After a five month leave of absence due to health reasons, history teacher Kelly Coble has returned to the school. Coble left in mid-October, and returned this past week to teach her morning World Studies classes.

Coble’s two AP European History classes were taken over by history teachers Stephanie Downey and Todd Wangsness. Downey and Wangsness’ own World Studies classes were taken over by history teacher Sarah Carlson, substitute teacher Henry Woods and student teacher Emily Cardenas.

“It was a lot of shuffling,” Coble said. “[Students] have been good about that… but it’s not fun to have to change teachers all the time.”

The switch was made to minimize the amount of teacher changes AP European History students would have to experience, particularly during the spring semester when they are preparing for the AP test.

“It would be hard to take the AP kids back with it being so close to the AP test,” Coble said.

Now that Coble is back, she is teaching World Studies classes periods one through four. Two of the periods have students she taught in the fall, and two of them have students she has not taught before.

“Second and third period [kids] are new to me, but Mrs. Cardenas is mostly teaching that third period,” Coble said.

Cardenas will continue to student teach in Coble’s third period, which Coble says is helpful because she has been with the kids all year. Carlson will continue to teach Ms. Coble’s former seventh period World Studies class.

“For health reasons… I can only really be on my feet working in the mornings,” Coble said.

Coble said she was glad that the transition seems to be going so smoothly, even with her new students.

“I was talking all along to Mr. Wood and Ms. Cardenas about what was going on,” Coble said. “So I wasn’t shocked when I came back”.

Coble expects to continue teaching her four World Studies classes for the remainder of the year.