“All students are wonderful. I love learning everyday,” said new Fourth Grade Humanities teacher Ms. Wendy Quezada. Now in her twentieth year of teaching, her passion for the profession began when she was a little girl. She had a classroom in her garage with teacher’s edition textbooks, a blackboard, and chalk. She set up her stuffed animals in chairs as her students. “I think I always wanted to be a teacher,” she said. Ms. Quezada’s journey to becoming an educator was especially inspired by her own fourth grade teacher. Coincidentally, twenty years ago, that same teacher, who had become the school’s principal, gave Ms. Quezada her first teaching job.

Throughout her career, Ms. Quezada has taught various elementary grades, but she particularly loves teaching fourth graders. “Fourth and fifth grade is that nice age where they’re not such tiny little babies anymore, and they’re not exactly teenagers yet. And for me, I just feel really comfortable there,” she said. Most recently, Ms. Quezada taught fourth graders subjects including reading, writing, math, science, and more at Alverno Heights Academy in Sierra Madre. 

At Westridge, Ms. Quezada gets to focus on her favorite subjects, the humanities. “I always taught humanities, and I do love reading and writing the best, I really do… Here it’s really nice that I can just focus on English Language Arts and Social Studies,” she said. Ms. Quezada particularly loves her humanities course about California history. Her own connection to California began in Monrovia, where she grew up, and now continues in Pasadena, where she lives with her daughter, husband, two cats, and two dogs.

Although a large part of Ms. Quezada’s life revolves around teaching, in her free time, she loves to exercise. She enjoys yoga and SoulCycle but mostly jogging. Ms. Quezada has completed several marathons and half-marathons, though she modestly claims that she is not very fast. 

One of Ms. Quezada’s biggest role models was her fourth grade teacher, and at Westridge, she gets to be that inspiring fourth grade teacher herself. Ms. Quezada concluded, “I love [Westridge]. All the teachers and everybody that works here are super welcoming and professional, and every single student of mine and all the others that I pass by are just so friendly and talented. It’s been great.”