Rouse High School senior Brenton Schaefer, recognizing Max Lee: “Teaching high schoolers who are at the edge of childhood and the brink of adulthood, while encouraging development of individual opinions about government, history and the world, during a polarized political era, surrounding a presidential election year, may prove to be a difficult task, but not for Mr. Lee. He has been my AP U.S. History and AP U.S. Government teacher for the last two years. While I formed my own standards, opinions and beliefs, while learning the past, present and future of our country, Mr. Lee’s objective teaching style created a safe place for students to learn and grow with individuality, while tackling everything that history and government covers – politics, race, religion and economics. At the exact time high schoolers are finding their identity, teachers can easily influence beliefs, but I still have no idea Mr. Lee’s political or religious affiliation, making him stand out as my most influential teacher at Rouse High School. Mr. Lee has my respect for inspiring me to work toward my potential, while gently mentoring me to find an identity and to consider my impact on the world in my future schooling and career choice– always holding up the Leander ISD 10 Ethical Principles that guided me my entire schooling career.”
Rouse High School senior Cierra George, recognizing Melissa Helbert: “Saying that Mrs. Helbert changed my life is an understatement. From a young age, I was always looking to the stars, wondering what was beyond the earth’s atmosphere. I loved space, and always had a curiosity for rocketry and extraplanetary vehicles. However, I was also the kid that hated math, dreading walking into class every day. The intense math foundation of aerospace engineering scared me and contributed to my previous plan of majoring in international relations. But, after taking Pre-AP Pre-Calculus and AP Calculus AB with Mrs. Helbert, I discovered my love for math. Mrs. Helbert always goes out of her way to explain the real-world applications of calculus and what to look out for in college calculus classes. In every unit or so, I would hear the words, ‘And for you engineering majors...’ and perk up, excited to hear the advice she would give. Mrs. Helbert is part of the reason I decided to major in aerospace engineering, her class making me more comfortable with math. AP Calculus with Mrs. Helbert made the world of numbers make sense to me, leading me to discover the world beyond the stars.”
