Genesis Atoche, a senior at Clayton Valley Charter High School, tutors, balances five AP classes, and pursues multiple extracurriculars on top of being a student in Technological Design and Production, or “Tech Crew.”
Atoche has been in Tech Crew for two years. She and her peers are on-the-ground technical assistants for all major events on campus, including rallies, football games, and theatrical productions.
“Tech Crew is essentially the entire lighting and production team responsible for managing events,” Atoche said, where students have the opportunity to use “certain equipment and enter unfamiliar spaces.”
Football games, for instance, divide duties between the “top” and the “ground.” The “top” oversees the score and other audience-oriented technology, while the “ground”, Atoche’s purview, manages all technical equipment on and around the field. Atoche, skirting stampede, douses the players with a fire extinguisher for their grand entrance and thereafter monitors the sound system and other ground-level cable systems.
However, most Tech Crew responsibilities are more complex than supervision at football games. The program requires a semester commitment of hours served that can build up from time spent building sets, running presentations, and other miscellaneous activities that demand tech support.
“To avoid overworking myself, I keep track of my hours while simultaneously attending as many workdays as I can,” Atoche explained.
In that regard, musical productions are the most intensive sphere of Tech Crew. Nonetheless, Atoche’s favorite experiences are from piecing together the school musical She Loves Me. Atoche poured weeks of preparation and hours of labor into the production to ensure its success.
“I felt like a legitimate Tech Crew member,” she said, noting that the program is “unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of.”
Tech Crew, itself a quiet staple of the school community, will lose one of its most stalwart students when Atoche graduates next year. Iris Balcazar, a fellow Tech Crew member, identified Atoche as “an incredibly smart and driven student.”
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