This is the last article in this series.
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.
Guidance Counselor Mrs. Wenzel and English Teacher Mrs. Spellman
Mrs.Archer is an associate principal and in charge of the beginning of the alphabet at Nordonia High School. The beginning of the alphabet means she is in charge of all students A-I just as the guidance counselors are in charge of a specific grade. Her inspiration comes from her family of educators, her mom was a high school business teacher, and her dad was her high school principal. Another inspiration was her 11th grade AP English teacher. She was tough and to the point with her students, telling them exactly what they would be doing all year and if there was anyone who didn’t want to do it, they should sign out of the class. She at first said she would never be a teacher, but wanted to be a FBI profiler, but she later abandoned this plan after realizing she isn’t good with blood and that it didn’t match her personality. She ended up majoring in English and after college, she grew an interest in sales and marketing. She later worked for a company in Medina for 4 years. She was in charge of getting to know the customer and their needs. Thanks to her Dad mentioning that they needed teacher down in Florida, she took her first steps to become a principal. She worked as an English teacher for Key West Middle school and High School for 6 years and 3 more years as an assistant principal before she later moved back to Nordonia to become an associate principal. The reason she states for why she chose was simply that she believes “there’s no place like home.”
To compare Nordonia to her high school Highland, she said they were similar in how the staff interacted with the students. The difference between the number of AP classes they had back when she was a high schooler. She sees Chromebooks as a really good positive item because of the feedback teachers can now give their students any time of the day instead of only in class. She did, however, say that technology wasn’t something that was needed to get a good education but something that can increase the amount of education a student receives. She has a lot more to say in this interview than what is said here so I recommend if you have the time, listen to her story.
Click the green arrow below to listen to the podcast.
