Life is often compared to running a marathon. The early excitement is sometimes replaced by unexpected bumps in the road that temporarily sidetrack a person. At other times, the joy of the moment promises a runner’s high. Ellie Vandiver, a biomedical teacher at University City High School and this year’s San Diego City Schools Teacher of the Year, would concur. When she was 10 years old, Vandiver’s Navy pilot dad died in a car accident. As a twin and one of seven children, she was devastated by the loss. Her mother moved the family to San Diego and they eventually settled in U.C. Before UCHS was built, Vandiver graduated from Clairemont High and went on to SDSU as a sociology major. After she married, she and her husband moved to Denver and then settled in Michigan, where they had three children: Clay, 29, Sam, 26, and Kate, 25. When Kate was in kindergarten, Vandiver followed in the footsteps of her mom and sister and became a nurse. She loved being an ICU nurse. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and was certified in critical care. As a nurse, she was got her introduction to teaching in a high school biomedical program. She had a knack for teaching and latched on to the teens (her own children were adolescents at the time and she knew how to deal with the age group). When the biomedical teacher took another position at the school, she asked Vandiver to apply for her position. With only a week to consider it, Vandiver took the leap — a good decision, but not without its challenges. When divorce put her at a crossroads — and because she missed her family in San Diego — she made another decision: “I wanted to come home.” In 2006, she was back in University City with no job and without having sold her house in Michigan. She remembers sitting at La Jolla Shores one cold day, asking God: “What’s the plan?” That same day, a position opened up at Crawford High — a school where 10-12 different languages are spoken. Vandiver had to give herself a pep talk. “You can do this. You can teach.” (Remembering this, Vandiver’s eyes light up as she talks about a group of her Crawford students that have just graduated from college. They still keep in touch with her.) She spent three happy years at the school. Eventually, her sister pointed her to former UCHS principal Mike Price, who wanted a biomedical program at the school. Vandiver signed on for Project Lead The Way (PLTW), which enhances teaching science, math and engineering to high school students. She was the only nurse among the science teachers in a four-week training program in Baltimore in the summer of 2009. She and the other teachers went to school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with homework) to hone their skills in their respective disciplines. She has returned every summer since for two weeks of intense training. “I wish you could have seen my juniors today isolating a protein from a jellyfish gene. Amazing stuff,” she said, her eyes again lighting up. “When they get to college, they will have already done these things.” Besides the thrill of seeing her students succeed, Vandiver mentors teachers in other schools. With her colleagues in the UCHS science department, they collaborate, offer ideas and help new teachers develop good habits. Vandiver has mentored three teachers in other schools, even switching classes with them at times. “It is good support,” she said. When asked about the fiscal nightmare in the schools going on in San Diego and the state, she has a quick reply: “When I’m here,” she said, pointing around her lab and classroom, “that’s all it’s about. I can’t solve the outside fiscal issues. I save my energy for this. It’s my hands-on approach for student learning, problem solving. In the real world, that’s the way it is … collaborating early on, communicating, being held accountable and building on what you have already learned.” And just how does Vandiver unwind at the end of the day? Yoga helps, but being close to her big family, she said, is most important. “I really didn’t appreciate my mom enough — all she did with having to raise seven children by herself. She was amazing,” she said. “She passed away from heart issues when I was 37. I miss her.” Vandiver reflected for a moment and then jumped right back to the present — and to her students. “My seniors just finished clinical management at Scripps, the VA Hospital and even at a veterinarian clinic at Governor Animal Clinic. At the hospitals these kids saw a kidney transplant, a hip replacement and a mastectomy.” One could say Vandiver is at a good place in her life — her marathon. “I love my life. I feel so lucky. I have core things. I love my job. My mom instilled in us never to forget our brothers and sisters,” she said. “My own children hang out together, go hiking, stay close.” As for the honor of being named Teacher of the Year? “I was doing a DNA lab when the principal came in and told me a student wasn’t breathing well,” she recalled. “He asked me to help, as I sometimes do for the nurse. ‘Did you call 911? Is he blue?’ I asked. ‘Do we need a wheelchair?’ He led me into the large office where all these people were, and I kept thinking, ‘How will I get through the crowd to the student?’ Suddenly I heard ‘Surprise!’ and it hit me. My sister and Jeff had designed this event to tell me I had gotten Teacher of the Year. All my students were there, my own kids, my family. There was cake, flowers. I feel so grateful. I’ve only been at UCHS three years, three years at Crawford, six years in Michigan teaching. People don’t know me very well.” It isn’t true that people don’t know Vandiver very well. Her passion is teaching — and that becomes known instantly to anyone who crosses her path.
