The bond between students and their teachers is one that those at Dreyfoos are very familiar with. The Dreyfoos student body is lucky enough to have some of the most passionate instructors in Palm Beach County teaching us, and while this makes student’s otherwise stressful high school lives a little more comforting in the classroom, it can be detrimental for students to grow close to staff in a school where so much changes so often.

The creative writing students have taken a toll this year, as there has been a constant change of teachers and artists-in-residence in the department. Late last year, the current junior students were told that they would be taught by English teacher Carly Gates going into their Creative Writing III class. Mrs. Gates had taught many of these students the previous year, so most were excited to have her again due to her high-energy teaching style.

“Mrs. Gates has been wanting to teach creative writing for a really long time, and she’s great at teaching it too,” communications junior Kayla Kirschenbaum said. “Even our English class last year had a lot of creative writing involved in it, so I was really excited to have her this year because she’s a lot closer to us in age than most teachers, and I feel like she understands current forms of writing and really teaches to the best of her abilities.”

However, roughly a week after school began, Mrs. Gates’ students were informed that they would instead be reporting to English and creative writing teacher Brittany Rigdon’s classroom, where their class would be combined with the senior Creative Writing IV class.

“[The classes were combined,] through no one’s fault, due to class size,” communications dean Angela Anyzeski said.

At this point, there were over 30 students in Ms. Rigdon’s class in one period. Granted, it is not uncommon for class sizes to be this large, but since no tests are given to the students, all of their work must be carefully looked over and individually graded for content, not correctness.

“I feel really bad for Ms. Rigdon,” Kirschenbaum said. “When we’re in there, it can be really difficult for everyone to be satisfied with what they’re learning, because the seniors have a year’s worth of experience on [the juniors,] so it’s kind of like [the juniors] are asking questions that the seniors already know the answers to, so it seems like a waste of their time and almost has a negative impact on them because it kind of limits what they can do.”

However, this period only lasted about a week before former artist-in-residence Donovan Ortega replaced Mrs. Gates as the junior class’ Creative Writing 3 teacher.

“[Mr. Ortega] seemed like a good choice to bring back because he had been a class favorite, and got a very positive feedback from students,” Mrs. Anyzeski said. “The important thing was that Ms. Rigdon had a person who would work well with her, so she is the main person who makes the decisions about who to hire.”

For the next two weeks, Mr. Ortega would come to Dreyfoos on Monday and Wednesday mornings to teach the juniors.He would also help prepare them to write and submit original poems and prose to local competitions and Dreyfoos publications.

“I think the students at Dreyfoos are pretty remarkable,” Mr. Ortega said. “I was able to present them with college level material and they consistently responded to it with the rigor of devoted undergraduates.”

However, on Sept. 29, Mr. Ortega announced that he would no longer be teaching the class because he had gotten a full time job at Youth and Families, an adolescent rehabilitation center as a treatment facilitator and educator.

“I was pretty sad to see [Mr. Ortega] leave, but overall everyone understood where he was coming from,” Kirschenbaum said. “Most of us are actually pretty happy for him and that he got a new job.”

In the absence of a second instructor, the senior and junior classes are currently merged

once again, and were informed that a new staff member, Nico Cassanetti, graduate of FAU’s Master of Fine Arts(M.F.A.) program, and attendee of the summer Mont Blanc Writing Workshops in France, would be filling the position as an artist-in-residence.

“I know the quality of [Cassanetti’s] work-it’s very good,” Mr. Ortega said. “She’s a good teacher and her expectations are going to be very high. If you haven’t tried hard on an assignment she’s the kind of person who will let you know that she knows.”

However, on Oct. 26, the merged creative writing class was informed that Cassanetti would not be able to fill the position due to a personal circumstance. The class will most likely be getting a different artist-in-residence as soon as someone is available to fill the position.