Two of ChS's Teachers Give Opinions on Community and Changes

Founded in 1884, CHS has maintained a staff of dedicated and amazing individuals, some of whom have been working at the school for 25 plus years.

Karen Kleinerman, head of the math department, has been teaching for almost 33 years at CHS. Currently, Kleinerman teaches three geometry classes, her favorite subject.

From the end of her senior year of high school, Kleinerman had known that she wanted to be a math teacher. She attended college at Rosemont College, where she earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics. She then earned her master's degree in subject matter teaching at Rowan University. She began teaching at CHS after holding a few jobs after graduating from college.

When asked what her favorite thing about CHS was, Kleinerman stated that the school's community and the people that it consists of is her favorite aspect of working at CHS.

"I don't think you can become a teacher without loving people, so people are number one. Even though high school teachers are a little more subject matter-centric, no matter what, people come first and math comes second."

According to Kleinerman, one of the biggest changes that she has experienced at Cheltenham High School was the introduction of phones into the learning environment.

"The emergence of cell phones in our daily lives made a huge difference in the classroom experience for me. It's a challenge for teachers to be as engaging without having any supporting staff who can create things for you. Teachers are a network, so we support each other, but when we're up against cell phones that's pretty tough."

Kleinerman also noted that another change was the workload of the job. She explained that over the years, responsibilities will get added on, but things are rarely taken off.

Brian Hollis is another teacher who has been working at CHS for over 20 years.

After earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Akron and his degrees in public policy, education, and English and publishing from Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Rosemont College, he began his teaching career in the Cheltenham school district at Cedarbrook Middle School. He then later moved to CHS after about eight years.

Hollis admitted that he didn't originally intend to become a teacher. Instead, he set out to work in the research field.

"I was actually pursuing a completely different career. I was in research, and I was doing policy research on youth employment programs, and in the process of doing the research and the program design I interacted with a lot of teachers and social workers. I decided that it would be helpful to my research career if I had some front line experience actually working with teenagers, so my plan was to just leave research for three to five years, and then go back into research, but once I started teaching it sort of just grew on me."

Currently, Hollis teaches AP economics, AP human geography, grade level economics, and US history honors.

"[My classes] have changed a lot. Since I've been at the high school I've taught, at last count, nine different subjects, all within social studies." Hollis also added that his favorite classes to teach are AP economics and AP human geography.

Hollis explained that his favorite thing about CHS is the freedom that he gets in the classroom.

"One of my favorite things is that over the years I've found that there's been room for me to experiment-- for me to exhibit my creativity as a teacher. That's not always the case in school, but here I found that outlet pretty much throughout my teaching career, and that has really meant a lot to me."

Hollis noted that one of the most drastic changes that he's seen not just at Cheltenham High School, but in schools all over the country, have been the standards that teachers are expected to hold their students to.

"The standards that we hold students to have declined, and I understand that it's not just this school district, that it's really a nation-wide phenomenon, but the academics standards really really have loosened a lot. I have to admit that at times it's been discouraging, but on the other hand I recognize that sometimes you just get swept along with the flow of things."