Dayton James Chontos
Hi. I'm Dayton. Welcome to my website.
I am a 17-year-old Senior graduating in June, 2026 from Palos Verdes High School in Los Angeles, California.
Major Interests
I have had a lifelong interest in American and World History. For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to reading about world and U.S. history, international conflicts, political upheaval, battle strategies and war outcomes, and social and human rights issues affecting people all over the world.
I plan to major in Government, with a focus on international studies and foreign affairs. My AP U.S. History class was key to expanding my interest and focus on this particular area of study. I feel it is important to be politically and socially aware, and I want to become actively involved in governmental policies, international affairs, and diplomacy.
Black Community Involvement
I am the newly elected Treasurer of the PVHS Black Student Union (BSU). Our mother is Black, and our father is white. We are close to both sides of our family, and are proud of our Black identity. Last year, we were excited to bring the Honorable Eric C. Taylor, former Chief Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, to PVHS as our Black History Month guest speaker.
Varsity & Club Soccer and
Track & Field
I play Left Back in soccer year-round, on both my AYSO Club team and also Varsity at PVHS, where I was chosen as our Summer League team Co-Captain. Last year, our Varsity team made it to the Third Round of Division 1 in the California State Championship play-offs.
Last Spring, I also joined the PVHS Track & Field team and ran the 100-meter.
Former Competitive Figure Skater & Current Volunteer Skating Coach
I am a former competitive figure skater. When I was five years old, my two siblings and I started training seriously with Olympians and performing in ice shows at Lake Placid, New York, and at the Hartford Civic Center in Connecticut. Starting at 6 years old until I was 10, I skated competitively and won medals and high placements throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California.
I stopped competing in middle school here in California, but now I enjoy volunteering on weekends at the L.A. Kings Rink in Palos Verdes, working as a Figure Skating Assistant Coach in the Learn To Skate program. My sister and I love teaching little kids ages 3 to 13 to have fun on the ice and introducing them to new skills. They are super cute, very funny, and are so proud to show off new skills each week.
BLACK STUDENT UNION
Here are photographs of last year's BSU Black History Month presentation by our guest, the Honorable Eric C. Taylor, of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Our school Principal, Dr. Ramirez, introduced Judge Taylor. Our BSU Teacher Advisor was supportive and made sure to advertise the event all around the school. On the day of the event, we were excited to see that the room was packed with students, teachers, and staff, and that there were no seats left.
Judge Taylor grew up in Compton, CA. His father was a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement. He spoke about the importance of making sure we choose good friends who can become our friends for life and who will encourage us and cheer us on to live our best lives and achieve our goals.
He said that he never allowed anyone to make him believe that he is unprepared or unqualified, and that he has always been confident that he can reach every goal he set for himself. He advised us to ignore negativity from people trying to prevent us from succeeding or questioning whether we belong.
After the Q & A session, the bell rang, but students and teachers stayed in the room to ask Judge Taylor more questions. Our school news team also conducted a video interview. People at school are still talking about how much Judge Taylor's talk encouraged them.
Also, as someone who experienced Jim Crow laws in South Carolina and participated in local protests during the Civil Rights Movement, Grandma was excited to meet Judge Taylor and hear him speak.
We were proud to bring such an inspiring speaker to our campus, to demonstrate that Black history is American history, and it is universal and ongoing.
I first started playing soccer at 6 years old in elementary school in Connecticut. When I was 9, our family moved to California for my Dad's job. One of the first things my mom did was sign my brother, sister, and me up for AYSO so we could start making friends and have something fun to do right away. I had played before in elementary school and was drawn to the sport. I enjoyed meeting other kids my age, and it was an opportunity to make more friends outside of our new school. My whole family looked forward to our games every weekend. Soccer helped all of us feel more at home in California. Because we never lost touch with our friends in Connecticut, we also felt less homesick over time.
I have been playing soccer competitively for 8 years now, and my experiences with my teammates and my family are some of the best times of my life. I was lucky to have great coaches, and I made many friends on various teams over the years. My first season on a real team was a very fun experience. I didn't know until the season was over that I had scored 44 goals. Our team won the title "King of the Hill," but I was rather embarrassed at the time to see my picture in the local papers. My mom kept them all.
Scroll down and click on the tabs above to learn more about me!
CALIFORNIA LOVE
My siblings and I were born in Connecticut. Leaving our small town of Old Lyme and everything familiar when we moved to L.A. for my Dad's job was difficult, but we settled in and I quickly made new friends. One of the things that helped us get acclimated was my mom signing us all up for the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). That helped us feel like we were immediately part of a friendly community and we learned our way around the area by going to soccer games.
Most people don't realize that California is a huge state, even on a map, but getting around here for even short distances is really hard. It can take more than an hour just to go 20 miles, much less the five hours it takes for my Dad to get out of L.A. traffic to drive us to Arizona for club tournaments.
Although I am always excited to go back to Connecticut for Christmas and summer vacation, there are many things I appreciate about living here. For one thing, California is much more racially diverse than where we used to live. Also, we have nice weather all year long here, with no humidity.
When it was safer to go outside after the COVID epidemic, but not yet safe enough to fly on airplanes again, our California friends were shocked to find out that we missed having cold weather at Christmas. They were sending us holiday pictures of themselves swimming at the beach. Meanwhile, we were driving to Big Bear, desperately hoping to find snow in the mountains.
This was important to us at the time, because some of my best childhood memories involve snow days when school was canceled and our parents built a roaring fire in the wood-burning stove in our attic. We also missed having Grandma being able to join us for Christmas like she usually did because she was isolated in New York.
We were so excited when it snowed on Christmas Eve, even though it was barely enough to make a snowball. We had a fun time going out to the lake, skipping stones and taking pictures. It was freezing outside, so we went back to the house to warm up.
With Mom's help, I made turkey chili for dinner. Later, we all sat in front of a roaring fire, drinking hot chocolate on a somewhat snowy day, like we used to do. That experience turned out to be one of the best Christmases ever and was something positive during a difficult time.
One of the things I am most grateful to have in my life is my family. A few months ago, we had the chance to reconnect with our uncles and cousins on my Dad's side of the family at my cousin's wedding in South Carolina. They told us all about my dad and shared their childhood stories with him.
My brother, twin sister, and I are very close. When my sister and I were born, our older brother was 3 1/2 years old." He is a Junior in college and a Politics major now, but my sister and I talk to him and FaceTime with him often.
One of the main reasons I first became fascinated with History had a lot to do with the time I spent with my brother and his important influence on me. When I was very young, around 5 years old, my brother and I would take our toy muskets outside and pretend we were Civil War Union soldiers, crawling across our backyard to sneak up on the enemy.
Also, our 78-year-old grandma lived in Brooklyn most of her life, but moved in with us after last Christmas, so we can keep an eye on her health and take care of her. She makes it to many of my soccer games. Even though she doesn't understand the rules of the game, she is always cheering for me, even when nothing much is happening or I haven't done anything special. I sometimes take care of her by making sure she eats on time. remembers to take her medicine, and always has plenty of hot tea.
We enjoy hearing about her childhood and how she started dating Papa when she was 15 years old after they went to the prom. She has great stories about the two of them at our ages. Some of them make us laugh. Some of them are also sad, especially since we lost Papa 8 years ago to cancer. They were together for 55 years and married for 48.
Papa and Grandma used to come on vacations with us and would come to Connecticut for a couple of days, just to play with us or to babysit. He taught us how to fish on vacation, and always came to our T-ball games and our figure skating competitions. He would cheer so loudly for us that we could hear his voice through the rink plexiglass.
I feel honored when Mom tells me how much I look like him, because I can see the resemblance, too.
We all still miss him, especially Grandma. Now that she lives with us I think she feels less lonely.
Papa at 20 years old.
Me, at 17.
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Papa, 17 years old at prom.
My older brother, Jackson, at 17, getting ready for prom.
Family Photo Gallery
OUR COMMUNITY
My mom has always taught my brother, sister, and me, “You have a whole village looking out for you.” She makes sure we have people around us to protect and support us. We are grateful to have such a strong support system.
Our parents make sure we look out for each other and that we love, honor and respect both sides of our family. They also created a community of friends who feel like family. We know many people who are unrelated, but feel like real aunties, uncles, and cousins.
ADHD DIAGNOSIS DURING COVID
I'd like to share that during COVID and online distance learning I was diagnosed with ADHD. Before then, I had never noticed any learning differences when I was in class learning in person. I was able to focus on my teachers and stay genuinely interested in lessons and class materials. But during COVID, no matter how hard I tried to be respectful and pay attention, my attention wandered without me even realizing it. I tried my best, but it was impossible to focus on the computer screen. I would zone out, and by the time I was able to pay attention again, lessons and homework instructions would be over.
This went on for days full of back-to-back classes. I fell behind in my classes and had a difficult time catching up on missing assignments and keeping up with current lessons. I stayed up late every night doing assignments and didn't get much sleep, so I was exhausted every day. I dreaded logging on in the morning.
My parents realized that falling behind and not paying attention in class was very unusual for me, so they had me evaluated for ADHD. Two things helped me make it through quarantine in 7th Grade and beyond.
The first is that my brother had been diagnosed with ADHD two years before. Based on his experiences dealing with ADHD, he was supportive and protective of me. It also helped that when my symptoms showed up, he already had information about strategies that might work for me because of the difficulties he had already been through.
The second major thing that helped me make it to the other side is that my twin sister switched all her classes to take the same ones I chose. She is neat and organized and shared her notes, took time to explain things to me that I might have missed, and teachers paired us as partners so we could work on projects together. She stayed up later than usual to encourage me while I was doing my work.
Experiences like these are why my siblings and I are very close.
Thanks to support from my family, I never really felt any shame about my ADHD, and never believed it would prevent me from reaching my goals. I don't feel bad about it. It just means I think and process information a little differently than other people.
I had to learn to organize things in a way that might not make sense to anyone looking over my shoulder, but that works for me. To deal with procrastination, I started to chunk my work to make it easier to process and get it done on time. Using a planner greatly improved my time management and organization. I also learned which environments are best for me to stay focused. I found that areas with too many distractions, like posters or devices, were far from ideal for me. I also learned that I am less productive in comfortable environments, such as studying on my bed.
Another thing that helps me re-focus is to take short breaks from working. For example, I will go play with our dog, Atticus Finch, for a few minutes. He turned 12 years old on October 5th, but he is still a puppy to us and acts like one. He is a good boy, and after petting him or chatting with my family for a few minutes, I get right back to doing my homework.
By using these strategies and developing organizational skills, I overcame challenges with ADHD and gained more confidence. I developed a more optimistic mindset, making it possible for me to manage difficult classes, get homework assignments finished even though I have long soccer practices that often end late at night, and weekend tournaments out of state.
I have many friends, an active social life, and closeness with my family. I learned how to handle stress, manage to stay on top of everything day-to-day, and get everything done. My strategies and organizational skills help me work well under pressure and stay optimistic.
Because I learned work best for me to balance everything and get things done, I am more confident, outgoing, and organized. I have grown and learned to remain composed and more determined and focused on getting things done.
