CRCSD teachers interviewed for this article have chosen to remain anonymous. They will be referred to as “anonymous teacher one” and “anonymous teacher two”. 

In the 2025-2026 school year, CRCSD plans to implement pathways where students choose one pathway to follow from their sophomore through seniors years and according to which discipline they chose, they will take specific classes based on the subject area. This creates confusion between teachers and students not knowing what classes they will be able to choose and take. 

The school district is also restructuring the social studies and science progressions. Instead of sophomores taking World History, freshmen will, and instead of juniors taking U.S. History, sophomores will. The Earth Science and Biology requirements will also be combined into one class for all freshmen to take, fitting into the new freshman academy.

But with every give, there is a take. The addition of new courses means other courses will become limited unless the district hires more teachers. While the community has been told repeatedly that students will not be losing access to electives with this change, that is simply not possible.

After the release of a CRCSD staff survey from October, 47% of the teachers at Kennedy High School reported they had considered resigning and departing from the district. Other high schools in the district reported similar results, with Washington reporting 46.3% of staff while Jefferson was lower at 27.3%. 

“I’m concerned about the district’s need for clearer communication to all shareholders, parents and students included,” one anonymous CRCSD teacher said. “It feels uncertain and disorganized. I feel that I am not valued in this process and am unsure if I will continue in this district.” 

CRCSD has had a habit of releasing schedules late in comparison to other districts. While students from districts like Linn-Mar receive their schedules in early May, Kennedy has released schedules around mid-August for the last few years, two weeks before the school year begins. Teachers aren’t much better off, typically getting their schedules in early August. This makes it difficult for teachers to prepare for the school year, especially when they are teaching new classes and need time to prepare or revamp material.

“I still need to find out my schedule and classes. I expect to find out closer to the start of the year, perhaps around August,” anonymous teacher one said. 

Compared to last year, teachers are widely disappointed with the dissemination of information. They have found it to be difficult to obtain information regarding their jobs and the upcoming changes this year.

“We had more straightforward guidelines earlier in last year’s change process. Updates about classes usually came through emails or staff meetings,” anonymous teacher one said. “This year, we receive information after the general public and students tell the teachers what is happening. We are ill-formed, and many students and teachers are noticing it.”

These changes are prompting staff to consider parting from the district and sending their children elsewhere, as they are afraid of the changes and how it will affect them. 

“Students will be anxious because their teachers are anxious about these changes,” anonymous teacher one said. “They will have to learn a completely new system alongside the teachers and this is going to be a tough change.”

With the amount of classes needed for freshmen and the new courses that educators are required to teach, former electives are being taken away. Due to the lack of information from the district, the rumor mill has run rampant. Teachers have been told electives will be cut while others have been reassured all electives will still be offered. According to one of our anonymous sources, meetings among teachers have deduced that up to ten elective classes may be taken away from next year’s schedule. Many of these classes are social studies and history.

“That will last for three years, so it won’t be until 2028-29 when we can start to bring some of those electives back,” another anonymous CRCSD teacher said. “We might be looking at caps for certain electives because we can only offer so many sections, as opposed to saying ‘this many students signed up, so we will make that many sections.’ Now it might be a lottery system for kids.”

With the need for more teachers for more classes, teachers are now required to teach outside of their specialties. Teachers have advanced degrees in specialty areas and if we assign them to other courses, students lose an expert in the subject. Just because it is on their license does not mean they are the best fit for the position.

“It is really unfortunate because kids are losing out on experts in their field,” anonymous teacher two said. “So I can prepare things but it’s not going to be the same level that I can do for kids in an area that I have advanced degrees in. I imagine I will be teaching up to four different things next year.”

District employees have been left wondering whether their opinions matter. It was never a question of if these changes would be made, but rather that they were happening in some way regardless of the educator’s thoughts.

“We were told pathways were happening, we were told freshman academy was happening. We didn’t have a say in the creation of those things, and then different departments were told that ninth grade requirements were changing in their areas,” anonymous teacher two said. “We did have some say in what those would be, but fully already knowing that it was already happening.”

The treatment of our teachers is nothing short of disappointing. These are the people we trust with our childrens’ education and their futures. Is keeping them in the dark really the best way to thank them?