Walkerville welcomes six new teachers

Walkerville begins the new school year with six new teachers: art teacher Caleb Kimball, second grade teacher Brenda Sommerfeldt, science teacher Morgan Hummon, kindergarten teacher Alyssa Hinojosa, music teacher Alessandra Dronchi and special education teacher Karen Gajewski.

Back-to-school open house set for Aug. 28

Wildcat News is a presentation of Walkerville Public Schools in partnership with Oceana County Press.  

By Allison Scarbrough, News Editor

WALKERVILLE — Walkerville Public Schools’ six new teachers will meet students, parents and community members during a back-to-school open house Wednesday, Aug. 28, from 4-5 p.m. 

The first day of school for the 2024-2025 school year is Tuesday, Sept. 3, which is a half day.

The open house is “an opportunity for parents and everyone to come in and introduce themselves to the new teachers; take a look at the updates to the building; look at where their kids’ classrooms are going to be; and just get all the information they need for when they start school on Sept. 3,” said Walkerville Superintendent and Principal Joe Conkle.

New teachers include: science teacher Morgan Hummon, art teacher Caleb Kimball, music teacher Alessandra Dronchi, special education teacher Karen Gajewski, second grade teacher Brenda Sommerfeldt and kindergarten teacher Alyssa Hinojosa who previously taught preschool at Walkerville. 

The school district is launching a weekly early release day this year. Every Tuesday, students will be released an hour early from school at 2:15 p.m. instead of the usual 3:15 p.m. dismissal time.

“Tuesday for the last four or five years, teachers would come in at 7:30 in the morning, and we would do professional learning,” said Conkle. “We found that we couldn’t get everything that we wanted done before the kids got here. The union was fantastic in recognizing the need for professional learning among the teachers and staff and the commitment to the professional learning process, so we came up with an idea to see how this goes this year. It allows us that flexibility if things are running over, if the teams want to continue to meet. It’s just trying to open up and unburden us from being constrained by the clock. We’re using the clock as our friend instead of our enemy.

“We will try it this year, and hopefully we get good results and we like it. If not, we’ll go back and try to figure out what is the next step.”

Sports team coaches have committed to keeping their athletes from 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. in a study hall and/or open tutoring session. “We can continue to reinforce that they’re student athletes — student first.

“We have our after-school partnerships with Project Focus and other programs, so students are able to grab a dinner and make sure they get fed, too. We’re the hub of the community, so we want to make sure that we provide for the kids,” said Conkle.

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