What do you get when you put two teachers and both of their classes into one classroom? It could be a recipe for a huge amount of stress, but not for Eileen Zygarlicke and Jason Ingersoll.
These two teachers’ classes are similar to a lot of Community High School right now, displaced and chaotic, but functioning.
Community High School is currently under construction for the last few weeks of school and over the summer. Ingersoll, social studies teacher, thinks the combined classes are affecting the teachers. “Yeah, I do feel like it’s affecting the staff, but it’s to be expected. We’re packing and moving a lot of stuff, and we’re moving it quickly.”
Sharing his classroom with Zygarlicke and eventually a gym with four other teachers, Ingersoll knows it's important to be flexible. “It helps out a lot that Mrs. Zygarlicke and I are so flexible in working with each other and teaching our classes in the same room. So far it’s been a great arrangement. I’ve learned a lot just by observing her interactions with students.”
Kristen Marcott, special education teacher at Community, believes that patience is key. “I feel like everybody is under stress because it’s the end of the school year and the seniors are starting to feel rushed to graduate. Also I feel like there are so many changes occurring throughout the school that patience is a hard thing to come by.”
Even with the renovation of the school starting, classes are still being held and the students are still marching down another road to success.
Junior at Community, Elliot Blue says, “I feel like students are still getting a lot of our class work done with the help of our teachers even with all of the changes and chaos going on throughout the
school.”
However, not everyone is adjusting to the combined classrooms as well as others. Geneva Kolbo, a senior at Community, thinks the students are affected by the combined classes, “I am finding the combined classrooms are making it harder for me to concentrate because of how crowded they are, the distractions of the other students, and the construction going on."
"I feel like it’s a lot of pressure on the students, but mostly the seniors, to stay focused and get their work done before the end of the year because this is it, their last block of the year.”
Since the renovations have started, the students and teachers are working to finish the school year on a high note. The next couple of weeks are going to crawl by with the combined classes and distractions, but the newly remodeled Community High School will be worth it all in the end.
Combined Classes
by Leanne Ness
"...there are so many so many changes occuring in our school..."