Lack of teacher presence in the Redwood community leave students and staff concerned

By Donya Hassanshahi

Since the return from winter break, a large amount of teachers have been absent due to COVID. The ongoing Coronavirus outbreak has impacted many students and staff members of the Redwood High School community. With the new Omicron Variant, the spread of the virus has been increased significantly, which decreases the overall presence of school attendees.

In the duration of the past three weeks, journalism and AP Literature teacher Mr. Nicholas Miller substitutes for fellow teachers during his preparation second period.

Compared to last semester, substitution has increased incredibly. Last semester, Miller typically subbed once every few weeks. Now, coming back from break, he has filled in for absent educators almost every day.

Although the surreal schedule of being a substitute for those on COVID leave, Miller chooses to lend a helping hand to his fellow teachers that are unable to attend, “I try to treat others the way I’d want to be treated. You know the golden rule: it’s better to have a qualified teacher when you’re gone, so I try if I can- I try to help.”

Though he does get paid for subbing, Miller’s main motivation derives from his ability to help the community that he is involved in, which he is happy to help, “I try to take classes where I feel I can be effective. But lately, I just say ‘yes’ to almost everything, because there are so many teachers out.”

Typically, Miller tries to substitute in classes on the main campus due to his AP Literature class taking place in the English building during third period.

Some classes he has subbed for include; French and English 1, this of which he describes the subbing experiences as, “diverse and interesting.”

“It’s interesting. You learn a lot about other teachers and their classrooms and their habits- stuff like that. It’s like visiting a foreign country. You learn a lot, you meet a lot of students, you get to hear different stories, you get to see other lesson plans- it broadens your perspective.”

Miller on learning about different types of classes and classrooms

While in the classrooms, the workload varies depending on the class. Sometimes, Miller is to just assign a type of “busy-work thing” and supervise the students. Other times, he gets to teach in the class, and in Miller’s words, “it’s kind of cool.”

Miller perceives the circumstance to be hard on students, “Kids like routines, and they like systems. It can goof them up if they have a sub for ten days and then they’re out. It just disrupts routines and it’s unfortunate, but I think it’s just part of the thing.”

As the year continues, he foresees that the COVID situation will “get worse before it gets better.” He continues, “This will get better, but I think it’s going to be a while. I think we just need to hang in there and do our best.”

Even with teachers covering their colleagues’ classes due to the unavailability of subs for hire, counselors of Redwood High School have had to involve themselves as well.

One such counselor is Ms. Aubrey Buchanan, who assists students with last names A-C.

Buchanan has been a substitute, while balancing her position as a counselor. Before becoming a counselor, she worked as a substitute teacher.

Because her students need to meet with her in her office, Buchanan expresses the downside of having to fill-in for classes.

Typically if she has to substitute, a sign is on the door of her office to let the student aware that she is unable to meet at the time. An option Buchanan recommends is to reach out and email her to set up a future time to meet.

Despite this, Buchanan perceives more positives than not, “I think it’s a good way to see [students] in person and get to know you all a little bit more.”

Putting herself in the “teacher’s shoes” is an interesting position to fill, as each classroom has different groups of students and curriculums. She adds, “It’s nice seeing [students] outside on campus and in [their] classroom environment and getting to chat with [them].”

Buchanan is always, “happy to help teachers and students” and admires all that the teachers do.

As for sophomores in biology, teacher Mr. Arthur Ruiz, room 60, has left students to learn independently with his unprecedented absence.

Syrina Ceballos, ’24 expresses the difficulties she’s had to face in unaccounted presence of her teacher, “I’m not really learning anything in the class.” Another downside is influenced by the amount of time that her and her fellow classmates have to fill.

Considering the amount of time that Ruiz has been gone, Ceballos explains her concerns, “It kind of throws me off when they’re gone for so long and then they come back and we have test, it’s really hard for me to understand and comprehend what we’re learning, and it’s hard for me to keep my grade up.”

Earlier this year, her biology class was deprived of an official teacher, as many subs were filling in until someone received the job.

For almost three weeks now, Ceballos has been without her teacher, and taking into account her previous situation with substitute teachers, it has been hard.

“He’s been gone for about two weeks and before that we didn’t really have a teacher. She was just filling in and it was also hard. When we got him, I had a little hope, but since he’s been gone due to COVID, it’s been really hard.”

Syrina Ceballos, ’24 on her teacher’s absence

Ceballos admits that she feels that, “it’s turning into that we should just go back online.”

Aidan Tandy, ’24 is in the same class as Ceballos and reciprocates a similar outlook on the situation, “It provides a lot of stress on the kid because some of the subs don’t know the subject very well or how to teach it.”

Regarding his experience with substitute teachers, Tandy expresses how work is independent for the most part, “I don’t really learn much, to be honest. It’s kind of hard because [Ruiz] hasn’t been here. It adds a lot more pressure- less explaining, more of self-work.”

In the midst of Ruiz’s absence, Tandy believes that he is handling the situation fairly well. For him, self-motivating is harder than he thought, but he feels as if he puts in more effort, then he could do more. However, the lack of presence of his teacher is demotivating.

For the most part, Tandy and his classmates have had to self-discipline and encourage themselves, “It involves the kid to learn things themselves, to be independent, but then again that’s the teacher’s job.”

As for dance students, the upcoming dance show takes place April 21 and 22. In preparation for their performance, nearly two months away, dancers have been working hard to perfect their dances. The only thing preventing perfection was COVID.

The absence of dance instructor Mrs. Michele Lapp left students to work on dances themselves and collaborate as a team in order to stay on track.

Analiya Calvo, ’22 was worried about the pace of which the class was going due to lack of structure, “I feel like we almost got behind for our dance show, but we did what we had to do,” she adds.

“It definitely felt a little bit stressful. We do have some of our dances done, thankfully, but I feel like we could’ve already been learning other ones.”

Though some dances were already complete, Calvo felt as if more could’ve been learned in the time lost.

Besides falling a bit behind in routine, she viewed the positives as getting to, “focus more on our skills rather than just dancing,” she says.

Fellow dancer and classmate Katie Hornburg, ’22 perceives the two weeks without Lapp present as tricky.

“I think we did a really good job with keeping up with what she envisioned us to do- our dances,” Hornburg states. With a large quantity of class time free, the dances already known were practiced repetitively.

Even though the class got to work on their skills, opposed to simply choreography, “We didn’t learn any new dances since [Lapp] wasn’t here.”

For the most part, Hornburg thinks that the few weeks went decently. Here and there, there were a few hiccups, “Our sub wasn’t able to help us out with the music because she wasn’t able to pull [the music] up.”

Schedule wise, Hornburg admits there was supposed to be a dress rehearsal a couple days prior to Lapp’s absence, “A couple days before she went to quarantine, we were supposed to do a dress rehearsal, and then she cancelled it, so it pushed it back two weeks.”

Now, dancers in Lapp’s class are beginning to get back on track, “We’re doing it kind of late, dress rehearsal, since we usually do it right at the beginning of the spring semester,” explains Hornburg.

From the experience, Hornburg doesn’t see many positives since dances weren’t able to be practiced to perfection in Lapp’s absence, “The upcoming dance show definitely added an extra stress factor.”

The presence of teachers that students are deprived of is a worrisome issue at Redwood High School, and teachers need to be aware of the effects and perspectives that students have on the topic matter.

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