GILROY—Almost everywhere Susan Freiberg goes in Gilroy she runs into someone she knows. Teaching in the same town for 35 years will do that.
Thousands of students have sat in Freiberg’s Gilroy High classroom, learning the verbs that hang on the wall en Espanol. Her foreign language students get a feel for different cultures through her souvenirs—such as piñatas and sombreros—she’s collected through her world travels.
Freiberg’s impact on her students as well as her dedication to her craft, GHS principal Marco Sanchez said, made her the perfect candidate for the Gilroy Unified School District Teacher of the Year Award. The district agreed and Frieberg was presented with the honor Oct. 2 at the Santa Clara County Teacher of the Year Awards ceremony.
“It was a big surprise and I feel really honored,” she said. “To feel honored in that way—I know that people respect teachers and I feel that—but in a program like that, it makes you feel like you’re winning an Emmy award or something. I wish all of the teachers could feel that because it’s well deserved for everyone.”
The Spanish and dual immersion teacher walked home with the award, a gift bag, cash prize and recognition for her work. But winning awards, she said, pales in comparison to the pride she feels every day.
“The rewarding thing has been becoming a part of the community, knowing the community and having people appreciate my class and what they learned,” Freiberg said, noting she’s currently teaching the children and relatives of former students.
Freiberg, who first started teaching in 1979, remembers students such as John Perales—the former Christopher High principal—and former Gilroy Unified School District board trustee Javier Aguirre sitting in her classroom. Based on her warm reception around town and the rave reviews from alumni, her students remember her, too.
“When they (alumni) recall their high school experience, her name comes up very often for being a great instructor and being very well respected,” Sanchez said. “There’s a lot of support from former students of hers as well as current students. … She’s very popular and very well respected.”
Freiberg said she knew she wanted to be a teacher since third grade. Growing up in a family of educators it was the natural choice, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
While earning her credentials, districts began laying off teachers by the hundreds. So, in an effort to make herself marketable, she earned not one, but three teaching credentials in social studies and Spanish as well as a K-12 multiple subject, cross cultural, bilingual credential which allows her to teach any subject in English or Spanish.
“I didn’t sleep more than four hours a night because I was doing three, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Freiberg said. “I said ‘I can do this til’ June. I’m young, I can do it’ and I did.”
Her plan worked. She was hired as a self-contained seventh grade teacher—meaning she taught all subjects—in July 1979 at the then-Brownell Fundamental School that is now Luigi Aprea—just a month after graduation. Freiberg said she made a lot of memories there, but none as unforgettable as the 1984 Morgan Hill 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck at 1:15 p.m.—right in the middle of the school day. The newly minted teacher could barely believe her eyes as the linoleum floors starting rolling.
“It was just waves. All the kids are just like (wide eyed),” Freiberg said. “I go ‘OK guys, let’s get under our desks.’ So we got under the desks and I said ‘just hold on and enjoy the ride. It’ll be fine, you’re under the desks. Look at me, we’re having fun and we’re under the desks’.”
She only spent five years there before the school dropped its junior high program and she was given the choice to bump someone else from sixth grade or work at Gilroy High School. Ever since that day, Freiberg has been a Mustang.
Freiberg now teaches five classes at Gilroy, including upper level Spanish III and AP class Spanish IV. Five years ago, she was tasked with teaching the dual immersion classes—freshmen Global Studies and World History for sophomores, both in Spanish—as she already had the proper credentials to do so. Last year, Freiberg said, was one of her most difficult as she had no prep period and taught a seventh period class until 5 p.m. two days a week, but learning to adapt is something she’s well used to.
“Our kids are learning differently, so we have to teach differently,” she said. “Even though I’ve been doing it for 35 years, it’s not the same; the kids aren’t the same. I’m constantly challenging myself.”
The GHS student body has shown their admiration for Freiberg several times by awarding her with its highest honor: Grand Marshall of the Homecoming parade. While each time has been special, Freiberg said she still gets the chills thinking about the year she was driven around the track with co-Grand Marshall Ken Lewis.
“We’re in the car and we’re waving and we come around the corner and the stands of Gilroy High, they all just stood up and started screaming for us,” she said as a spread across her face. “Ken Lewis, the other teacher, and I were just like ‘woah’. I go, ‘this is what a rock star feels like.’ The applause, it was just quite a tremendous feeling.”
Even with 35 years in the books, Freiberg has no intentions of stopping now. She said she is constantly challenging herself to come up with new, innovative ways to teach her students.
And that’s good news for Gilroy High.
“She is outstanding and it’s been a pleasure working with her,” Sanchez said. “I’m hoping she’ll stick around as long as she can.”
