Since the end of last school year, one of the math teachers has been on leave. This makes some students feel abandoned and left on their own to teach themselves in their math class.
Students have been left without a replacement teacher and the only solution the students seem to find from the building are last minute substitute teachers who some might say, don’t know how to teach the subject of math.
Senior Jal Kueth has been left feeling frustrated and annoyed for not having a stable teacher.
“With all these different teachers that we have every class period, I’ve felt like I haven’t learned a single thing since school started,” Kueth said.
With the result of not having a stable teacher, many students are seeing that their grades in their math class are low and for others their grades keep going dropping.
Senior Serenity Rose is a student who wants to enjoy the class; however, she feels as if the school doesn’t really care about the situation.
“I like the class, but it makes me feel frustrated,” Rose said. “We keep having different teachers come in and out every class period.
And they all teach differently, or they completely don’t know what to do.”
However, students aren’t the only ones who are having trouble. Math teacher, James Leise has absorbed the math class for the moment, meaning that there could be some problems facing Leise.
“I haven’t taught Algebra 2 in a while now, so with that I got to remember how I taught it,” Leise said. “And now it’s an extra class, which means I don’t have any more breaks on B days, which means I teach all four periods that day.”
Adding an extra class could be hard and possibly stressful for some teachers. It would take more time during and after school to grade student work.
“That’s a bit more of an extra work,” Leise said. “I now have to prepare the class, make sure it’s all done and grade all the homework and grade their test.”
JoAnna Hale is the math curriculum specialist at Benson High school. She explained how Benson and OPS wants every student to be taught by a qualified teacher.
“We are currently in a teacher shortage area with math and substitutes [teachers],” Hale said.
For now, the school will continue to provide a long-term support for the class with Hale handling the grading and lesson planning until they’re able to find an official replacement.