As the 2025-2026 school year comes to an end, seven faculty members are retiring from Venice High School. 

Harry Delu

From behind the student store, Harry Delu can be seen handling payments for snacks, water, and other Venice merchandise. 

However, beyond the delicious displays capturing hungry, tired students, Delu is hard at work, balancing budgets and working to find funds for the many sports teams dominating student life. Since 2004, many can’t begin to understand how vital a role Delu has played in ensuring sports remain not only successful, but also become champions.

“I came into Venice’s student body to control the finances of the school,” he said. “During that period, they stopped selling soda in the school and the revenue was going down. So I had to find ways to generate money to make money for this school and the kids.” 

Despite challenges, Delu found ways to solve significant issues. With a background in accounting, he started as an accounting tech at Venice before being promoted to accountant and ultimately to Venice’s financial manager. 

“I was only a financial manager for six weeks—then I got this position. So since then, I’ve been in Venice,” he said. “I had the opportunity to move out of many schools—but I declined, because I love to work with students.” 

Delu’s job entails a number of responsibilities, but the most significant lies in how to both allocate funds for athletics and ensure they have the resources beyond what school facilities can provide, such as travel games and championships. Though challenging, Delu said the Venice community makes it worth it. 

“In my 22 years in Venice High School, Venice has achieved a lot in sport, and also in my 22 years in Venice High School, a lot of people have received the jacket of excellence,” he said. “Most of these people worked with me here in the student store.” 

Walter Fujita

With 34 years of teaching under his belt, algebra and geometry teacher Walter Fujita is an integral part of the Venice High community. 

Before his time at Venice, he taught at a private school for four years, and has since been at Venice for 30 years. 

Fujita enjoys shifting students’ perspectives on things that they previously disliked, such as math. His love for teaching was sparked when, as a senior in college, one of his professors asked him to tutor underclassmen in math.

 “There’d be 50 or 60 kids that would show up just on a scheduled Tuesday,” he said. “And so, I realized I really liked it, but it wasn’t really until I actually started teaching high school kids that I realized how much.” 

After retirement, Fujita is greatly looking forward to spending more time on his hobbies, such as fishing and golf, as well as having available time in the middle of the week. 

“I go long range fishing out of San Diego, so I’m on the boat for about eight days,” he said. “There’s a group of 20 to 30 people.” 

Fujita said that the experience is “fishing pretty much nonstop, but they feed you, and it’s basically a cruise.” The biggest fish Fujita has caught was 226 pounds. 

 Fujita has enjoyed working with the students that he’s taught, and his fellow teachers.

“The kids try really hard, they’re really good kids,” he said. “The faculty is also great.”

Ernesto Guerrero

For a grand total of 28 years working in education, assistant principal Dr. Ernesto Guerrero is retiring after spending the last two years at Venice. 

Guerrero said he will miss working at Venice.

”I like that the students are great and that the teachers are very nice as well,” he said. “I feel excited about transitioning to another stage in my life, but I do feel kind of sad because it’s a great school and I really love it here.”

Guerrero went into education because he had struggled in school and wanted to help students who felt similarly to how he had. 

“I was a high school dropout and once I graduated, I felt that I wanted to help students, so I transitioned to public education,” he said. “I had such a hard time myself in school and that motivated me to pursue a career in the field of education.”

After retiring from Venice, Guerrero will work at a university which will give him a more flexible schedule so that he can prioritize his health and family. 

“I decided to transition to something that will give me more flexibility because even though I like this job and the school is great, I don’t have that level of flexibility,” he said. 

In retirement, he plans to spend more time with his grandchildren. 

“My grandkids live in the country of Georgia, and I started to realize that life is kind of short, so I need to spend more time with them and get a little bit more involved in their lives,” he said. 

Though he did not expect to be retiring at this point in his life, the timing is opportune because his youngest daughter just graduated from college and he has a third grandchild on the way. 

“I never thought that I would be retiring at this point in my career, but I am looking forward to it,” he said. 

Chris Tachiki

During her time here at Venice, English teacher Chris Tachiki said that she cherished the relationships she established with students. 

“The most rewarding part of teaching was connecting with the students, especially the ones who don’t really want to be there in the beginning and sparking something in them,” she said. “Whether it’s in my classroom or somewhere else, it’s nice to see kids follow their own path.”

Tachiki retired at the end of the 2025 fall semester. She had worked in education since 1994, but came to Venice High in 1999.

Along with bonding with students, Tachiki also enjoyed making friends with the other faculty members that she got to work alongside for the past 26 years. 

Tachiki will be moving to Arizona and, “spending her time in the heat.”

“I’m going to miss the kids,” she said. “I will miss all the hip terms they taught me that I would show off to all my friends. They kept me young.”

Jon Weinberg

Librarian Jon Weinberg enjoyed seeing kids take the time to come to the library excited about learning. 

Weinberg has been Venice High’s librarian since 2018. He previously taught elementary and middle school but has been a librarian for the past 26 years, eight of those being at Venice. 

“Being a librarian allows you to explore all the learning subjects and research on the internet, both things that I enjoy,” said Weinberg.

Weinberg is proud of helping kids achieve their goals during his time here. 

“During COVID-19, there was no library to work at, so I was put in charge of teaching a life skills class,” he said. “I felt very proud because so many kids told me that it was the only class they’ve taken things from that they will remember throughout life.”

Weinberg is retiring after 31 years with LAUSD. He plans on traveling and picking back up Portuguese and Italian, which he was once fluent in. He also wants to try and learn to play the guitar. 

“I will miss the students and interactions I had with them, along with seeing them grow,” he said.