Teachers Wheel Their Way Through the Day

By: Carlos Camargo

October 7, 2024

   Roaming throughout the hallways, teachers on carts can be seen navigating class to class. These teachers are known as floating teachers, and they share classroom space with other faculty.  

   Floating teachers are a result of the ever-increasing student population. Due to this, the amount of rooms teachers have is limtited with administration having to compensate with the floating teacher system.  

   “Math wise, we don’t have enough classrooms for the number of teachers,” said Math Teacher Dr. Garrett Denison.  

   Initially teachers didn’t enjoy the prospect of no home room. To compensate for the lack of volunteers, department heads resorted to other selection methods. 

   “Nope, I didn’t volunteer names were drawn out of a hat,” said Dr Denison.   

   However, some perks of being a roaming teacher arose that make teachers’ lives easier. Having no classroom means less responsibility for items, and less worry about room decorations.  

   “It is the best,” said Beth Skaggs. “Life is simpler, you don’t have all the extra stuff to oversee.”   

   Furthermore, constantly moving can benefit the teacher’s mental health because of hallway and planning room interactions. 

   “The other thing I really like about moving around is seeing other teachers in the building because when I had my own room, I stayed at my desk all day long,” said Mrs. Skaggs “There were some weeks that I never spoke to another adult.” Mrs. Skaggs continued. “Because you get to see different people, it’s been much better for my mental health to be moving around and seeing other teachers. “

   Whilst roaming teachers seem like a strange concept, it can benefit the teachers whilst compensating for lack of room for teachers. 

   “I think that we should stop thinking that any of the rooms belong to any of the teachers,” said Mrs. Skaggs. “They all belong to the school, nobody really has a room they’re just allowed to use it.”