GILROY
– When South Valley Middle School Principal Paul DeAyora named
Kabo Orimoto
”
Teacher of the Month,
”
the running joke between the two men was that the 30-year
teaching veteran just happened to be passing by the front
office.
GILROY – When South Valley Middle School Principal Paul DeAyora named Kabo Orimoto “Teacher of the Month,” the running joke between the two men was that the 30-year teaching veteran just happened to be passing by the front office.
Orimoto was in fact walking by the principal’s office when DeAyora was asked to recommend a teacher who embodies what his school’s educators strive to be like. But for DeAyora, it was just the universe’s way of making an appropriate selection for him.
“Kabo is just a great guy and a great teacher. This is someone that exemplifies ‘team player’ in every way,” DeAyora said. “After all these years he is still passionate and enthusiastic about his job and these kids.”
In his 30th year of educating Gilroy youth – a time when many tenured educators resolve themselves to teaching high achievers or courses they can more or less breeze through – Orimoto, at the request of last year’s South Valley principal, agreed to instruct full-time his school’s lowest performing seventh- and eighth-graders on standardized tests.
The change not only required Orimoto to learn a new academic program covering reading, language arts and social studies, it also put a spotlight on him which many teachers would understandably back away from.
Currently, about half of Gilroy Unified School District’s students perform at grade level on standardized exams. Yet GUSD has promised to improve student test scores so that 90 percent of Gilroy kids perform at grade level, and that won’t happen unless the district’s lowest performers make big strides.
“When we first heard about the goals there was a lot of eye-rolling. And the first year our scores weren’t very good at all. It was like someone ran over your puppy,” Orimoto said. “But the next year the scores went up and slowly but surely the academic climate improved and now there’s a culture at this school that really wants to see the students do well.”
In 2001-02, South Valley Middle School made a significant 21-point jump on the state’s Academic Performance Index. The improvement bested by 12 points the nine-point jump the state required the school to make.
“I think we’re on the verge of another big jump,” Orimoto said. “If I am given the opportunity to teach this class again next year, I’d take it.”
Born, raised and educated in San Francisco, Orimoto, 55, moved to Gilroy in the early 1970s when he was hired to teach at what is now Brownell Middle School. When the middle school moved into the South Valley campus, after the existing high school was built, Orimoto followed along.
“I didn’t make a conscious decision to be at one school my entire career. I just take one year at a time,” Orimoto said.
Earlier in his career, Orimoto used his master’s degree in counseling to work as a school counselor at South Valley. While he enjoyed the job, it didn’t give him the consistent student interaction he still craves.
“I like seeing the same kids every day. You get a better handle on the effects you’re making on them that way,” Orimoto said.
Orimoto recalls a student he bumped into inside a Morgan Hill restaurant not too long ago. The student recognized his former teacher and thanked him for making the students do a project in which they created their own newspaper and discussed current events.
“The student said, ‘Thanks to you I read the newspaper every day,'” Orimoto recalled. “In what other profession do you get that kind of feedback or reward?”
As Orimoto’s retirement – likely in five years – approaches, the changing face of education is noticeable to him in more ways than one. Orimoto said a few years ago he had five students whose parents were also students of his. This year, one of his former students became a math teacher at Gilroy High.
“It’s really wonderful to be a part of something like that,” Orimoto said.
“Things are a little more academically challenging right now than they have been for a while,” Orimoto said. “But for the most part, our job is to learn how kids learn. I’m still learning something new all the time.”
