Many students face the result of having a new teacher halfway through the school year after an unexpected event involving a previous teacher who had to step down after some unfortunate events. Former 10th-grade English teacher Gretal Shelton has stepped up and taken on the role of both forensics and 10th-grade English.

Shelton hadn’t taught forensics previously so taking on this job was a whole new experience however she did teach speech for several years and enjoyed it.

“Coming out of college I had a lot of speech experience and that would have been my dream job,” Shelton said.

Shelton is a 10th-grade English and forensics teacher. After entering the English realm she never went back since forensics and debate take up so much time however now that all her kids are grown and she has free time she’s ready to take on this new adventure. She plans on continuing teaching both English and forensics next school year.

Shelton’s goals for this season are to hopefully expand the program and maybe even double it in size.

“I would love to make sure that we grow the program, and maybe even double it,” she said.

She also hopes that the program expands to more kids than just the theater kids which are normally the typical audience. She also hopes to have at least one national qualifier and five state qualifiers. Although you do need a prerequisite of intro to join the forensics team, Shelton is hoping to change it to where if you have had at least debate that with teacher approval you could join the forensics class.

Forensics is a good place to get involved in our school and isn’t necessarily just acting like some may believe. For people first starting, you’ll learn how to get ready for competition and you learn all the different events where you can eventually narrow down which ones you’re interested in. The competition aspect however is when kids take their pieces that they’ve polished, and they go and compete against other students from around the metro area.

Overall Shelton is excited to be able to carry on the program and welcome anyone who would like to try it out.

“I would love to even include kids that aren’t in my class,” Shelton said.