When a teacher goes above and beyond his call of duty

Now for those of you who don't know, the majority of my senior year was 100% dedicated to two different departments: The art department... and the theatre department. Now I know senior year is late to get into theatre but to be perfectly honest, I always wanted to before my senior year but couldn't because of commitments to track and cross country. After my junior year, I got fed up with track and quit that team, finished my last season of cross country (as team captain for the girls team and warm up leader), and officially joined the National Art Honor Society. Now, I had been struggling for a long time with anxiety and depression, and the one person who made me feel safe at school had left at the end of my junior year. In November, I met someone who would change my life just as much as that other teacher had, but in so many different ways.

November of 2011 I met Neil Truglio, the theatre teacher at Eaglecrest High School. I didn't know it at the time but he would change my life like he would all of the students that he taught and worked with in the theatre department. I don't trust easily but Neil is one of those people you can't help but trust. He is one of those teachers who can see the untapped potential in his students and push them beyond what they think that they can do. He can show the students he works with that it's okay to push on the boundaries and rules, because that's how you grow as an artist.

Now I'm in college as an Art Major but what I learned from Neil... I don't think I will ever be able to learn from anyone else. I learned so much about myself as a person, and I can take some of the lessons that I learned in the one theatre class I was able to take as a senior, and the lessons I learned from him.

Neil is also one of those teachers who actually seems to care about his students. Now I'm not saying that every single teacher only cares about their students to the bare minimum, but Neil goes above and beyond what a normal teacher does. It doesn't seem to matter how late he stays after or what he seems to have going on in his life. If he sees that one of the students that he teaches and works with is in need of an ear for them to talk to and a shoulder for them to cry on, he's there. I can say that he has probably saved a few of those students from an irreversable decision, including myself. I can safely say that Neil is safety for a lot of kids, kids who feel like they aren't safe from the darkness in their minds and of their lives.

Now, the angry portion of the post: When you say that they can use certain things for the show (set pieces etc), especially ones that are actually quite important for a show like Alice in Wonderland, and then REVERSE said decision after the show has already opened, that is when things will get ugly. Neil would NEVER EVER do ANYTHING that would harm a student. If he knew that, no matter if the student practiced being safe on said set piece, if the set piece and how it would be utilized would hurt the student no matter what, HE WOULDN'T DO IT! Neil would never purposely do something that would harm a student. And then when you suspend him and then let the principle of the school tell students and parents alike that he didn't WANT to be at the show, that will light a fire that would be hard to contain. I know Neil and I know that he would 100% want to be there at the closing show, no matter how crappy the other three shows may have gone! He would be there for the students.

Neil cares so much more about his students and all of his students are close to him. So when you lie to them, and to former students, about him not wanting to be there, we know you're lying.

You get rid of Neil and all of the progress and success of the theatre department since he started working at Eaglecrest would go down the drain. You would take away someone who can take an artist and show them how far they can go, when they are just in high school. You would take away someone who actually sincerely cares about his students. You would take away a friend for so many people. Why would you take away someone that is the embodiment of what a teacher should be for the students? Why take away someone who is actually building up your theatre program and leaving a foundation for future students to take and grow?

Art is about bending the rules, about breaking the rules. It's about time that someone does that but now you want to take him away. I hope that the administration of Eaglecrest High School knows that #TeamNeil is stronger and bigger than they may have anticipated. We won't go down without a fight. We won't give up on keeping him in that school. Eaglecrest needs Neil. Those students need him. Don't take him away from them.

NEVER STOP. NEVER SETTLE. NEVER QUIT. NEVER BE SATISFIED. GOOD ENOUGH IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH