As students entered their classes on the first day of school, many teachers, although listed on students’ schedules, were nowhere to be found, with this affecting a great many students.
This phenomenon created five “ghost teachers” in both the English for Speakers of Other Languages classes (ESOL) and Math departments, those instead being monitored by substitutes.
In ESOL, Teachers Linda Sadaka and Margarita Perez retired at the end of last year. The school district, which controls the hiring process, was unable to find a potential teacher with an ESOL certification, which is required to teach ESOL classes, with the nation currently experiencing a teacher shortage. This lack of teachers at Krop has affected students from all grade levels.
As a result of this, the administration has assigned English teachers Deborah Anderson and Tanya Smith to cover several ESOL classes, with their previous students being moved into other teachers’ classes.
“I’m excited,” Anderson said. “As I say, I live in paradise and I work in paradise, so it doesn’t matter which kids I get, I’m going to make it paradise.”
Smith will also take over some classes, with the remaining teacher-less ESOL classes being minimized to decrease the amount of students without a teacher. However, many of these students will still be left without a teacher, with work being assigned by the other ESOL teachers.
“It is a bad situation because there are people who have recently arrived in this country and what they need is to learn English,” junior Josue Hernandezlizam said. “Having a teacher would help us a lot because the more we work, the more we learn and thus we practice it more. They are providing us with work, but there are people who don’t understand, and sometimes the work is very difficult for us.”
This lack of teachers has also affected students in their math classes, with three teachers being absent, all on temporary leave. Math Teachers Felicia Brooks, Tamesa Willis and Mark Butler are all not in the building, with Brooks scheduled to come back next year and the other two scheduled to come back later in the school year. Between them, the three teachers have Algebra 2 Regular and Honors, Math for College Algebra and Math for College Statistics on their schedule.
Math Department chair Tarrence Holmes has taken up the responsibility of assigning work to these students and grading said work, including tests. He also tries to provide instruction to each of these classes, but sometimes cannot due to the demands of his classes. For now, most of the classes have been focused on a review of previous Algebra concepts.
This lack of teachers has also affected Krop’s Key Club, a community service club, which was previously sponsored by Butler, with Holmes replacing him.
“We had to ask a lot of teachers if they were willing to be our sponsor at least temporarily but no one was exactly interested,” Key Club president Simja Haratz said. “This was until Mr. Holmes actually came to us and kindly offered to be our sponsor.”
Although these “ghost teachers” initially caused confusion in the school, Krop teachers and students have adapted, and many are hopeful for the coming school year.
“Unfortunately society has not given enough praise to the people who educate their children. So that in itself has, I believe, created a shortage,” Assistant Principal Monica Alba Nuñez said. “Our kids are amazing and our teachers are doing a great job. If we continue working together, Krop will continue to show up in the US News reports for being one of the top high schools.”