Niwot High School

BY TINA EDEN

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Twelve New Teachers

Photo by Tina Eden

New teachers at Niwot High are: (front, l - r) Shauna Sliz, Rachel Bevan; (back) Katherine Gaddis, Andrew Reed, Grant Coble, Erica Purdy, John Rice and Scott Thomas.

Niwot High welcomed twelve new teachers to its faculty this fall.

Katherine Gaddis, a Longmont native, joined the English department after teaching in the Denver area for six years. She was a Boettcher scholar and honored “to return home and give back to the place and people that have given me so much.” Nicole Spaeth also joined the English department, teaching forensics part-time.

Andrew Reed joined the English as a second language department from the Mapleton School District. Before moving to Colorado, Reed grew up and taught in Kansas. He enjoys the outdoors and Chinese martial arts.

The math department has three new teachers: Rachel Bevan, Sally Herreid and Erica Purdy. Bevan relocated from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. She is head coach this year of the girls’ tennis team. Herreid taught at Silver Creek High School for seven years, and her two children are NHS graduates.

Purdy taught in the Chicago and Denver areas. She will be participating in her first marathon in Milwaukee on Oct. 2.

Mark Koehl joined the music department. He was director of Bands at Ronald Reagan High School in San Antonio, Texas. Koehl also excels in athletics, and completed the May 2010 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon.

Kerrie Munger and Scott Thomas joined the PE department. Thomas previously worked in the medical and financial fields while living in Northern California. He will coach the boys’ varsity football offensive line this fall.

Shauna Sliz, who previously taught in the Chicago area, joined the social studies department. Sliz worked for the Boulder County and Jefferson County Youth Corps, and has been playing soccer since grade school. Currently she plays on Boulder and Denver recreational teams.

Grant Coble and John Rice joined the science department. Coble lived in three of the four-corner states, taught in Tucson and Los Angeles, and owns a small alpaca ranch with his family in Loveland.

Rice taught at Lyons middle/senior high school before joining the NHS faculty. He has two daughters who graduated from NHS, and followed their parent’s footsteps by attending MIT. Rice earned both his bachelors and masters degrees at MIT and worked in industry for 25 years before joining the educational field.

Key Club Walk-a-Thon

The Key Club will host a walk-a-thon on Oct. 1 to raise money for staff members and their families who are experiencing health problems. The international service group also recently cleaned up its adopted road: Hwy 287 between Niwot Road and Pike Road.

PE Waivers For Sports

The St. Vrain Board of Education recently passed an instructional policy allowing students to earn PE credits via school sports. The policy change was precipitated by a request from the district’s student advisory council.  For more information see www.stvrain.k12.co.us/policies/I/IKF-R.pdf.

Niwot High will continue with its late-start schedule the first Wednesday of each month, with classes beginning at 9:50 a.m. This year, the school’s attendance count is 362 freshman, 331 sophomores, 301 juniors and 310 seniors.