This school year, almost every department in the high school has had at least one staff member change, and even before this year, there have been changes, such as teachers switching mid-year or troubles with finding replacement teachers.
Junior, Clara Ryan experienced a mid-year teacher switch in her English two class, “It’s definitely really hard knowing what you’re getting into, because you can’t even ask the teacher because they’re not there.” Jennie Ortiz left mid-year, and her position was left unfilled for some time. Justin Rosas temporarily filled the position as a long-term substitute. Ryan said, “I know it must’ve been really hard on his part, having to deal with all of that…Not even knowing at first when a new teacher would be coming.”
Rosas is now a full-time social studies teacher; he took over for Jim Miller when he retired from the position. Miller is among eight other staff members who retired from the district last year. Rosas faced several challenges as he did not study to become an English teacher. “He’s just in this whole new environment that is completely unexpected. I can’t even imagine how stressful that would be, because then you have all these kids that are like, “What’s happening?” and you don’t even have the answers to that.” Ryan said.
Eventually, a replacement was found, Adam McKeehan fully took over the position, and is now Ortiz’s replacement. All new hires are assigned a mentor; McKeehan’s is Kelly Schenk. “I go once a month to an induction meeting, and it was all about classroom management and basically things I learned 15 years ago when I was a first-year teacher, and it’s good to get a refresher on,” Schenk said.
“It’s a required procedure in Pennsylvania that new teachers have some sort of an induction into teaching; it’s usually a two to three-year program that all new teachers have to do,” said Genevieve Kuhns, another one of the new teachers this year. She took over for Travis Barnes after student teaching with him. Big Spring takes on several college students a year, and often they teach here after. Currently, there are multiple juniors from Shippensburg University who are observing teachers in the field in which they want to teach. “It’s nice to know some of the faculty, all of the science faculty, I already knew them. I already knew their personalities,” Kuhns said.
The science department, in particular, has had a lot of staff changes in the past few years. This past year, they had Robert McClure retire after 37 years and Travis Barnes transfer to CCA (The Commonwealth Charter Academy). In 2022, Rebecca Herendeen left mid-year; her position was filled by a long-term substitute for the remainder of the year. Now that position has been filled by Sara Macoy.
One of the science teachers, Amanda Frankford, who has been teaching at Big Spring for seventeen years now, said. “I think it’s really a good place. I think the kids are respectful, and the fellow teachers are respectful. I think we have support from the admin. So I think it is a great place, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was a great place.”
