by Jessica Fee
Editor-in-Chief
    “Every teacher puts on a persona. When they’re in their classroom, that’s their façade,” said teacher Kevin Rogers.
He is a hilarious, cynical AP Comparative Government and Economics teacher. She is a strict, sarcastic English 12 AP teacher. Paris De Soto and Rogers met as two of the only new teachers 11 years ago, and bonded over their shared love of literature, teaching, and Starbucks.

    De Soto and Rogers live in a house with their one child, Sufi (part shepherd, part American Indian sled dog), in Campbell where they are free from constant encounters with students. “We’re childless because Rog has to support his Starbucks ‘habit’” joked De Soto as she sipped on her own Venti Black Iced Tea with four pumps classic syrup. “He gets a drink and a baked good two times a day, that’s eight dollars, seven days a week, four weeks a month, which comes out to be over 200 dollars for one individual!”

    The two began dating while living in downtown Los Gatos, but said that it was much more of a difficulty than they had expected. “Los Gatos is like a fish bowl. Students would see us together and it would be like a celebrity sighting!” Rogers explained. Nine years later, in an attempt to avoid the constant identification, the couple moved to Campbell.

    The two can often be seen sitting grading papers together in the Starbucks on North Santa Cruz Ave. Because both teach seniors, there is often an overlap of students. “Sometimes we compare notes,” said Rogers, “if I [am grading papers, and] feel like I can’t be fair, if I’m in a bad mood or don’t agree with the person’s opinion, I’ll have De Soto take a look. We give each other a reality check.”

Aside from couple life, the two talked about the personas they have in the classroom. “As a teacher, I’m much more extroverted,” explained De Soto. “She really comes out of her shell [in the classroom]” added Rogers. De Soto explained herself as a teacher who is consistent in her grading and disciplinary policies, but that in real life she is “not so consistent…If it was up to me, if there was no curriculum, we would just play games and talk all period,” said De Soto, “but I am really driven in my responsibilities as a teacher.”

    Outside of the classroom, De Soto is an independent educational consultant and a competitor in triathlons. She graduated from Yale University and got her master’s at Rutgers. Although she took a break after twisting her ankle in February of 2006, an injury that turned into unattached tendons and a bone spur removal, De Soto hopes to begin training again soon. She often runs with Sufi, and is considering coaching the girls’ swim team, planning on occasionally swimming with them. 

    Rogers, on the other hand, is more of a rollerblader than a runner, and according to De Soto, sometimes “puts on rollerblades, puts [Sufi] in a harness, and she pulls him.” Though this might sound like animal cruelty, Rogers claimed, “She loves it!” Since Sufi is part huskie, it is in her blood to pull in a harness. “She looks like a Shepard, but as soon as you put on the harness she looks all huskie,” Rogers defended himself.

    Rogers joined the Coast Guard in 1979 until 1985 and served in George Bush’s Drug Task Force. Rogers graduated from Purdue University and went on to get his master’s degree in political science from Ohio State University. Outside of the classroom, Rogers can be “much more vigilant, more of an authority figure” De Soto explained, as many students witnessed during the AP Bio weekend-trip to Catalina. 

    When asked who “wears the pants” in the relationship, the two laughed. “I know the expected answer is me,” started De Soto. Rogers continued, “[but] what you don’t know is we both push each other. Sometimes she does, other times I do. It’s fifty-fifty…The cool thing about our relationship is that we both respect each other’s characters and principles.”

    She is an accident-prone triathlete and he is a rollerblading Starbucks addict, and both are so much more than the façades they put on at LGHS.