Retired teachers filling needby Jake Wright When North Bend Central needs an extra teacher, it often turns to former teachers. NBC relies on a pool of retired teachers that have stayed local and stayed involved with the school through substitute teaching. With subs being harder and harder to find these days, it is a resource the school doesn’t take for granted.
Former NBC business teacher Jodi Yount began teaching in 1981. She taught business classes her whole career, though the classes changed drastically from the eighties to 2010s. “The business department was just very different,” Yount said. “We taught business machines, business math, basic programming, accounting, business management, consumer law. The curriculum was just very vast compared to the way it is now.” She retired from full-time teaching in 2015 and began substitute teaching the following fall. She started off the 2015-16 school year with about 45 days of subbing. “That was always my intent, to retire and come back,” Yount said. “It requires a lot of stamina, but I still wanted to stay involved. That is why I still do 99% of my subbing (at NBC) because I still know the families, I still know the kids, they still know me. I’m to the point now where I’ve taught a lot of their parents.” A lot of variety comes with substituting, since subs often don’t know ahead of time who they’ll sub for or what subject they’ll be teaching. Yount said that was one of her favorite aspects of subbing as you see all the age ranges as well as the subjects. Last week she was teaching high school math one day and industrial tech the next. “When you sub, your experiences are very eclectic,” Yount said. “You get to experience the broad spectrum of all the subjects.” Bev Greuber taught at North Bend’s elementary school for 39 years before retiring in 2018. She began substituting in 2020. “Is it terrible to say that I missed school?” Grueber said. “I missed the kids. I missed the adults. School had been my life for so long, it was just hard to not be back at school.” Grueber talked about how joyful it is to see former students grow and change into young adults. She also wishes people outside of the school building respected teachers and substitutes a little more and knew just how much time and effort teachers put into their students and their classes. As for her favorite subject, she loves home economics classes. “If I could come back as a teacher again, I think I would be a family consumer science teacher,” she said. “I like English as well, but mostly it’s just nice to see a variety of things. It’s never boring.” Finding such willing substitute teachers isn’t always easy. NBC superintendent Patrick Ningen said there is a shortage of subs, and North Bend is fortunate enough to have old teachers come back. He said that it is common for a school system to have former teachers come back and substitute, and it’s always nice having someone you can rely on. “It’s becoming harder and harder (to find subs),” Ningen said. “The expectations in the classroom continue to go up, and there’s different criteria to be a sub.”
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