Though Joanne Miyahara spent eight years working for the military, her longest service was to the students of Los Altos High School. She has spent over three decades as an AVID and English teacher, inspiring and supporting thousands of students.
Miyahara didn’t always know she wanted to spend her life teaching. Initially, she attended Pomona College on the pre-med track, but after getting sick and missing too many classes, she was forced to reevaluate her future.
“I did a lot of soul searching and I realized the reason why I wanted to go into medicine was to help people,” Miyahara said. “I thought about how doctors only see you when you’re sick; I wanted something with more of a daily interaction.”
Since tuition wasn’t affordable for her, Miyahara had joined ROTC — a program that required her to work for the military after receiving her bachelor’s in English from Pomona College. After training to work in the National Reserve, she pursued a master’s in education at Stanford, where she met her husband, current LAHS Assistant Principal Derek Miyahara.
She spent the next eight years working part-time for the Reserve and full-time for LAHS simultaneously — fulfilling her army responsibilities on the weekends, as well as occasional weeks dedicated to the military. Her rank in the military climbed all the way to company commander, where she led an active duty training battalion.
“It was difficult, especially when I had to leave during the school year,” Joanne Miyahara said.
To add to her busy workload, LAHS introduced AVID the year she started teaching in 1991. When no one else volunteered to teach the class, Joanne Miyahara took it on.
“I was really interested in equity, diversity, and helping people, so it was a good match,” Joanne Miyahara said. “But in terms of experience, not a great match.”
As a first time teacher, she wasn’t fully equipped to teach a unique class such as AVID. Still, Joanne Miyahara has loved each of the 34 years she put into the program. Her proudest accomplishment? Getting students to believe in themselves.
“I’ve always believed in the ripple effect,” Joanne Miyahara said. “I’ve been able to impact a certain number of students, and they go on and continue to make change.”
According to her students, Joanne Miyahara always goes the extra mile by providing support and genuine care.
“She cares really deeply about us,” senior Alejandro Chavez said. “She’ll advise you, but she won’t impede you.”
For Joanne Miyahara, family has been deeply intertwined in her teaching career. In 2017, her two children and husband were all at LAHS. The family balanced supporting each other while being independent on campus for years. Now, just Derek and Joanne Miyahara are left on campus.
Though the couple isn’t retiring at the same time, their shared experience at Los Altos has brought them closer.
“She never lost the optimism and belief in students that you have when you start out teaching,” Derek Miyahara said.
The main reason Joanne Miyahara is retiring is to take better care of her health. She credits the regular screenings from her time in the military for helping diagnose her with the genetic condition that led her to get a kidney transplant in 2023.
“I’m so blessed that I had friends from my church who were willing to be donors,” Joanne Miyahara said. “It’s a whole new lease on life, and I am so grateful every day.”
But even while recovering from the transplant, she never stopped looking after her students.
“She never thinks about herself, and does whatever she can to help us succeed,” senior Melanie Martinez said. “Even when she had surgery, she helped me with my applications to internships.”
While she is stepping away from the classroom, Joanne Miyahara is determined to continue helping the community. She wants to stay involved with AVID mentoring and plans to support seniors through their final year and help phase in the new AVID teachers.
“I love Los Altos,” Joanne Miyahara said. “I am so grateful that I’ve had my career here.”
