It is a week before school starts,the phone rings. It is Principal Bednarek calling you out of retirement. Picture walking into a classroom with only desks and having to start prepping and planning for when the room is filled with students in just one week. This is what former math teachers BethAnn Vaubel and Kay Rossow walked into. 

“I found out about this position on August 20. I took this position because this is the school I retired from, and I thought it was the right thing to do,” Vaubel said. 

In a similar way, Rossow was also informed of this position with short notice. 

“I found out about this position a couple days before school started,” Rossow said.

For long term substitute teachers, it is important that they have background on the topic so that the students do not get behind. 

“I started teaching at Winneconne, then I taught here for 17 years and retired from here. Since I retired, I have only subbed here,” Vaubel said. 

Rossow has had a similar experience with teaching compared to Vaubel. 

“I taught math here at BHS for around 33 years,” Rossow said.

Having substitutes that know the material well, can be helpful to the students.

“For having two substitute teachers, the class is going pretty smoothly, but I am looking forward to having a permanent replacement,” freshman Sophia Olofson said. 

Olofson, along with other students, may soon have a permanent replacement.

“We did interview two candidates. We think we might have a permanent option coming out of those interviews, but because that process is ongoing, it is all I can say at this time about that,” Principal Bryant Bednarek said.

Although it may have been a rocky beginning for Rossow and Vaubel, they have a positive approach to the situation even though things have changed since they were here last.

“Technology changes and updates literally every day. Coming back to teaching and seeing all the new ways we do things with technology can be confusing at times. It will get better each day as we learn and as the students learn,” Vaubel said.