Mr. Thomas Travels the World to Find New Staff

At the end of the 2021/22 school year the Shallot ran features on all of the teachers who were leaving us. This included the infamous Mr. Siefken who left us to join a didgeridoo band in Australia. This summer we were saddened to lose Mrs. Kindall as well. Student favorite Mrs Kindall earned widespread recognition for her time and accomplishments at East Middle School based on her love of kids and her tremendous academic growth with all students. However upon reaching the pinnacle of her professional career she decided it was time to move on to other challenges. “Teaching small humans to read just started getting too easy, I needed something new,” stated Mrs. Kindall. With this motivation she decided to move back to her hometown of Meeker, Colorado where she will pursue a new career in Bovine Youth Development. “I’m going to be working with young calves on their literacy. People have told me over and over again that it's impossible, but I see potential in these calves and I’m certain that I can get them to read and write.” Mrs. Kindall will certainly be missed but we look forward to future interactions with cattle after she teaches them to speak.

Given the challenges of replacing old staff, Mr. Thomas went forth with a plan beginning in the spring and extending into the summer. Mr. Thomas decided it was time to travel the world in search of replacements. First and foremost Mr. Thomas needed to find a new right hand person and he found that person in Dr. Linda Flohr, our new Assistant Principal. To be clear to our readers, Dr. Flohr is not a doctor of medicine so she will not be tasked with healing your boo boos, and we still ask that you stay home if you have Covid. Instead Dr. Flohr is a doctor of Physics; we here at the Shallot have no idea what that means so we Googled it. Physics is defined as “the branch of science that deals with the structure of matter and how the fundamental constituents of the universe interact.” We here at the Shallot still don’t know what that means so we went to get clarification from Mr. Thomas on his new trusty assistant and her hiring. “I believe that students matter, and that they are matter. I look forward to working with Dr. Flohr in our mission to grow the constituents of our universe.” We’re just going to conclude that she can move objects with her mind.

The next step in the process for Mr. Thomas was to build on the success of his previous hirings. “I needed more Mr. Bolotin’s.” Mr. Bolotin was of course a Shallot favorite last year based on the way that he nurtured student relationships by pwning them on the basketball court. With this in mind Mr. Thomas held doppelganger auditions in an attempt to clone Mr. Bolotin. “One applicant stood out and that was Mr. Chaffin.” When asked how he expects to see the staff grow when he’s simply cloning teachers Mr. Thomas replied, “well I just hope that this version of Mr. Bolotin can dunk.” If this experiment works out we fully expect to see a young Nikolai Bolotin hired in some capacity next year. Mr. Chaffin will be teaching 7th grade math.

Speaking of growth, East Middle School is currently celebrating an excellent 21/22 school year and the bar for improvement is high. For Mr. Thomas to improve on last year’s staff he needed a superhero. “Who better than Spiderman to take us to the next level?” stated Mr. Thomas. “Tom Holland said no, so we had to go get the 2012 and 2014 version, but the expectations remain the same, so we hired Ben Jackson.” Mr. Jackson wasn’t easy to find. After his acting career came to an end Mr. Jackson decided to apply his spidey skills towards reaching new heights, so he moved to the Swiss Alps. Coming to East represents an opportunity for Spider-man to strive towards new heroic acts such as topping last year’s schoolwide performance. Mr. Jackson will be teaching 7th Grade Science.

Mr. Thomas’ journey to Europe left him exhausted and he needed to head home to recharge. Once stateside he stepped off of his Skiff and jumped back on his motorcycle bound for Yuma, AZ. Along the way he found a raisin in the Sahara desert. This raisin’s name was Rebecca Williams.

“Where are you from and why are you here?” asked Mr. Thomas.

Mrs. Williams replied, “I’m from Colorado, I was once a healthy grape and got lost here in

the desert.”

“Well what if I told you I could take you back to a place where grapes grow all over?”

“That would be wonderful.”

At that point Mr. Thomas pointed to his sidecar and the rejuvenated raisin hopped in. Together they returned to the Grand Valley and Mrs. Williams regained her grape form. She will now be teaching 7th Grade ELA and will avoid returning to the desert ever again.

For his next hire Mr. Thomas knew he needed an expert in wrangling kids. In his previous travels through the grapevine he learned of the legendary Moening-Swanson band of rodeo clowns from Wyoming. For those who don’t know, Rodeo clowns bear the responsibility of distracting bucking bulls from goring the bull riders who have dismounted. If you can dodge a raging bull, you can handle a middle schooler thought Mr. Thomas. With this in mind he went on the hunt and eventually found Isaac Moening-Swanson in Pagosa Springs, CO. Mr. Moening-Swanson was initially reluctant to leave the rodeo life, but Mr. Thomas assured him that dodging mountain bikes on the local trails provided a similar thrill, and at that point Mr. Moening-Swanson was in. Nobody on the staff is more excited about this hire than Mr. Moreno who has always dreamed of being a cowboy. “I sure hope he’ll teach me his ways.” Mr. Moening-Swanson will be teaching 6th Grade math.

Exhausted with his travels and ready to stay in Grand Junction, Mr. Thomas looked locally for the final core teaching staff member. Jesse Beynon comes to us from The Museum Fruita Middle School. Mr. Beynon looks forward to having indoor plumbing and internet at East Middle School. Mr. Beynon has a reputation for breaking into spontaneous song and dance and is particularly fond of High School Musical. Don’t be confused if you catch him on a method acting day, and if he tells you that his name is Troy Bolton, just tell him he needs to get his head in the game.

Mr. Thomas is excited to launch into the new school year with his enhanced staff. Expectations are high and the enthusiasm is higher. the Shallot welcomes all new students and staff and bids good luck in the 2022-23 school year.