Evan Spellman is an alumni of VHS who now teaches Math 1 Honors and four sections of Math 2. Spellman has worked at VHS for three years teaching all different types of math, but his favorite aspect of VHS is the kids: “the students are all fun to work with, they’re all interesting, funny, [and] exciting.” Spellman also enjoys being able to work with the staff that is (according to him) very laid back but yet professional.

When he is not engaging students in math criteria, you can find Spellman, “spending time with [my] wife and two daughters. [It] keeps [me] really busy! [I] also enjoy reading, this year my reading list consists of 22 books (only one is about math!).”

While no stranger to the atmosphere at VHS, one thing he has said that has changed since he walked on campus as a student is the fashion, commenting “now I wear skinny jeans but back then I wore “three x” tall baggie white jeans.”

Spellman is part of the Apex program at VHS, which offers students a second chance at making up credits. It is his second and a half year of his participation in the program, where students meet every day after school to study.

He attended UCLA hoping to become a dentist, but his passions changed when he realized he wasn’t very interested in the field: “I had a buddy who was volunteering at a middle school in south LA as a math tutor and he dragged me out there with him one day and I fell in love with working with kids so that’s when I realized I wanted to be a teacher.”

When asked to pick one of his favorite moments teaching at VHS, he said, “ during my first year teaching here I had a really challenging 6th period Math 1 class that was fairly difficult to manage. One day, I wasn’t feeling well and I was pretty burnt out. I decided to try to teach the lesson without talking. It was extremely amusing and by not saying an entire word for the whole class period I had captured their attention and every single student was engaged in the lesson trying to decipher all my hand gestures and facial expressions… good times!”

On top of everything else, Spellman’s overall hope is to be able to make a positive impact in students’ lives and to be someone who kids feel comfortable with to go and talk to about their struggles.