As a new school year dawns on Townsend Harris High School, incoming students may be surprised to find that they are not the only new additions to the building. Since May 2022, the THHS administration has been busy hiring new faculty to replace retiring teachers and accommodate the growing student body.

According to Assistant Principal of Organization Ellen Fee, the school is set to hire over ten teachers for the new school year. The teachers will be in the Instructional Support Services, physical education, world languages teacher, science and social studies departments.

Throughout the summer, and as recently as August 10, students were invited into the school to judge prospective hires during demonstration lessons, according to an email sent to students by Assistant Principal of World Languages and Instructional Support Georgia Brandeis. At the lessons, students would rate the candidates based on their teaching style and interact with them. Afterwards, Ms. Brandeis would ask students to “see if they [think the applicant] had what it takes to be a teacher in our school.” 

Ms. Fee said, “Ms. Brandeis was already doing demo lessons before [the last] school [year] ended.” She added that some of these lessons had started as early as May in other departments as well. 

“I wanted to go to the [demo lesson] to make sure the new teacher would be someone I would be comfortable teaching me,” said sophomore Rubi Kim.

Photo by Renchen Lama