SAN ANTONIO — Xavier Tellez's junior year of high school is one for the history books. 

“I would only have three classmates in there with me. Everybody else would be online. I wouldn’t really know how anybody looked besides the people in class,” Tellez said. “I didn’t even know how the teachers looked until the end of the year.” 

His senior year is going to be somewhat of a normal one now that the mask mandate has been lifted. 

No one is more excited than Gemma Hernandez, who teaches Photoshop and yearbook at Lanier High School on San Antonio’s West Side. 

“I miss my students interacting inside the classroom, but this (Zoom) one is totally quiet and I’m so excited to teach and my students are very quiet,” Hernandez said. 

Hernandez teaches in a barrio where over 95% of the students are economically disadvantaged. Lanier and other high schools in San Antonio ISD recently participated in a two-week summer program called Jumpstart, which aims to help students transition from remote learning to in-person learning at full capacity. 

“They have a very tough life but guess what? They have teachers who are willing to serve them, to make a difference and to be with them,” Hernandez said. 

Hernandez took Tellez on a photo walk in the school and around the neighborhood. 

“You are like a professional photographer now, amazing, high-five, wohoo,” Hernandez told Tellez. 

At the end of every school year, Hernandez grabs her camera, green screen and offers free senior portraits to her students who can’t afford them — an impact that even a syllabus can’t capture. 

“This is the heart of the West Side, right? I’ve been teaching here for 14-15 years. Teachers need to be passionate, need to set an example, make a difference in this class. At the end of the day, it’s a question of what did they learn,” Hernandez said. 

She added that it's going to be difficult for her students to shake off over a year's worth of Zoom habits, but she has something planned for them. 

“First thing I’m going to do is bless each chair,” Hernandez said. 

Then, she's going to blast '80s music to keep her students engaged. Hernandez played some Michael Jackson and had Xavier dancing and looking forward for the upcoming school year. 

“At the end of the day, the student will ask, did my teacher really care about me?” Hernandez said.