Geoffrey Land named county teacher of the year
Land has been a social studies teacher for the past 25 years
– Paso Robles Joint Unified School District has announced that the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District 2022 Teacher of the Year, Geoffrey Land, Social Studies teacher at Paso Robles High School, has now been chosen as the County Teacher of the Year. The news was shared by the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education earlier this month.
Every year the county office of education selects from district nominees that complete the California Department of Education State Teacher of the Year application by July. District nominees must meet the criteria established by the department of education for this program to be eligible. The SLO County office participates in this program to, “recognize the contributions of the teachers and the excellence in instruction and educational support that teachers strive to provide the students.”
Land has been a social studies teacher for the past 25 years. He is a teacher with a record of student devotion, concrete campus impact, and lasting influence. Boundless energy, intelligence, wit, creativity, and humility typify Land’s presence. He has created significant, inclusive student events that spotlight relevant cultural concerns and safely give students a voice: he organized the Coming Out Against Hate Forum (Oct 2021), A Night for DACA Dreamers (Apr 2018), the first
PRHS Baile (Mar 2022), Passage to Paso (Mar 2016), and similar protests, walk-outs, teach-ins, and celebrations.
Students in his classes credit him with boosting their sense of identity and their faith that they can make a difference in the world by listening, organizing, and speaking for change. Land modeled these ideals when he lobbied across multiple Board of Trustees meetings for an Ethnic Studies elective course (Feb through April 2021); he was convinced that students wanted and needed a fair chance to examine inequalities latent in American culture and study sources not found in traditional coursework.
Land’s dedication to PRHS also shows in the plethora of his roles: activities director, ACT club adviser, department chair, global environmental options (GEO) class trip leader, faculty band leader (he plays almost every instrument), and faculty compliments leader. Land led the Williams Wing renaming campaign (2015) in honor of his colleague Gregg Williams. He was a founding planner of the PRHS Field Studies Collaborative, a program sending students to work and science-based projects with professors and field experts to places such as Santa Cruz Island, Joshua Tree, and even to Paso’s Walmart parking lot that paved over a Native American sacred site. Land’s teaching reflects a true love for his students and their background, a love that’s made incredibly deep given his profound intellect, poetic verbal skill, and infectious faith in the human spirit.
Land is now a State Teacher of the Year nominee.
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