“It caught me by surprise when I found out,” recalled sophomore Joana Hila. “It made me a little disappointed.”  Joana, like other students, checked portal the Tuesday before school started to get a sneak peak of what to expect the next day. However, for some such as herself, homeroom would be more interesting than usual.

Students anticipated the loss of some prominent Osceola teachers when they returned from summer break, such as Mr. Stewart, the eccentric language arts teacher who taught for more than 30 years, and Coach Palmer, who led the Warrior football team onto the battlefield for over 25 years. But teachers like Senor Whalen, who has been a Spanish teacher for decades at Osceola, teaching Spanish II through VI and being the primary Spanish teacher, were an unanticipated loss. So when Spanish students like sophomore Madison Palmer saw the sudden switch-up of her Spanish IV teacher, she was “extremely surprised” to say the least. After being handed their schedules, students were informed that Senor Whalen had retired during the summer.

Senor Whalen was known for loving his job and his students, so Warriors like Madison Palmer “imagined he’d be teaching for another five or ten years.” Senor Whalen wasn’t the only missing teacher on the first day of school, though. Along with Whalen, volleyball coach Ms. McDonald has recently moved on from the Osceola campus. While getting past the fact that some familiar Warrior faces were gone, students also focused on the new teachers that now roam the halls of OHS. Some new faces include Ms. Lopez, the new Spanish teacher who has taken over classes for teachers Mr. Kontrick and Ms. Padovan (who are now teaching the upper level Spanish classes that were once taught by Whalen), Ms. Sauter, who is joining the Language Arts department, and Ms. Brandt, who is now the new Physical Education teacher.  It may only be the second week of school, but students apparently have much more to discover than just what is in their text books.