All 1,800 students were called into the school's old Kofman Auditorium for a secret assembly that they speculated could involve anything from a scolding to a surprise test.

High school students have a way of imaging the worst.

But it wasn't long before they were on their feet whooping and hollering for Harrington.

They cheered their beloved teacher for her statewide "Teacher of the Year" award sponsored by Wal-Mart, another teenage favorite.

Harrington was all smiles and hugs and you-go-girl spirit as she humbly accepted her award and accompanying check for $10,000.

"This award will not be mine until you come back and tell me you succeeded and that you've reached as high as you can," she told the assembly of genuinely enthusiastic young students.

"You've got a lot of work to do," she hollered, even looking like a superstar in her Hornets sweats and T-shirt.

"She so deserves this," gushed student Heather Deering to no one in particular.

She and chum Sierra Pereira, also a senior, have had Harrington as a teacher for two years, they said -- this year for pre-calculus and previously for algebra. They raved about the PowerPoint presentations put on by Harrington, one of the few teachers to introduce the technology into the classroom.

Harrington, who ran an electronics business while on hiatus from teaching, uses the computer-generated graphics and sounds to explain difficult math concepts, they said.

"She makes sure you know what you're doing before she moves on," said Pereira, who is admittedly "not a math person."

Others credited the teacher for her strict but motherly presence in the classroom.

A longtime community volunteer and tutor, Harrington, 61, tells her students what she learned while providing food, furniture and presents -- in short, everything -- to local homeless families: Without education, the aid is superfluous, she says.

The epiphany drove her back to teaching, she said in her application essay for the Wal-Mart grant.

"I decided that the only way I could make a difference in the life of a homeless child was to return to education and inspire young people not to risk becoming the next generation of homeless parents," she said.

She makes sure to include the lesson in her classrooms.

Former student Jackie Wong, 18, was the first to nominate Harrington for the award. Many others chipped in later with letters of support and recommendation.

Wong found out about the award last year while searching the Internet for scholarship possibilities for herself, said Wong, now a student at Chabot College.

"She inspired me and motivated me to be more interested in math," she said. "She makes it fun."

Harrington, who was Alameda's "Woman of the Year" in 2000, was selected out of 51 California teachers, according to Wal-Mart spokesman Blake Woolsey.

She will now go on to compete in a national competition that could earn the school an additional $25,000.

As for the money she won Friday, she said she'd like to use it to buy more PowerPoint software and equipment for the school's math department, whom she thanked for warmly welcoming her back to teaching four years ago after an absence of 33 years.

When asked if she was going to Disneyland, where all good superstars go, she said no.

"I'm going back to class to give a test," she joked.

Contact Susan McDonough at smcdonough@angnewspapers.com .

The Oakland Tribune: Cityside
Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
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