The school year of 2025-2026 has been full of challenges from personal road blocks, to issues St. Charles High has worked through together as a school. One major obstacle SCHS has recently been faced with is the absence of a staff member in the English department, Skye Reichert. Reichert filled the positions of teaching College Composition, English 1, and was the adviser for Student Council. The administration and staff have been faced with juggling their own jobs, while concurrently filling in this absence so the students aren’t left feeling unseen.
Principal Dr. Ted Happel and Assistant Principal Dr. Patricia Closson, as well as Instructional Coach Leslie Teague, and sub Reid Bayliss have worked together to allow the students in College Composition to get the education and credit they have paid for.
“Ms. Teague is our instructional coach, specifically for social studies and English, she’s a former College Comp teacher,” Happel explained. “She is writing lessons, and teaching the class. Myself, Dr. Closson, and her are splitting the grading because we have other jobs too.”
Reid Bayliss is the substitute teacher that is filling in the classroom space for the College Comp class, English 1, and AIP block.
Happel continues to express that to teach College Composition, one needs a masters in English, or 18 credit hours towards an English-related degree. This makes it difficult for St. Charles High to find a new teacher to fill in this position. On top of that, St. Charles West’s College Composition teacher is retiring after this school year, leaving the St. Charles School District with the task of finding two new teachers with a masters degree in English.
“The biggest struggle so far is possibly figuring out ways to contribute in addition to Mrs. Teague who was my College Comp and Lit teacher,” Bayliss said. “There are a couple things that I am a little unfamiliar with, specifically what we are teaching now.”
Bayliss said it has been a joy to relate ideas to the students because he has gone through this curriculum. He enjoys being in a room full of intelligent people with smart ideas.
“We are taking it week by week, which is the proper thing to do in this scenario,” Bayliss said.
With English 1, Taylor Beye and Tori Ramsey, two teachers in our English department, have been giving Bayliss lesson plans for him to teach to his class. Happel and Closson assisted with grading an essay that the class was finishing up writing prior to them taking over. Although Bayliss enjoys it because this is one of his passions, he says it is challenging because the freshmen are wild.
“I get to teach English 1 which is a challenge because the freshmen are psychopaths,” Bayliss joked. “Ultimately I really do like being in this position because this is something I want to do in the future.”
Student Council is an additional group of high school students who were set out of place with this absence. Reichert was the adviser for this club. The rest of the 25-26 school year StuCo will play a small role in the school. Multiple events they host had to be cancelled such as the StuCo state trip in Branson, and other events like the elementary school carnival. Many meetings have also been postponed because they have nowhere to meet.
“I did talk to the current executive student council, if they want to do the end of the year assembly they can, that’s up to them,” Happel explained. “They have done a great job putting those assemblies together so far, so I support them in whatever they want to do with that.”
As for next year, a new Student Council Executive Board will be elected and multiple staff members have expressed interest in taking place as advisers for the 26-27 school year.
“StuCo is something really important to us, providing student leadership positions and opportunities for our students,” Happel said.
With things up in the air, students and staff have worked diligently to complete the school year, with students feeling as if they got the education they came for while also feeling seen.
“There is a lot of uncertainty of what the future holds,” Happel said.
