDBACK
Batchelor teaches zero period English 1 Honors and second and fourth period English 3. She also started the semester teaching third-period Academic Intervention – a course that helps incoming freshmen who struggled in middle school to help them with literacy skills – but halfway through the first quarter, she said her assignment got switched to teaching an English Language Development 4 class.
Since the start of the semester, she has not been able to have her own classroom. The plan was for her to teach in Room 154, but the district’s Adult Transition Learning class had to use that space because of delay in the completion of the new ag building at the farm, where Adult Transition is usually held in Room 203.
In the meantime, she has had to teach her zero, third and fourth period classes in English teacher Suzanne Boxdorfer’s classroom, Room 33, and English teacher Randy Wellen’s classroom second period in Room 11.
But by Monday, Oct. 21, she’s scheduled to move into Room 154 in the back of the campus near the west parking lot because the new ag building was ready for students and teachers to move in last week.
So far, some of Batchelor’s junior English students say their instructor has been handling her first semester quite well.
Junior Melina Ciorogariu, a student in her fourth period English 3 class, said Batchelor challenged the class right away with reading and wanted to see their skills.
“She relates to the students,” Ciorogariu said. “She’s not harsh or mean if they talk in the background.”
Junior Melina Garcia, who is also in Batchelor’s fourth period English 3 class, agrees, adding, “She’s very to-the-point. It’s very easy to understand her.”
Some of the freshmen in her zero period class also appreciate her knowledge of the subject.
Freshman Devon Nunez, a student in her zero period English 1 Honors class, said he feels Batchelor could help him see the deeper meaning in what the class is reading.
“I feel like she could help me a lot with that because of her way of teaching,” Nunez said. “She makes it very interactive, and she’s very open and willing to help you if you have any problems.”
Freshman Declan Yoo, another English 1 Honors student in her zero period, said Batchelor does a good job explaining literary terms.
“She provides many examples for the terms that may be confusing and makes us apply the terms in literary analysis responses like to passages or short stories,” Yoo said.
FROM RUNNER TO COACH
While substitute teaching at Brea Olinda, Batchelor said she also worked part time as an assistant coach for the junior varsity and frosh soph cross country teams.
Jacob Holloway, the previous cross country head coach, passed down his experience to Batchelor when she first started coaching in the summer, she said.
“He was a really great example for the athletes and was a really good coach for them,” the new coach said. “It’s big shoes to fill, so I wanted to make sure I was being respectful of the team he had built when I came in.”
In her first meeting with returning cross country runners, Batchelor said she mentioned experience in the sport: competing since her freshman year of high school and throughout college, where she ran the 5K in cross country at Mt. Sac and Cal State Long Beach.
At Mt. Sac, she was usually among the Top 7 among the traveling squad, Batchelor said.
After experiencing being a cross country runner and coach, she said her coaching philosophy is to encourage athletes to be excited about being a part of the team and to work together.
“I learned that the work you put into things is what you can get out of them; it’s OK if you’re not excellent when you first start,” Batchelor said. “And honestly, it’s OK if you’re not excellent by the end — it’s about learning more about yourself and pushing through things.”
Athletic director Paul Jones, who was on the new coach’s hiring panel along with English teacher and co-department chairman Thomas Butler and assistant principal Heather Bradley, said he was impressed with what Batchelor brought to the table.
“She was so prepared for the interview and had handouts for us, and she was discussing the different mileage and running programs for cross country students, and that was awesome,” Jones said.
Likewise, cross country runners including three-year varsity runner junior Mia Gonzales, said they appreciate Batchelor’s enthusiasm.
“I think she truly believes that everyone can have a good season or that we are going to do good,” Gonzales said. “She’s really motivating, very positive.”
Freshman Charlie Muñoz, who has entered his first season of cross country, said Batchelor pushes him to do better.
“My first impression of coach Batchelor was positive,” Muñoz said. “She had a plan for all of us and wants us to reach that goal.”
GOALS IN THE CLASSROOM AND BEYOND
Batchelor said her goal this year is to help her students to think critically and to clearly communicate.
“I just really love helping people analyze things on a deeper level,” she said. “With English [literature], you can teach empathy; you’re just able to instruct more social skills in a way that you can’t with some of the hard sciences.”
In addition, she said another plan is to maintain a balance between her subject and sport — she wants to figure out the right amount of time she should spend on each.
“It’s kind of like a journey trying to figure out what the right balance is,” said Batchelor, who enjoys embroidery, gardening and thrifting in her free time. “So, my goal is to hopefully figure that out this year and be ready for next year.”
