Transitions due to teacher absences in programs has significant impact on students across the school.

When a teacher has led a class, program, or sport for a long time, students see them as part of the foundation of what they are learning. When teacher turnover happens in an established class or program, it can have a significant impact on the students.

Recently, various programs at South have been impacted by shifts in leadership, including the South catering program, Integrated Outdoor Program (IOP), and football, all which had to handle different and challenging transitions. 

Regardless of why these changes occurred, the impacts on these programs and the students that take part in them are very real.

When a program finds itself without a leader who played a major role in running it, how does it successfully adapt? What are the impacts on students when a key teacher leaves?

Catering students began school this year by realizing that Gregory Dunkin, the culinary arts teacher who led South Fork Catering, was not in class this year. 

South senior Rory Young took classes from Dunkin freshman through junior year, and is currently in her third year in catering. At the beginning of school, students were told “the absolute bare minimum,” she explained. “It was pretty much just, ‘He’s not here,’ and that was about it.” She elaborated that “it didn’t seem like information was being withheld.” Instead, the substitutes, who the students were talking to, “had no information to give.”

The complicated nature of the culinary arts program on the A/B schedule has necessitated multiple subs. These educators have worked hard to learn the program and to teach it, and to preserve some of the defining activities and events that students enjoy and look forward to. But it is still not easy. 

South senior Gus Fox spoke about how hard the substitutes are working. Roop Kaur, a sub who is at South most days, is great at “getting everyone involved in the class,” and that she works hard to make sure students help out. 

“That’s something I definitely appreciate,” he said. 


When asked about the transition, Young responded that it’s been “rough” due to how ingrained Dunkin was in the catering system, as well as the community. 

She said that the biggest challenge this year has been “having people know what South Fork Catering is.” For most of the people in catering, it’s their first year in the program. 

“It’s really difficult to teach them about who we are, what we do, and how we do it when the person who has been here for so long isn’t there,” Young said.

A lot of the responsibility to teach new students where important information such as supplies and certain ingredients are, and other important information, has fallen to seniors in the class.

South senior Zara Karpinski, who took International Foods as a freshman and catering her junior year, planned to take catering again this year. Without Dunkin, she made the decision to drop the class. Karpinski spoke about the impact Dunkin had on catering, and how without him, the program just wasn’t the same.

“He brings a lot of emotion in class, and kind of lifts everyone’s spirits up,” she said, adding that he’s really great at getting everyone involved in the class.

Catering isn’t the only program that has been impacted by unexpected shifts in leadership this year. The football team’s mid-season transition also brought along challenges when Head Coach Edmund Rivera suddenly left the team in September.

Football co-captain Isaiah Francis explained what the team was told about the situation. During their September game against Willamette High School, the coaches “just sat us down right before the game” and told the team that “Rivera wasn’t going to be there for the foreseeable future.”

Rivera had been head coach of the football team since it was revived after the pandemic, and he played a big role in fostering the team’s community.

“I know a lot of the guys were playing because of Rivera,” South senior Sammy Villalta said. He added that there were many people wondering if they should keep playing now that the coach who brought them in was no longer there.

“That whole game [against Willamette], we just had no idea what was happening; and as the season progressed, it was just weird not having him, a head coach who had all the leadership skills and everything,” Francis added. 

Without Rivera, other coaches stepped up to help, but it was a complicated change that left the team in disarray.

A third program working through a transition is IOP. Though the transition wasn’t as abrupt, it hasn’t been without its challenges.

South senior Ziggy Fox is an IOP student leader this year. They shared the impact the program has had on them.

“I help direct the class, encourage people to participate, I learn different topics like natural navigation and, in turn, teach the class about them,” they explained.

IOP students shared challenges with the transition that came when longtime IOP teacher Pete Hoffmeister left South this year. But they also shared the importance of having teachers come in who recognize the value of the program and what it takes to support students.

“It sometimes can be a little bit rough,” Ziggy said. “Pete was just such this incredible figure and really just stood for everything that IOP is. However, [IOP teachers] Bri [Martinez] and Jenny [Jackson] are doing the best they can to fill those shoes and change the program in ways that it needs to be changed, while keeping and maintaining a lot of the IOP core ethics and concepts. It’s still a great class and a great way to get outdoors and learn to love to be outdoors.

Villalta, also a student leader, spoke about the changes in IOP.

“This year looks a little bit different than what it looked like last year,” he said. “There’s some overlap, but it’s kind of taken a little bit of a different approach to what IOP means.”

Many students at South are involved in programs that shape their education and their lives. When those activities or classes undergo major transitions, it has real impacts on the students.

Every group is affected differently, and every individual responds uniquely – though there are similarities in how we face challenges that arise from lack of communication and information.. Students hope that when significant changes happen impacting the leadership of programs like these, there will be increased communication about the changes and better support for the transitions.

Article by Aria Lynn-Skov