By Gracie Maurer
Fast forward three months. The summer days are coming to an end. The 2025-2026 school year is getting ready to start back up again.
Teachers are preparing for the school year.
“I just decompress and give myself a break,” history teacher Brad Himes said.
He said he prepares by spending a lot of time outside and relaxing.
At the end of every year he writes down a list of what he wants to do better for next school year.
“Last year I wrote down 23 (items) and implemented 19,” Mr. Himes said.
He has a semester calendar that he tends to stick by.
Mr. Himes always wants to learn from his students and others to make himself better.
“I always tell the students, I hope they learn from me, but every year I’m going to learn from them,” Mr Himes said. “If I want to get better I have to.”
There’s a general rule he follows for himself the first couple of days.
He tries to implement this rule the best he can and set the tone of this room and his rules.
“I think that as a general rule you could make an argument that the first three days at school are probably the most important days because you set the tone for what your class is going to be like,” Mr. Himes said.
He talks to the other teachers in his department to decide what new teaching strategies to try.
There is a special place where Mr. Himes likes to spend some time each summer.
“The beach is where I go and the stress melts off,” Mr. Himes said.
He still works during the summer for the school, it’s just not teaching.
“I mow for the school so I stay busy that way,” he said. “I’m kind of an outside person anyway.”
Jacob VanPelt teaches health and works a lot during the summer like Mr. Himes.
He does baseball lessons during the summer as well as summer football training for the middle school, and he works with his dad in construction.
Delta gives teachers two days before the students come back to school so they have extra time to prepare for the school year. That’s what Mr. VanPelt uses to get things ready for the next school year.
But he doesn’t have to do much because most things are already in place.
“My modules have already been made so I’ve kind of got a rough outline of the whole semester done,” Mr. VanPelt said.
Mr. VanPelt’s room is filled with posters of all the sports of Delta as well as Ball State University, Butler University, Indiana University, and many, many more.
He doesn’t plan to add any more posters this year, unless he gets a baseball poster.
Mr. VanPelt is quite busy. He coaches middle school football, coaches varsity baseball, and runs the basketball scoreboards.
So, he doesn’t do much school preparation during the summer.
“It’s nice in the summer to just enjoy the weather and do nothing,” Mr. VanPelt said.
Some teachers don’t have a job during the summer like Miss Emily Lodge, who teaches Biology and Integrated Chemistry/Physics (ICP).
Miss Lodge goes hiking during the summer, but that’s not the only thing she does.
She reviews her curriculum.
“I review over the year and change up lessons if they didn’t work,” Miss Lodge said.
She just recently joined Delta at the start of the second semester.
Even though she is new here, she already has some tentative plans for her classroom for next year.
“I might get a fish,” Miss Lodge said.
