Leila Schutz:
CLASS OF 1972
David Starr Jordan High SchoolClass of 1972
Long beach, CA
Woodrow Wilson High SchoolClass of 2001
Los angeles, CA
Woodrow Wilson High SchoolClass of 2001
Los angeles, CA
Whaley Middle SchoolClass of 1969
Compton, CA
Mayo Elementary SchoolClass of 1966
Compton, CA
Leila's Story
Life
I think things only gets better as you get older. Time has been good to me and I'm very happy with my life. Looking forward to the years before me, I anticipate great things. I have 3 boys (2 sons and 1 nephew that I raised). They have kept me busy for a long time but they are grown now and two of them are married. Someday I'll get to be a grandmother and I can't wait for that day. My days are very busy. I'm a high school English teacher and I love it. My specialty is American Literature and Composition. I'm married to a wonderful man, Jerry Schutz. Jerry grew up in Long Beach, among other places, and graduated from Poly High School. He is a software developer. This is my second marriage and I think this time I finally got it right. I still live in Southern California within a few miles from where I started out. My life journey hasn't taken very far at all. I was born in Compton, then moved to Long Beach, then Redondo Beach, and now I live in Torrance with Jerry. With fewer responsibilities since I no longer have to take care of children, Jerry and I have been able to do some traveling, fulfilling one of my lifelong dreams. We've been as far away as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. We were lucky to be able to visit the Arab world in March of 2001 before the tragedy of 9/11. One of my favorite trips was to Paris for Easter of 2003 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of our relationship. Recently we have discovered cruises and our next cruise will be to Alaska in the summer of 2008. I may not have moved far from where I was born, but how can you go wrong here by the sea? California is a paradise. Life is great.
School
I am a product of the public school system. I attended kindergarten through the 6th grade at Mayo Elementary School in Compton, California. After that came Whaley Junior High School also in Compton for the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Compton had changed by 1969 when I finished the 9th grade and I moved to Long Beach, California just a few miles south where I attended Jordan High School until my graduation, with honors, in June of 1972.
Workplace
My name is Leila Schutz. It used to be Leila Brandt but things changed in 99. Most of my working career has been in the classroom. I work for LAUSD now and have since 1986. I...Expand for more
began with LA as an intern teacher and I am grateful for the opportunity that program gave me to enter the teaching profession without having to return to the university for a credential. I taught for one semester at Locke High School in South Central Los Angeles. At the beginning of the spring semester of my first year teaching for LA in 1987 I transferred to Wilson High School in El Sereno on the other side of the city. I stayed at Wilson for many years and loved my time there even though it was a long drive from my home in Redondo Beach. After my divorce and remarriage in 1999 I moved to a new home in Torrance and realized that I could no longer drive the long freeway commute up to Wilson that I had driven for so many years. In the fall of 2000 I transferred again, this time to Carson High School which is just a short 15 minute ride on side streets from my home. Before working for Los Angeles, I worked briefly for Lynwood Unified School District as a substitute teacher. Before teaching I dabbled in working as a buyer for Northrop, Rachelle Laboratories and Deutsch Mfg. I've also been a technical writer for American Honda.
September 2014 Update
Not much has changed for me except that now I am retired from my career teaching senior high school English. Life is busy every day and I can't imagine how I found time for teaching all those years. My husband is still working and doesn't plan on retiring until he's 65 in three years. We may make bigger changes then.
I have a couple of plans in the planning stages. One is an educational non-profit, Yotta Basics, intended to bring robotics onto school campuses who don't have the resources to purchase the necessary equipment and to bring in engineering advisors to advise teachers and train them in the field of robotics. I am no engineer but my son is and I'm establishing the non-profit in order to facilitate his vision. We paperwork for 501c3 status is pending. I hope that next time I do an update here we will have made significant progress on this plan. I am also in the early planning stages of an internet needlepoint canvas business, leilasneedlepoint.com. I haven't launched the site yet buy have my fingers crossed that I will be able to do that soon. The needlepoint business is for me.
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