Photography credit is Jeff Antenore.
Mr. Ezratty, the principal of Tesoro High School for seven years, reflects on his life and ambitions for Tesoro.
“I come from a long line of teachers. My mom and dad were teachers. My grandmother was a teacher,” said Ezratty. However, he had different ambitions when he was younger: “I didn't wanna be a teacher when I was in high school, I really thought I was going to law school.” His ambitions soon changed: “I once worked for a lawyer and I hated it,” but looking back, he believes that he would have enjoyed other sectors of the law, particularly constitutional law. Even today, his peers claim that he looks at situations “like a lawyer,” according to him, because he “look[s] at situations skeptically, ask[s] a lot of questions, and [plays] devil’s advocate” to arrive at the best outcome.
“I started out as a social studies teacher,” Ezratty explains. His teaching career began at Dana Hills High School, then moved to Aliso Niguel High School. Afterward, he became assistant principal and moved to Tesoro High School in 2004 before returning back to Aliso Niguel one year later. After 14 years as an assistant principal of Aliso Niguel, Ezratty finally returned to Tesoro. He expresses extreme contentment about his current school: “I think Tesoro’s an amazing school. I feel really blessed to work here. I think we have amazing teachers, we have amazing kids, we have amazing families.”
Ezratty also values listening: “I wanna listen to everybody, but I especially wanna listen to students. This is their school. They probably have a better knowledge of a lot of things because they’re living it daily.” He elaborates on why: “I want to hear their opinion. They see it differently than teachers sometimes. They see it differently than parents sometimes. They see it differently than our district office sometimes. And so, I always wanna include their perspective.”
The first part of Ezratty’s job is to be the “instructional leader” of the school. He is constantly working with the staff to make the school better and offer more to students. He is incredibly proud of Mrs. Woodward and Ms. Szczudlak's Career Technical Pathway (CTA) to become a teacher. Ezratty appreciates these courses for supplying students with an opportunity to delve into something they enjoy and he hopes to see this program expand in the near future.
Similarly, another hope of his is to improve extracurriculars. Recently, he has overseen the creation of a new esports lab, a jazz ensemble, a choir class and a beginning guitar class. He also believes that electives should reflect the interests of the students: “We should be asking kids, ‘what class do you wanna take?’”
An additional aspect of his job is what he calls “campus beautification.” Whether it be new paint, a new mural, a new track, a new football field or a new baseball scoreboard, Ezratty strives for Tesoro to feel new, sleek and beautiful.
Ezratty sees himself as the “main communication tool to … students, parents, and the community,” sending out weekly bulletins to parents and responding to parents who contact him with concerns.
“My job’s not boring,” exclaimed Ezratty, “I love the energy of students and I love supporting students.” Also, he dispelled the idea that kids are rowdy: “I see what amazing students we have here every day.”
“One thing that’s fun about being a principal is getting to see the amazing stuff that’s going on, whether it’s watching kids in a performance play…, win a soccer game, or an orchestra performance,” exclaimed Ezratty. He enjoyed going to New York with the band and orchestra: “How cool was that. To not only see the kids so excited, but see the parents be excited for their own kids.”
With this, he advises students to get involved because “that makes school so much more fun than just going to your classes, then going home.”
All being said, Ezratty does not take credit for Tesoro’s success: “My job, I think, is to support amazing work and provide people with what they need to be amazing.”
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