Barlow’s new staff members look forward to another year at Barlow

As our school year approaches it’s final couple of weeks, some of the new teachers of this year were required to re-interview for the official position of being a staff member at Barlow. It is my pleasure to introduce our authorized new staff members.

“I’m happy to have landed at Barlow.  It’s a beautiful school and the people couldn’t be nicer or more supportive.  It’s quite a change from working with elementary kids, but I love it. High school is a very different culture and I’m looking forward to next year when I can get the real feel of it all,” mentioned Erica Fuller. 

Another face working in our office is Fuller as the new attendance secretary after working in the Gresham-Barlow School District for over a decade. Fuller definitely lucked out transferring from West Gresham Elementary School since it’s official closure and is thrilled to be in a new environment.

“Next year I am looking forward to just about everything! It is all going to be new again for me, so I will have to relearn how to teach in a ‘normal’ year. I think I am most excited to have face to face interactions with my students and colleagues and to attend sporting and club events,” stated Chandler Ichikawa.

Our math department is devastatingly losing a couple teachers for retirement which allows the department to recruit a couple new teachers. Ichikawa currently teaches Integrated 1 and Math Lab but suspects to continue teaching Integrated 1 and eventually AVID. Barlow has greatly welcomed Ichikawa feeling a sense of belonging and looks forward to coaching sports and teaching science courses.

“It’s been great to get to know people. One hard part about this school year was being at home for the first stretch and not having those connections and conversations with fellow teachers.  It’s been a welcome change to be back in school because I can hang out with and learn from my colleagues now,” expressed Casey Peters.

Peters is another addition to the math department and currently teaches Integrated 2 and Integrated 3. Since being a student teacher for the 2019-2020 school year for Andy Collmer, Peters was allowed to get a sense of teaching an Integrated 2 classroom and make some staff and student connections before being an official hire. Peter continues to strive for this upcoming school year to pursue more personal connections after distance learning while attending sporting events, and is taking this summer to hopefully earn approval of teaching Calculus, being a club leader, redo his porch, climb Table Mountain, and perfect his chocolate chip cookie recipe.

“I’m looking forward to in-class learning and getting to see more students’ faces! Also, I have some cool lesson plans I want to try out to see if they are actually cool or if I am just thinking they are cool,” exclaimed Jenna Arnold.

Already welcomed to the Barlow community after being a consistently returning substitute, Arnold has been given the opportunity to dabble in teaching different courses from that experience and gain a sense of some student connections from seeing familiar faces. Arnold currently teaches Global Perspectives, World Studies, and Geography but suspects to teach Economics and US history in the future while staying hopeful of trying new lesson plans for in person school this following year.

“It’s been really nice. I have been a part of the Barlow community since I was a freshman here so it’s kind of like coming back home. But it’s been really nice working alongside my former teachers and it’s been working with the people who inspired me to do this in the first place,” emphasized Adina Kiriac.

Returning home to the Barlow community after being a former student, Kiriac currently teaches Intro Journalism, English 1-2, and is the heart of soul of the Bruin Banner. Kiriac will continue to lead Journalism and Banner with a few new ideas for the future of broadcasting and writing at Barlow. Kiriac strives for creating a more diverse and inclusive curriculum by adding culture and representation in the material so it evolves with our generation and begins classroom conversations.

With the new additions to our Barlow community, there’s definitely a sense of welcoming more modern techniques into our curriculum to grow our school and teaching lessons that haven’t altered for years. Remember to give a friendly welcome to our new teachers and staff members.