As a new school year begins, El Roble is welcoming in new teachers and staff. Spanning a wide variety of subjects, from math to history and electives to PE, teachers at El Roble are adopting a more diversified course load. Incoming teachers are teaching more than one grade and old teachers are teaching different classes.
As of last year, the campus had to let go of certain electives due to teachers retiring. Ms. Kennicut, the elective teacher for Plastics & Metals and Woodshop, retired after the 2021-2022 school year. All of the classes that she taught have since been removed, as the administration has been unable to find a replacement for her. Another teacher who retired after the 2021-2022 school year was Ms. Spinella, the Yearbook and Photography teacher for El Roble. Her absence created a need for both photography and yearbook teachers. While Nicole McCabe, the drama and ASB teacher, was able to pick up on the yearbook class last year, Vanessa Mejia has taken over the yearbook and new Introduction to Digital Media course, along with Technology Education, and Web Design.
Outside of electives, certain subject-specific teachers have also taken on teaching other subjects. Mrs. Foster, one of the physical education teachers, retired after the 2021-2022 school year leaving a gap in the number of PE teachers at El Roble. To fill that need, Mr. Depew, a seventh grade math teacher, picked up teaching a 6th period physical education class for the 2022-2023 school year.
In addition to rearranging what the old teachers would teach, the El Roble administration has added new teachers to their staff. These new teachers are Camryn Mudd, Joshua Crespo, Maria Arias, and Lindsay Johnson. According to the El Roble website, Mudd is teaching seventh grade English, while Crespo is teaching seventh and eighth history classes. Arias is teaching eighth grade math classes, and Johnson is teaching eighth grade science. These teachers are trying to ease the burden that was put on previous teachers. While of course many teachers have remained, many others have retired in the past few years, leading to these new spots and inter-subject teaching.
El Roble has made many changes in its staff and subjects. Teachers are needing to expand outside of their specialty in subjects, to match demand, electives are being shifted around, and the school teacher shortage is affecting the ability of administrators to find new replacements.
