I am a Senior at Nordonia High School. For my senior internship, I decided to work with Nordonia Hills News. Julie D’Aloiso and I came up with the idea to create a 5 part series about Nordonia High School staff. The 5 people who were chosen were: Mrs. Spellman, Mrs. Wenzel, Mr. Knight, Officer Nicholl, and Ms. Archer.
Each was chosen for a reason. One reason is that all 5 of them are different from each other when it comes to what they do at Nordonia High School. The other being more specific to each person: Ms. Archer because she worked at Key West High School for 10 years prior to becoming a principal at Nordonia. Mrs. Wenzel because she is the current graduating classes counselor and has been here just as long as they have. Mrs. Spellman because she is a senior advisor and does a lot of behind the scenes work with all senior activities. Officer Nicholl because many students know of and love him but may not know his story or thought process. Mr. Knight because he is a newer teacher and we wanted the perspective of someone who hasn’t been teaching at Nordonia for a long time.
We wanted to know how: teachers, counselors, officers, and principals felt about the classes they offered, and just Nordonia High School in general. It was also interesting to learn what it was like for them when they were young and to compare their high school to Nordonia.
Mrs. Wenzel is a guidance counselor at Nordonia High School who was born in Marietta Ohio. She has been a guidance counselor for 4 years and previously worked at Cuyahoga Falls Elementary School and a couple of years in high school.
As a counselor, she does a lot of different things such as academic, career, social-emotional, mental health, etc. She originally went to college for pre-med but after a “poor experience with chemistry”, she was recommended to take a phycology course which she loved. Later in her senior year of college, she took a counseling course at Muskingum University. This led her to get a masters in both counseling and mental health which gave her the option of working in a school or working in an agency.
Her parents and teachers were some of the inspirations she had in her life, but there were two people who inspired her the most. The first being the counselor she worked with at Muskingum, who, thanks to his direction she found her true calling in helping others. The other was her grad school professor, Dr. Zigler, who, supported and encouraged her to become a great counselor. She graduated from Marietta High School which had 300 people in the senior class similar to Nordonia High School which has a little over 300.
One thing she is glad that she didn’t have during high school was social media. She feels it is a positive since it kept students out of some of the trouble and social negativity that teenagers experience today. Google Docs and Remind were some of the things she said was a good thing about technology. It allows students to collaborate with their teachers more often than they could without it.
Her final advice to any seniors listening who are in, is to take any opportunity that’s given to you and make every possible connection you can. Just as she succeeded thanks to her connections with others around her, you can too. Find something that makes you happy in life and that you can make a living off of. Her advice to any incoming freshmen who may also be listening is to learn to advocate for yourself and ask questions. Never be afraid to ask questions because you’ll never get a yes if you don’t ask.
Click the green arrow below to listen to the podcast.
