November 3, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County High School continued its monthly observance Wednesday of recognizing a teacher, student, and parent or guardian of the month.
Each received a certificate from the school and a gift card for a meal from Twisted Oaks. A different restaurant will be offering a meal gift card to each month’s honorees.
DCHS teacher Chris Vance was selected as Teacher of the Month while 11th grader Serenity Faith Burgess, daughter Joshua and Tristan Burgess, is Student of the Month, voted on by the teachers, faculty, and staff. Viridiana Valencia and Juan Arvizu were chosen as Parents of the Month based on an essay written by their daughter, 9th grader Dana Gonzales.. As part of the nomination process for this honor, each student must submit an essay on why their parent or guardian deserves the recognition.
“This was surprising but nice, “ said Burgess in response to her being named Student of the Month. As Drum Major in the DCHS Band, Burgess said she has a passion for music and hopes to one day become a teacher to make music education a career.
Vance is a veteran teacher having been at DCHS since 1994. He is a Junior and Senior English educator and is over an ACT English prep class. Vance, who is also a former DCHS football and golf coach, said he still enjoys teaching and is honored to receive this recognition. “I started out teaching and trying to take a coaching path and that worked out for a while but as your kids get older you want to spend more time with them and follow what they are doing so that got me out of the coaching end of it. Although its been a stressful time in education with COVID and other things going on there are a lot of really big rewards for being a teacher and every now and then something like this (recognition) comes along that makes it really great,” said Vance.
Gonzales said she was inspired to pay tribute to her parents, especially her mom in an essay to let others know about the sacrifices she made to raise her along with two sisters and a brother. “Because she had to quit school to support us my mom sacrificed her dream job of one day becoming a lawyer. I decided to do something special for her in writing this essay to not only tell what she sacrificed but how we struggled through life. My mom is very caring of us and deserves this award plus so much more,” she said.
Gonzales’ mother, who speaks little English, said only “I am proud of it and I love her (daughter),” when asked how she felt about being named parent of the month at DCHS.