There are so many faculty members that we see often around the school, but how much do we really know about them? Let’s jump into a day in their life to find out a little more about who they truly are, and maybe you’ll recognize a few of these faces!
By Anoushka Chakraborty
NOAH, SECURITY GUARD
Meet Noah, one of the men that everyone sees as they walk into school in the morning. He is our school security guard, but his job encompasses so much more. Noah starts his day by “walking around the whole facility, making sure all the doors [are] secure.” He ensures that no one unauthorized can break in from an unregulated door and threaten the safety of the students. Afterwards, he “[does] the same thing inside the building”, guaranteeing there are no issues before students start to trickle in. Throughout the day, Noah sits at “the front desk [to] make sure everyone who’s coming through the front door is supposed to be here”. He is the one that buzzes students in and tells DoorDash employees to wait outside. His most important job is “making sure the perimeter is secure.” Make sure to say hi when you pass him by in the morning!
SUZANNE DONOVAN AND MAUREEN MORGAN, SCHOOL NURSES
A familiar sight for frequent fliers, Ms. Donovan and Ms. Morgan sit across from each other as you walk into the nurses office. With an unpredictable schedule, they “start every day hoping it’s going to be smooth, but…somebody [could] faint first thing in the morning… [or] slip and fall in the parking lot.” If anything like that happens to a student, they are immediately sent to the nurses office, who expertly give them the help that they need. They are as prepared as can be for any issue that a student may have. Ms. Donovan comments that, “lately we have a lot of student injuries.” They are the ones dealing with doctors notes, so as students stop by in the mornings, the nurses are busy “making sure [teachers are emailed] if they need certain accommodations in the classroom, elevator passes, that kind of thing.”
When cough season rolls around, Ms. Donovan and Ms. Morgan get a little busier. “About the second week of September we noticed an uptick of sore throat”, they observed. Sickness spreads throughout the school like wildfire, making it the nurses’ jobs to make sure everyone is given the proper treatment. “Our job is to try to keep kids in school,” says Ms. Donovan, “That’s the whole reason nurses were put into schools in the first place! We want our students to be healthy here, they don’t need to go home for minor little things. But that being said, we do an assessment [to]… look at the overall student and see how badly they’re feeling. At the end of the day, you can’t keep a student here that doesn’t want to be here.”
And if that doesn’t seem like enough work, our nurses also deal with all of the athletic paperwork. It’s a huge part of their job, since sports are so important in RHS and hundreds of students play at least one. During the summer they collect all the health forms for fall, then they “have to put all the data in the computer.” For Ms. Donovan and Ms. Morgan, “the sports are a lot because it sort of doesn’t end.” Every season they must process and upload forms from the new athletes. From taking care of injuries and sickness to filing paperwork, the nurses are an essential part of keeping our school running smoothly.
CHRISTOPHER FABISH, GUIDANCE COUNSELOR
Friendly and out-going, Mr. Fabish is one of our guidance counselors. He does a lot of work behind the scenes to provide all his students with what they need. “My typical day is… atypical in that I see different kids for different things on different days,” says Mr. Fabish. The beginning of the year is busy, since the guidance counselors are “in a season where [they’re] focusing on the seniors a lot and the freshmen, because the freshmen are new [and the] seniors are applying to college.” However, there is always something going on. Even though “a lot of [Mr. Fabish’s] interactions have been with those two grade levels, as we’re getting to the middle of the quarter, [Guidance] start[s] to talk to kids about academics and making sure they’re staying on track.” While a lot of their focus is on the freshmen and seniors in this critical time, Guidance makes sure that all of their students from other grades have the attention they require.
The academic year is slightly different for guidance counselors than it is for students. “We have seasons that are a little bit different from the general academic calendar,” comments Mr. Fabish. Going in chronological order, “the start of the year [is] kind of the college season.” Here the focus is pretty much entirely on seniors as they write and submit applications. As that process dies down, “then as we get into the end of November, we start to work with juniors as they start their college process and their college search, [which] carries us through into the winter. To finish off the year, we’re continuing to work with our juniors and finalize schedules for the following year.” Schedules for students is a huge part of the job, as there are over 1,700 kids in the school that all need to have their classes fit into their schedule before the next year. This is unlike the typical quarters that students are used to, since guidance counselors work in phases.
All that has been stated above include the general responsibilities for the members of the guidance department, however each counselor has different, specific things that they are responsible for. In Mr. Fabish’s case, he “handle[s] military, so any military representatives that want to come and visit at lunch time, whether that’s Air Force, Army, Navy, [or] Marines, [he] connect[s] with them.” Deals with the officials that are trying to recruit and the students that are trying to be recruited. “Any kids that are interested in the military academies, I usually have a conversation with them just to make sure that they’re on track, whether they’re on my case load or not,” Mr. Fabish explains. Additionally, he runs the college fair, an event towards the end of the year that students can use to talk to representatives from numerous colleges. Mr. Fabish’s door is always open to anyone who wants to talk, so don’t be afraid to stop by!
