Claire Zhou
Varsity football head coach Scott Ashby holds up his football backpack. He received this bag six years ago.
Jim Munger, what’s in your backpack?
If you have passed teacher’s aide and custodial-staff-helper Jim Munger in the B-building hallways, then you have probably seen his knee-high socks, contagious smile and colorful backpack — a thrift find.
“The funds from the thrift store usually go to great organizations in the community that help other people,” Munger said. “I liked [the backpack] because it was so cool. It looks like a fairly current model and it’s waterproof, so I can wear this [in] the rain when I bike to school.”
He props the backpack on his knee. Its black background is covered in unfurling and reaching leaves in hues of evergreen, hunter and mint. He opens the black zippers to a main compartment where he stores all his school supplies, such as a chromebook — the same model students use, stylus and all.
He flips open the chromebook and the screen lights up to the login page, Munger’s SDUHSD Google profile picture staring back. It is a snapshot from Thanksgiving during COVID-19. In the background are three posters. On the right is a school pledge and on the left are two quotes: “Success starts with believing in yourself” and a “little saying about perseverance.” In the foreground is Munger, his beard dyed orange, wearing a Green Bay Packers hat because he is from Wisconsin.
“Everyone was dying their hair and having fun,” Munger said. “The greatest thing I heard from one of my students was: ‘Mr. Jim, that just looks silly. Please don’t do it again.’ I thought it was great.”
But the most essential item and “greatest invention in the whole wide world” is a whiteboard. Quick to follow is an orange Expo marker.
“I make sure to carry an eraser and a dry erase maker,” Munger said. “A picture is worth 1000 words [and] most people are visual learners.”
As he explains this, he scrawls the words “To succeed, all you need to do is work hard” on the white surface. After a pause, he pulls out a second white board. This one is just in case someone needs to borrow one.
“I give the student an option: [they] can choose the color [they] like best, and then I’ll use that color,” Munger said. “And usually, after working with the student for a while, you get to learn what color is their favorite. So you automatically … grab that special marker.”
The “second most important thing” is his clear gray Contigo water bottle, which is also a thrift find. This is just one of two water bottles he carries. The second is a metallic, green Starbucks tumbler, which was a gift from a friend when his coffee cup broke this year.
“He had lots of coffee cups,” Munger said. “Anyways, [my] friend said, ‘Hey, here you can have mine.’ So I carry this to remind me of him.”
Munger’s pencil case is a reused, semi-opaque red toothbrush holder for sharp pencils and colored pencils. For food, Munger is a fan of KIND bars and fruit snacks that come in little pouches. He also keeps a reusable Minions grocery bag in his backpack for days when special education class takes trips to Del Mar Highlands to shop at Ralphs for ingredients. Students learn to check out using a Ralphs card and coupons, feed cash into the machine and save receipts.
“I always carry extra 99-cent shopping bags so that we can carry any extra groceries back to the classroom when we’re cooking or doing other projects,” Munger said. “We have a full kitchen next door in Mr. Wickman’s room … yesterday, we made homemade English muffin pizzas.”
Since he spends much of his time outdoors, Munger keeps toiletries like sunscreen, hand cream and chapstick in the front pouch. The self-care items are a collection of gifts from his friends and co-workers — “gifts from somebody that I love to carry and use every day.”
When asked about memorabilia, Munger says that most are carried in his heart, head and memory. Some are tucked away, safe at home in a box. Then he remembers a bag of plastic film in his backpack.
“I almost forgot,” Munger said. “[I carry] A lot of special notes from co-workers or family or friends [or] Christmas cards in a little pouch here, and I can always look at them anytime I want. They’re in a special place in my backpack.”
Kristina DeVico, what’s in your purse?
Also found in the B-building hallways, Integrated Math 2/3 Honors teacher Kristina DeVico is known for her intricate Halloween costumes, elegant dresses and vintage brooches. Just as chic is the purse DeVico keeps close 365 days a year: a glossy, black matlassé crossbody detailed with gold accents along its clasps and Gucci logo. It was on her trip to Budapest three years ago when she decided to switch from a large bag to a small, zippered purse that fits through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and under a plane seat without spilling her belongings.
“Now I don’t have anything that doesn’t fit,” DeVico said. “I weeded out everything else.”
Some loose items that she keeps in her purse are car keys, house keys and a pocket mirror. Just in case, she also carries a cough drop, a magnifying glass and two Post-it notes. DeVico then fishes out two hairpins of different lengths, which she uses when the weather warms and she needs to keep her hair in a bun. She has two Starbucks gift cards, stray eyedrops and a to-do list scrawled in cursive handwriting across a repurposed envelope.
“I have reading glasses and sunglasses, both of which are prescription,” DeVico said. “They’re priority.”
One compartment houses her wallet, which she calls the “financial pouch.” Another holds her toiletries, which are organized in a portable, gray mesh pouch the size of a compact pencil case; it holds more eyedrops, hair ties and two lipstains.
“I always have a lipstain,” DeVico said. “It’s Revlon ColorStay Overtime. The reason I got that is because it passed the hamburger test. The hamburger test is this: you put on your lipstick and if you eat a hamburger. If it remains on after you eat a greasy hamburger, that means it’s going to stay on all day.”
DeVico has gone through every brand of lipstain: Chanel, YSL, Estée Lauder and “all the expensive ones.”
“The best one is the Revlon Color Overstay,” DeVico said.
She also keeps two shades of chapstick — a light pink and natural raisin shade — neatly aligned in her desk drawer.
Scott Ashby, what’s in your backpack?
Every day, head varsity football coach and weight training teacher Scott Ashby packs his Padres lunchbox, football binder with notes for practice and assorted clothes in the large pocket of his backpack. In the side pocket, he packs his daily Gatorade. For Friday night game days, Ashby brings clipboards, markers and ipads. He uses these on the sidelines, drawing gameplans on his clipboard.
The most important items in his backpack are his school keys, which he uses to unlock the football and gym rooms before school.
“[I have] never lost them,” Ashby said. “I’ve lost my own keys, but I’ve always found them. But my school keys are in the same spot every day, so I know exactly [where they are].”
Each night, he hooks the keys to a carabiner.
Ashby’s glasses — when not crowning head — are “on the top” of the backpack with his pens. He stores extra markers “and things of that nature” in the bag’s lined front pocket.
The backpack is a black Torrey Pines football backpack, which he has been using for six years.