Interviewing to become a teacher is not an easy task. For new Spanish teacher Katie Claus the process began in December. Along with interviewing at the high school, Claus also interviewed at the middle school. While the middle school interviewed her with a committee, the high school took a different approach. Claus was interviewed by three people, Principal Maryanne Ricketts, dean of boys Jeff Wagner, and former Westside Spanish teacher, Ricardo Varguez.

The interview process was thorough. The interview started with basic questions. Then Claus had to speak one-on-one with Varguez, a native Spanish speaker. Once their conversation was over, Claus had to present a miniature lesson on the difference between Spanish verbs “ser” and “estar”, which are often confused because of their identical English meaning of “to be”.

“Honestly, it was fun to teach another age group,” Claus said. “Dr. Wagner dug deep into his high school Spanish knowledge and even participated as my student.”

From there it became a waiting game. When the high school was the first to offer her a position, she jumped at the chance.

Claus will now focus on adjusting to being a full-time teacher at Westside, but has a significant advantage over many of her fellow new teachers: she has experience with the modular scheduling system. Before she knew she would be working in the fall, Claus had been a guest teacher several times during the spring semester of last year, and noticed how different and fast-paced Westside is compared to other schools.

“It gave me a headache just looking at the schedule for the first time,” Claus said.

In the end, Claus was able to adjust to modular scheduling and the way a typical school day goes.

This year Claus will be working with the Spanish 1 and Spanish 4H team of teachers. While the team will decide what material to cover, how she chooses to present the information is entirely up to her.

“What I do is really my style,” Claus said. “One of the greatest things about teaching is having the freedom to explore and use creativity. I take my students’ responses as a cue to change it up.”

Along with creating her lesson plans to match her style of teaching, Claus is looking forward to getting to know her students and colleagues.