You can also find this in the October issue of the Herald.

As many of us have seen on the south hallway bulletin board, there are many new staff members and teachers here at Arapahoe! To introduce them, if you haven’t had the opportunity to meet them yet, some members of the new staff include: Mrs. Wheeler, Mr. Baker, Mr. Spare, Mrs. Hamilton, Mr. Schermbeck, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Dyben. 

This year is Mrs. Wheeler’s first year teaching English at Arapahoe High School. Wheeler, a Colorado Native, attended Heritage High School and CU Boulder for her undergrad, then CU Denver for her graduate degree. Wheeler enjoys reading, hiking, playing tennis, camping and listening to music. Wheeler’s favorite book is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, “it’s not a real happy book, but I remember just loving it. I read it a couple times in high school and college.” Said Wheeler. Wheeler’s favorite part about being a teacher is “connecting with kids, having relationships with students and feeling like we have a good repore, but also sharing my love of reading and writing with kids, and just being able to share something that I love.” Wheeler became a teacher after she didn’t enjoy her first job-working at a law office-and because both of her parents were teachers.

Mr. Baker is one of the new Counselors to Arapahoe. Bakern has his Masters in Clinical Mental Health and worked with a variety of people during his career. “I worked at Children’s Hospital for three years. And I worked with a variety of kids and families as well.” Said Baker. After working at Children’s Hospital Baker worked for a private practice, “which was just kind of doing my own individual therapy with clients.” Said Baker. Then two years ago Baker went back to school to get his School Counselors Certificate. Baker is an Arapahoe Graduate who likes to ski and hike with his family. He also coaches boys and girls soccer at Arapahoe. Baker’s Favorite part of his job is “getting to hang out with kids, and having conversations with them. Trying to help them in any way is the best part of the job,” said Baker. 

Mr. Spare is not a new teacher to Arapahoe, but he is new to the counseling department. Spare was a English teacher at Arapahoe starting in 2012 and ending last school year. Before coming to Arapahoe, Spare worked as a teacher since 2001 at schools including Boulder High School and Littleton High School.“I think over the years, I just started to realize that helping kids, that counseling kids was one of my favorite aspects of teaching,” said Spare, “I realized that the relationships mattered the most to me. Also just watching kids struggle with mental health stuff is really hard. And I just wanted more tools to be able to help them.” Spare’s new role in counseling includes him helping students with schedules, and helping students get in contact with the resources they need. Mr. Spare is also very excited about the recent renovations and improvements to the counseling office. 

Ms. Hamilton is a new World Languages, specifically Spanish, teacher for the 2019-2020 school year at Arapahoe. She is a Colorado native and a Arapahoe graduate.  During her time at Arapahoe, Hamilton was a member of the teacher cadet program. “I did teacher cadet when I was in high school, so knew I wanted to be a teacher. And then I went straight into college. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” said Hamilton. “I coached all the way through college as well, I coached volleyball so that definitely gave me the telltale sign that I wanted to work with high school kids and teaching. I knew it right at that point.”  Outside of teaching, Hamilton also coaches volleyball and loves running. 

Mr. Schermbeck taught for 17 years in Texas, before moving to Colorado. Schermbeck credits his journalism teacher for his own inspiration to become a teacher: “He was just really good at building positive relationships with students, and that seems like something I could do.” Outside of his job, Schermbeck spends time biking, hiking, running, and spending time in the outdoors with his family. His likes when he “can feel like a student is getting really excited about doing something that we’re doing in class”. He says, “I want everybody to be able to connect literature and writing to their daily lives and can see it happening.”

Mrs. Johnson has been teaching her whole career, previously working at Ponderosa High School and Castle Rock Middle School. Mrs. Johnson studied Family and Consumer Sciences in college and said she “wanted to teach something that has useful life skills that everyone needs to know.” She has lived in Colorado for thirteen and a half years and grew up in Maryland. She likes to read with her son, Grayson, hike, go to fitness classes, or go to the beach. Mrs. Johnson has had a good start to the year and said she is “hoping to expand the program eventually and offer more culinary classes” in the future. 

Mrs. Dyben is a new math teacher at Arapahoe High School this year. She had worked at Rangeview High School since 2013. Dyben grew up in Colorado Springs and went to the University of Northern Colorado where she got her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in mathematics education. Outside of school, she enjoys spending time outside as well as spending time with her husband and one year old daughter. Her favorite part about teaching is “…meeting students and getting to hear their story.” and she is looking forward to her first year teaching at Arapahoe.