“I’ve done a lot of things in my life,” Mary Sano said. “Teaching is not my first career, and … I just feel like it’s time for the next thing.”

After 24 years of teaching, Sano, the Palo Alto High School social sciences department head, history teacher and Advanced Placement Research teacher, is retiring.

Sano is familiar with the Palo Alto area. Having grown up in the city, she attended local elementary school, El Carmelo, and later returned to raise her own children here.

“I love the community,” Sano said. “I think because I grew up in Palo Alto, I feel really comfortable in this community.”

Sano’s career has not been linear, taking many paths before she decided to pursue education. After finishing her degree in journalism, she moved to Hawaii where she worked multiple jobs, working at a nonprofit organization, a laboratory, an airline and a restaurant. Additionally, she was a journalist, freelancing in addition to writing for the Honolulu Weekly

Despite her diverse background, what inspired Sano to be a teacher was raising her son.

“When my son was born, … I realized the importance of guiding children, raising kids, nurturing young people,” Sano said. “Not that I didn’t care about young people before, but that … purpose of nurturing kids and raising them up was crystal clear to me when I had my own child.”

Right after her son was born, Sano went back to school for her teaching credential, after which she taught sixth grade and eighth grade at Frank S. Greene Jr. Middle Schoolbefore coming to teach at Paly.

“My biggest mission is that kids come out of my classes interested in the world,” Sano said. “Not necessarily memorizing things, dates and people’s names, but that they come out of my classroom going, ‘Wow, there’s so much to learn!’”

A major highlight of Sano’s educational journey has been the friendships she’s made as head of the social sciences department.

“Just working with this crew, we’re like a family, for better or for worse,” Sano said. “Working in collaboration with this crew here has definitely been a highlight.”

Fellow social sciences teacher Adam Yonkers has known Sano for 20 years. Aside from going on dog walks with Yonkers, Sano has not just been supportive as a friend, but also as a leader.

“I think her leadership has helped us be the best version of ourselves, [and] the best teachers we can be,” Yonkers said. “But also, she blocks and tackles for us behind the scenes, and there’s a lot of things that we don’t have to deal with because she’s doing that work as an organizational need.”

Sano’s work as a department head includes taking care of many administrative tasks.

“It’s scheduling, it’s managing who’s teaching in what rooms,” Yonkers said. “It’s new curriculum that is being offered. It’s textbooks that are being adopted. ‘My God, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.’”

Longtime friend and AP Seminar teacher Lucinda Filppu has been collaborating with Sano through the AP Capstone pathway for many years.

“Ms. Sano is so patient and sees beyond grades and traditional markers,” Filppu said. “She is a deep person and a deep thinker, and brings out the same in her students.”

According to Paly senior and AP Research student Audrey Sullivan, a key characteristic of Sano’s teaching style is the effort and dedication she puts in.

“You can really tell how much she cares about her students and her job,” Sullivan said. “She really cares and wants that person-to-person connection.”

One of the aspects of Sano’s teaching that stuck out to Sullivan was her dedication to teaching AP Research.

“I know a lot of teachers who’ve said they don’t want to teach it [AP Research], because everyone’s doing different things and it’s hard to keep track of so many different projects and stuff that everyone’s doing,” Sullivan said. “But you can tell she’s really passionate about helping everyone achieve their vision.”

Although Sano doesn’t have a specific plan for retirement, she knows that she wants to stay engaged with the community and do something she is passionate about.

“One of my passions is, for lack of a better way to put it, environmental issues and saving the Earth,” Sano said. “I’d love to work for a nonprofit that’s working on ocean-kind of environmental issues or redwoods.”

One thing Sano will miss most about Paly are the many opportunities she has gotten to both teach and learn.

“As far as my teaching career, I have taught 10th, 11th and 12th grade,” Sano said. “I’ve taught a lot of different classes, so just getting to experience all those classes and the different focuses on the curriculum itself has been fun and exciting.”

After working in fast-paced and constantly evolving work environments, Sano hopes to discover this same sense of energy and fulfillment elsewhere.

“There are just opportunities left and right to be involved and to move things forward and to learn new things,” Sano said. “Boy, I hope I can find that out there after I retire.”