Photo by Ava Persaud ’25/The Choate News
At the end of this school year, Mr. Sergio Lopez will be departing after concluding three years at Choate. A beloved Spanish teacher, JV girls’ volleyball coach, and adviser in West Wing, Mr. Lopez has made an impact on Choate in ways that will stick around even after his departure.
Mr. Lopez states that after his first year at Choate, he quickly realized that he wanted to help as many students as he could. He said, “I wanted to be supporting more specific communities that I think need support here. So, from the first year, I volunteered to be an adviser at the all gender housing.” Mr. Sam Jonynas, a fellow adviser in West Wing, said, “Sergio was a wonderful addition to the West Wing advising team. He brought a deep, lasting concern for his students, his good humor and cheer, and his lovely dog, Spice. He will be greatly missed!”
Inside the classroom, Mr. Lopez has made efforts to immerse his students in Latin American culture. Amidst the new academic background of the Covid-19 pandemic, he chose to change the setup and material in his classes by incorporating more inclusive and well-rounded perspectives in his lessons. Mr. Lopez tried to bring in cultural material by women and Latin Americans in order to fully immerse his students in Hispanic culture. Ixchel Hernandez ’23, a student of Mr. Lopez said, “[Mr. Lopez] would constantly play us songs in Spanish to immerse us more into latino culture … one day he played this one song called ‘Cancion Para Mi Muerte’ that everyone loved.” She added, “to this day me and several other classmates still listen to the song.”
Mr. Lopez is very involved outside of the classroom as well. During his time at Choate, he became a leader of SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity), DEC (Driving Equity at Choate), and the instructional tech committee. He said, “It was very clear we were lacking things, small things that we could do that would have a big impact, like adding the pronouns in the directory.” He elaborated, saying, “the part that is also important to me, being an immigrant is like, hey, name pronunciation is important.”
In the future, Mr. Lopez plans to continue living in Connecticut but will teach at a new school. He will be moving to a position at the Hopkins School, where he is bound to make as great of an impact as he did here at Choate.
