Every year, there are departures and changes within the composition of the staff as, for various reasons, some teachers leave and new teachers are hired. While the amount of teachers vary from year to year, this year the high school is losing fourteen, which, counting personnel at this school that hold teaching positions, comes out to 14 percent of the resident teachers.

“We have a great staff here, and we have a lot of teachers who have decided to go to different places for a lot of different reasons,” Principal Chris Mayfield said. “Certainly, our goal is to provide kids with the best academic, social, and emotional experience we can here, but within that, we know that teachers have their own choice and their own things going on in their lives and circumstances that change and make other options right for their families and for them. We appreciate what they do and have done here and we wish them well for where they go.”

There are various reasons teachers leave, some for economic opportunity, some for social decisions, and some for circumstances within their personal lives. Last year, 15 staff members left, with near that number this year. In years past, however, according to former principal Gavan Goodrich, the number has been lower, closer to six or seven.

“Different staff have different reasons for leaving, and none of them are the same,” Mayfield said. “From an individual basis, they all have an individual reason. They aren’t all the same, so it would be hard to say there’s a trend or something that I could draw a conclusion with, but typically, it fluctuates; it’s sometimes more, sometimes less, a lot of it has to do with life changes for our staff, or opportunities, and they’re making decisions based on what they need for their families, and we absolutely respect and support them.”

When teachers leave, the administration has a process for replacing them.

“When we have a position that becomes available, we post it on our district website and then with the links that go to the database for applications,” Mayfield said. “We review those applications; we are looking for the best candidates we can find, and then we have a process where we interview those candidates. It’s multiple steps, but after we interview them and we find the individual that we think is the best fit for that position and for the campus, then we offer them the job.”

The process occurs by reviewed application.

“Well, the applications are pretty general,” Mayfield said, “And what I mean is that there’s just information around things like certification, years of service, where they’ve taught previously, educational background, and professional experience. Obviously, they have references who could attest to their performance, so its a pretty generic process, from district to district to district it’s really the same. In fact, the application database, the districts around here all use the same application database.”