For the 2023-2024 school year, Lambert High School has seen a plethora of new faces, both staff and students alike. Chef King parted ways with the culinary pathway in her path to become an admin, and Lambert’s culinary students have a new leader: Hailey Guerrasio.
Coming from a background in the restaurant industry, this is Chef Guerrasio’s first time getting a feel of a school environment.
At her previous job, the municipal government renewed the percentage of sales tax they took out every ten years, with Chef Guerrasio coordinating food for business meetings regarding their city and partaking in negotiation. Coming into the world of teaching, Chef Guerassio has taken many lessons from her past work experience and implemented it into Lambert High School.
“I definitely feel that I have learned time management, for sure,” Chef Guerrasio stated. “Because a lot of that has to do with coordinating a large group of people making sure that everything’s on time, the food’s on time, getting the venue together and making sure that the kitchen has everything ready to go.”
Although this is her first time coming into this field of work as a teacher, there are some universal principles that come from the food industry. Teaching the culinary pathway allows for Chef Guerassio to implement culinary skills in a different way and affect a completely different realm of the population: the students.
“I think food is extremely personal,” Chef Guerrasio mentioned. “Everybody has a different opinion of food or the types of foods that they like to eat and the types of foods that are inherent to their culture, and the types of foods that they eat at home might be different from what they eat at school or what they’re passionate about cooking.”
The culinary pathway consists of an introduction class in addition to a block class. First year culinary students take the introduction class and can move to block the following year. In addition to in-school courses, Chef Guerrasio is one of the advisors for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). A part of FCCLA includes the teaching and culinary food nutrition professions.
“In the intro class, we have lecture lessons Monday, Tuesday and Friday; Wednesday and Thursday they have one lab a week,” Guerrasio explained. “For Block class, it’s a little different. They do teacher lunches every Wednesday, but those labs extend throughout the whole week.”
The trajectory of the culinary pathway is heading in a positive direction, especially with the construction of a dining room in the new hallway. In addition to “Giddy Up Grill,” a program that sells lunch to teachers and sells pies during Thanksgiving, culinary students can use the new dining room to strengthen their skills.
“For the dining room, students would learn how to set up a dining room table, the proper way to serve food, the proper way to remove food and all the etiquette things that go along with like ‘what fork do you use?’” Guerrasio stated. “We’ll also be able to use that space as a landing ground [for pie sales] so people can come in and pay through there and get their food.”
Outside of school, Chef Guerrasio is very involved in culinary projects at home, such as making her own kombucha and picking up fermentation projects. As a teacher, she values many qualities in her students and certain processes that allow for the class to go smoothly and efficiently.
“I like organization, and I’m kind of like a time management person so that’s where I thrive,” Guerrasio said. “So I like when students come in and they’re ready to get going when the bell rings.”
Chef Guerassio is more than thrilled to be teaching at Lambert and is looking forward to a yummy school experience.
