Within the past few months, Woodland has seen a lot of teachers leave, arrive, and move around. Some students have new teachers, no teachers, or a substitute, waiting for theirs to come back.

Although many of the changes have been happening this year, it all started last year with Lisa Seagran. Seagran taught Fine Arts classes like ceramics, but towards the end of the school year, Seagran left the school and Eileen Portelance took her place.

Just this year, Marissa Iezzi, music teacher, left Woodland after teaching here for four years. To fill her place, Woodland welcomed Ian Youngs, former Laurel Ledge Elementary School music teacher. He took all her classes, and is trying his best to get the band more involved in the school.

Following Iezzi’s departure, Jill Spiwak retired, after working to build the athletic department for 21 years. Her retirement was hard for the school because over the years, she has done so much for Woodland. This left the position as the Athletic Director’s Assistant open. Jennifer Cloney stepped in to take her place from previously working in the copy center.

In addition to the Athletic Director Assistant leaving, Athletic Director Chris Decker is stepping down to go back to his previous position of Humanities teacher. He will be taking over Melissa Barberos’ classes as she has decided her time teaching at Woodland has come to an end. The new Athletic Director is now Christopher Dailey who previously worked at Shein Highschool.

Towards the end of quarter one, rumors spread that math teacher, James Belinsky, was going to quit. Thus leaving students concerned in regards to their learning. In opposition to the rumors, Belinsky did not quit working at the school entirely. He moved positions to fill in for Digital Media teacher Ralph Riello, who had retired a few weeks prior. Before it was finalized, Belinsky often had to miss his classes in order to fill in for Riello. This left Belinsky’s classes to do busy work with substitutes.

“It’s hard when you don’t have your teacher for a while,” said Belinsky’s student Darci Dokla. “You don’t learn from stand-in subs so you lose motivation to do the busy work.”

Belinsky’s students were happy to welcome Steven Alexandrou as their new teacher. Alexandrou previously worked at Crosby High School as an Algebra one teacher and seems very enthusiastic about his new position here at woodland.

“I like Mr. Alexandrou,” stated Dokla. “He seems happy to be here and so far is doing a good job.”

Although Woodland is sad to see teachers go, we are also happy to welcome new faces into the staff at Woodland Regional High School.