photo courtesy of Lick-Wilmerding High School
After almost 50 years as a member of the Lick-Wilmerding High School community, math teacher Beverly Boitano will be retiring at the end of May.
Boitano has lived in the Bay Area her entire life. She attended Mercy High School in Burlingame and returned to teach in Bay Area schools after receiving her credentials. She first heard about LWHS through a friend that worked in the Math department at the school. The friend was moving to Southern California mid-year, and encouraged Boitano to apply to be her replacement. Boitano got the job and began working full-time in 1976.
photo courtesy of Lick-Wilmerding High School
Boitano immediately made an impression on the Math department at LWHS. Although she left the school after her first child was born, she was quickly asked to come back and work part-time. “They let me build my job around my other responsibilities,” she said, explaining that by teaching just four classes, she could take care of her kids and have a life outside of work. Boitano worked full-time again after her son Jonathan left for college, but returned to part-time three years ago.
Since then, Boitano has spent every other day at LWHS. Currently, she teaches three Precalculus Honors sections. She is really committed to her students and often spends her days off prepping for her classes and doing the work she assigns students. “I have all the answers, but I also do the handouts myself,” Boitano said. “So I know what the challenges of the handouts are and I know what I’m asking my students to do.”
She loves working part-time because it gives her more of an opportunity to engage in her passions. She enjoys gardening, sewing, cooking and traveling. She loves driving up and down the coast and stopping in beach towns such as Monterey, Mendocino and Carmel. Whenever she travels, she enjoys visiting museums in the places she goes.
Throughout her time here, Boitano has seen a lot of changes within the community and within herself. Along with witnessing much of LWHS’ campus change, from the library building, to the new cafeteria building and excavating the open field to be the Shops Pit, “the person that arrived here all those years ago is a far different person than I am now,” she said
She believes that her growth is in part because of the culture of the school. “We can choose the topics we want to cover. We can choose the textbooks, this year we didn’t even use textbooks,” Boitano emphasized. She loves the freedom LWHS gave her in designing her own classroom.
Boitano has also learned a lot from her colleagues while working at LWHS. “Working here is a learning opportunity for a teacher as well as a student,” she emphasized. “The ability to collaborate and share ideas and perspectives with colleagues creates a great learning environment.”
Boitano decided to leave LWHS in the middle of this school year, hesitant because she wanted to figure out what she would do after LWHS. She wants to spend time in a position she can engage with and be really involved in. She likes the idea of volunteering at museums or food distribution with her husband.
In the upcoming years, Boitano also plans to spend more time with family. She wants to be more involved with taking care of her mother, who is living with Alzehimers, and with her children and grandchildren.
Math Department Chair Annie Mehalchick commented that Boitano was one of reasons she was so excited to work at LWHS. “While we can barely imagine a department without her, we are so excited for her retirement…and are hoping that she may come back every now and then for some subbing, geometry students would be lucky!”
Boitano says that her colleagues and students have been the reasons she has stayed at LWHS for so long. “You don’t get students like Lick students just anywhere,” she said with a smile.
