When Stephen Sawatzky unexpectedly left DHS after nine years as head of the school’s award-winning choir, it created a large space to fill in our music department. Enter DHS alumni Calista Domingcil.
Miss Domingcil has been teaching choir for three years, starting her senior year of college at Vanguard University. Miss Domingcil has taught from TK-3rd grade at Travis Ranch Elementary to private lessons in anything music. Last year, she was the choir director for Reedley High School.
Even though Miss Domingcil has experience, she also had some difficulties as a teacher. She often moved around, traveling to three different schools. One big difficulty that she has had to overcome is being the new teacher and trying to gain the trust of her students.
“The biggest thing I’ve done to win over my students would be building connections with them and letting them know that I’m also human,” Miss Domingcil said.
She wants her students to be included, engaged, and seen in her classroom. Her teaching style isn’t too different from Mr. Sawatzky’s teaching style. “A lot of my teaching style reflects his as well as my director from college.” In fact, Miss Domingcil got her inspiration to become a music teacher from Mr. Sawatsky and she is happy to have returned to her hometown.
Miss Domingcil is excited to be back at Dinuba High School as she is a 2018 graduate. She grew up in Dinuba and her father is the DHS band director, John Domingcil.
She is looking forward to many things this year. What she is most excited about is the annual Spring Show at the end of the school year, when students are able to perform more pop and modern music. She has yet to reveal the theme.
“I always loved the Spring Show when I was in high school. When I was a senior in high school, Mr. Sawatsky asked me to choreograph the entire show; about fifteen different songs. I had a blast doing it!” she said.
She is in the process of offering a Show Choir class for next school year. This class would be all modern pop music with singing and dancing, similar to the show “Glee”.
Good luck to Miss Domingcil as she navigates her first year on the DHS staff!
