PE............Physical Education

Students have two periods of Physical Education every week in their prep period. Teachers are supposed to provide one class period a week of physical education besides the prep PE. Mark Simmons was the long term PE coach from the early 1980's to 2004 when he moved to Alvarado Middle School. In 2004 Joe Fitzgerald became the coach with the assistance of Coach Zapata. Students must bring a note from their parents if they are required to skip physical activities for a health reason. All students are required to participate in warmup exercises for about 10 minutes at the beginning of every class. Students have instruction on how to play a variety of sports including basketball, volleyball, and tetherball. Before playing they had to learn the rules of each sport. Students also had a month of square dancing. In PE students develop their listening skills, learned to follow directions, and bond with other students while developing good sportmanship skills.

Mark Simmons

Joe Fitzgerald

Chris Zapata

Late 1980's

Hector Caraballo retired and Julia Strong (Yoho) became the principal of Alvarado Elementary in 1989. Hector had been a strong principal who basically made most of the decisions. Julia had long experience in education. It was a change for the staff when Julia asked for input. The staff was used to Hector making the decisions without much input. Around 1985 Rhonda Neagle became the media specialist/librarian. Nancy Mumm was a volunteer parent and a noon supervisor. Betty Silva became aide in 1986. At that time there were 4 other aides. They were Diane Angelo, Irene Galvan, Elenore Yip, and Jackie Lomax.

Rhonda Neagle was hired by Hector Caraballo as the media specialist in 1987. According to Rhonda, Roger Hoyer, the technology director at the district office, and Guy decided to move the district in the direction of the dot com revolution and worked hard to make it happen from the mid-1980s on. Part of Rhonda's job was to help them do this. Teachers did not have computers in their room. The school had a few Commodore Pets and a few Apple IIgs in the staff room.

Rhonda recalls, "I first met Stephen Politzer at AE. He was a Curriculum Leader then (I think that's what they were called) and he taught me how to use the Commodore Pets that I had in the media center (two or three of them). He and I also ran the site Technology Team. The software titles that were available for the Macs were few and far between. I do remember Dazzle Draw and all of the MECC stuff though like Oregon Trail. Those were fun times."

Julia Strong-Yoho Principal
Tess Melendez Assistant Principal
1989-1990
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