New teachers at VHS
By Grace Haskins, Reporter
This Year, many new teachers have joined the VHS community.
Nic Warmenhoven —
Warmenhoven has lived on Vashon for eight years. He is currently teaching Algebra and Statistics at Vashon Island Highschool.
What are your past teaching positions?
“I taught for 17 years at a small school in Seattle called Puget Sound Community School,” Warmenhoven said, “I was teaching math but also, literature, computer programming, politics and government.”
What are you excited for or hoping to achieve?
“I’m looking forward to getting involved with work at this school around equity and belonging and privilege, I did a lot of work and I feel very passionately about anti-racism work just in general.” Warmenhoven said, “I’m enjoying getting to know my colleagues and students. I’m hoping to change some students’ minds about thinking math is hard or not interesting. I’m looking forward to showing them that it can actually be beautiful and fun and they might be good at it in a way they don’t know yet.”
Why/how did you get into teaching?
“I got into teaching partly because I really appreciated my teachers when I was in school. Curiosity and love of learning are two of my strengths, and I love trying to light others up with the same thing.”
Why VHS?
“After many years of commuting off-island, I wanted to work closer to home. After 17 years teaching at a small private school, I wanted to develop my craft in a public school environment. And my kids are students in the Vashon Island School District”
Ethan Cudaback —
Cudaback has lived on Vashon for five years.
What classes do you teach at VHS?
“I am a math teacher so I teach Calculus, AP Calculus, Trigonometry and Math Analysis.”
What are your past teaching positions?
“I taught at Holy Names Academy for four years, in that position I taught math and also drum set instruction.” Cudaback said, “Then I was at The Harbor School for four years, I taught fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade math, as well as algebra and geometry.”
What are you excited for or hoping to achieve?
“Giving the students a positive experience.”
Why/how did you get into teaching?
“I began by giving private drum set instruction, then got a job at a high school after a month of
teaching music. The principal at the school saw I had a degree in mathematics and asked if I wanted to try substitute teaching in math. By the beginning of second semester, I was a full time high school math teacher.”
Why VHS?
“I spent four years teaching high school mathematics, then four years teaching middle school mathematics, and decided that I wanted to get back into the high school thing because of the content and because I could serve more students in the community by teaching at the high school. So, here I am.”
Lauren McCausland —
What classes do you teach at VHS?
“I am the Art and ceramics teacher.”
What are your past teaching positions?
“I have mainly taught fifth grade for two and a half years, this is my first time teaching at a high school.”
What are you excited for or hoping to achieve?
“Getting to know the students, experience teaching high school, and having fun with art.”
Why/how did you get into teaching?
“I’ve always loved learning; as a teacher you are always a lifelong learner. I want to share that love of learning, and I love that I get to now do that through the arts.”
Why VHS?
“Moving back to Seattle, [from a small town in Alaska] I still wanted to be part of a smaller community. I really like how small communities come together and work together.”
Christina Ramirez —
Ramirez moved to Vashon this school year to begin teaching at VHS.
What classes do you teach at VHS?
“I teach 11th grade American Literature and one class of ninth grade English.”
What are your Past teaching positions?
“I taught at Sehome High School in Bellingham, ninth grade to eleventh grade English.”
What are you excited for or hoping to achieve?
“I am really hoping to have wonderful discussions in my classes that were really difficult to have last year because of the pandemic.”
Why/how did you get into teaching?
“I grew up in a pretty conservative town and there weren’t a lot of teachers who looked like me; I am a queer educator and I’m also Latina. There were no Latina teachers and no out teachers at the time, so it made it really difficult to find myself in teachers or in literature,” Ramirez said, “I want to be the change I wish I could have seen in the schools and be that person for the students to look up to.”
Why VHS?
“When I heard about the position, I did a lot of research, came and visited the community and I was blown away by the sense of togetherness,” Ramirez said, “In this rural community right next to Seattle and Tacoma. The kindness of the community blew me away.”
Carolyn Kotowski —
Kotowski commutes to Vashon from Tacoma.
What classes do you teach at VHS?
“I teach Chemistry and forensics this semester and then next semester I will teach brain science.”
What are your past teaching positions?
“I taught eighth grade science and then I was teaching at Federal Way High School where I taught Physics.”
What are you excited for or hoping to achieve?
“I’m hoping to make a community, feel like I am part of a community and have students feel like they have a community in my room.”
Why/how did you get into teaching?
“I started out as an engineer. I worked as an engineer for about a year and I wanted to see more diversity in engineering,” Kotowski said, “I was hoping that through teaching I could get more people to join engineering.”
Why VHS?
“When I was interviewing, the thing that really stood out to me was that there was a student in the interview. The school is really here for the students and it was awesome to see that they had student voice in the interview process,” Kotowski said, “Since then there has been a lot more student voice throughout the campus.”