This story is one of three in a series.
MERCED, Calif. — Amber Kirby stood next to a busy street in Hollywood, surrounded by 17 students she had brought to Los Angeles on a March field trip.
The director of the theater program at Golden Valley High School told the gathering of teens she had an announcement.
“I just won teacher of the year,” she said, a big smile curling across her face – out of the entire school district.
The group showered her in applause, hoots and grins, rising above the traffic noise for several seconds.
In a primarily agricultural area, without a lot of opportunities in the performing arts, Kirby sometimes calls Merced County a “creative desert.” Besides high school and community college theater, the most well-known performing arts venue is known as “Playhouse Merced.” And even that, according to local news reports, is having dire financial issues.
Kirby also knows local students face many obstacles, like strong familial ties that are difficult to leave behind, and the struggles of affording a private college in an area where agriculture and healthcare are among the county’s biggest employers.
So Kirby has tried to create a pathway worth attaining for her students. A few years ago, she began annual field trips to Los Angeles, visiting arts colleges and even arranging auditions at some of them.
“If you want to hear artists’ voices from spaces like ours, we've got to make some changes,” Kirby said. “We need to make a bridge between the Central Valley and Los Angeles.”
This isn’t just a profession for Kirby – it’s personal. She credits the arts with saving her from her own struggles earlier in life. She wants her students to have access to the same opportunities she did.
The teaching award is one sign telling her she’s on the right track, she says. Other signs come from her students. While some apply to those schools, and even end up attending, many are brought to tears just by talking about Kirby’s impact on their lives.
Arts as a way to find the ‘spirit of life’
Kirby has taught at Golden Valley High School since 2015, and is head of the Arts, Media and Entertainment education pathway on campus. Theater isn’t her only specialty; she also teaches classes on film and news production, where students produce their own television news broadcasts.
As chair of the school’s theater program, she mentors students through every stage of the production process. In May, for instance, she helped her students build the set for the school’s spring musical, “Legally Blonde Jr.” Together, they sawed the wood, painted the facade like a fraternity house and built the stairs for the actors to use on stage.
Students also say she gives them pep talks when they have doubts, connects them with professional mentors and writes letters of recommendation for their applications to dream schools.
This story is part of a KVPR series called "Landing a Dream," which looks at efforts by high school students at a Merced high school to pursue careers in the arts.
The announcement that Kirby had been named top teacher in Merced Union High School District came in March. In a social media post announcing the award, the school district said Kirby “has consistently gone above and beyond in her commitment to student development.”
“Her innovative approach to teaching theater arts ignites creativity and confidence in her students, allowing them to excel both on stage and in life,” the post said. “Amber’s dedication to career and technical education has opened new pathways for students, preparing them for success beyond the classroom.”
But although she grew up in Merced and has been in the local art scene since she was a preteen, Kirby’s path to where she is today wasn’t straight and narrow.
When she was in middle school, her dad wasn’t in the picture, and her mom battled addiction and mental health conditions. At one point, she wasn’t living in a stable home.
“I had a really tough life,” Kirby said. “I wasn't talking. I had no voice.”
She felt a shift when a librarian introduced her to spoken word poetry, and then a teacher exposed her to theater.
“They put the spirit of life back in me,” she said.
Dreaming about becoming an actress or a creative writer, she acted in theater productions during school, and studied English literature at UC Merced. In her twenties, she sang, wrote songs and played bass in a folk band named El Olio Wolof, and also worked a handful of art-related odd jobs like teaching poetry to kids and adults with disabilities at the Multicultural Arts Center in Merced.
Now, as a teacher, it’s her life mission to give the “spirit of life” back to her students.
“I do what I do because I had teachers that did this for me,” she said.
To students, she’s ‘a second mother’
The Los Angeles trip culminated with an afternoon at the Dockweiler State Beach. The wind howled, kicking up sand into hair and clothes as the students circled around Kirby and the two other teachers who chaperoned the trip.
Handing Kirby a mock Academy Award with the label “Best Mom,” each student explained how the school year and the trip had changed them. As Kirby and the other teachers sat listening, not a dry eye could be seen.
“You shaped us all into young stars,” said graduating senior Isiah Ramirez. “We will soon be holding golden trophies, thanking you on stage for everything that you did for us. You shaped our lives and we love you like a second mother.”
In the fall, Ramirez and another student are headed to one of the colleges they visited, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. They said these next steps are proof of Kirby’s efforts.
On another afternoon, Kirby invited a handful of students to provide testimonials for a video as part of an application for another teaching award. Students said that, thanks to Kirby, they’ve developed new passions, and even new dream careers.
That includes graduating senior Jacquelin Ortega-Barajas, who said she was inspired to become a costume designer because of Kirby.
“I really never had a teacher who went above and beyond for kids,” she said, choking up as the camera rolled.
Another graduating senior, Angelina Romero, said Kirby’s classroom was a home away from home.
“This was somewhere where you could leave and just know that you are loved and accepted, and that’s just the biggest thing that Kirby has taught us–that we will always be loved,” she said.
Kirby said she was blown away by the show of affection at the beach. She said hearing her students’ words of praise was more important to her than any other professional accomplishment, including her award from the school district.
“Getting that [teacher of the year] award doesn't compare at all to all the kids saying all that,” Kirby said. “That was so beautiful and so moving.”
She’s grateful for the award, of course, but she really wants more kids to feel the way her students feel, she says.
“I'm accomplishing my mission,” Kirby said. ”It gives me value. It makes my life feel good.”
