What makes this teacher awesome? Mr. Waiczis is awesome because he is a great English teacher who actually understands his students. A lot of teachers just care about the grades, but he makes sure that all of his students are safe and doing okay first. He’s just a really chill person to talk to, and he treats us with respect, which makes him stand out from a lot of other teachers I’ve had before. What are some things they do to make you excited to go to class? To be 100% honest, I’m not really excited to go to any of my classes because I don’t like doing schoolwork at all and usually everything is just boring. But Mr. Waiczis makes the lessons interesting enough that I don't dread going there. Even though I’d rather not be doing work, he makes the class feel easy and low-stress, so the time actually goes by faster than in my other periods. How do they let you know that they care about you? He lets us know he cares by always checking in and making sure the classroom is a safe place for everyone. You can tell he’s actually paying attention to how we’re feeling and not just staring at a computer screen. He makes it clear that he’s got our backs and that our safety is the most important thing to him, which makes the whole class feel way better. What do they do to make you a better and more confident student? He makes me more confident because he doesn’t make the English work feel impossible. Since he explains things in a way that actually makes sense, I don’t feel as stressed about messing up. Even though I don't like doing work, I feel better about my skills in his class because he makes it feel like something I can actually do without a huge struggle. How have they supported you inside and outside of the classroom? Inside the classroom, he supports me by making the lessons interesting and being a great teacher who is easy to talk to. Outside of the lessons, he supports us by being a consistent person we can trust. He makes sure the school environment feels safe and welcoming every single day, and that helps me more than just learning English—it makes being at school way easier to handle.