By Marissa Wagley

One of the new additions to FHS is our sophomore English and Honors English teacher, Donna Krutsinger.

Krutsinger has lived in the Flora area all of her life and has a lot of family around here as well.  She attended Flora High School and was active in both volleyball and softball.  After graduating high school she went on to Eastern Illinois University and stayed there all four years.  During this time, she majored in English and had a minor in Physical Education.

“I wanted to become an English teacher because I had a very good teacher in high school who influenced me to do so, “she said. But before she could begin her dreams of teaching, she had to student teach and did so at Mattoon High School.  After that she took on her first  teaching job at Stark County High School, near her college, and stayed there for four years.  She then moved back to her hometown and taught night classes at Frontier Community College from 1987-1997.

Krutsinger also had a sports shop that used to be called Clay County Sports in downtown Flora but closed seven years ago and has a shop at her house now called Custom Threads.  She still runs that along with a full-time teaching job.

“I decided to go back to teaching because three years ago I started subbing a little, liked it, and missed being around kids,” she explains.  She applied for FHJHS first, and got the job there last year.  This year the job for that position split into her coming to both the high school and junior high every day.

She teaches English II  and Honors English II at the High School in the mornings and then goes to the Jr.High and teaches 7 and 8 grade Reading  and 7 grade English the rest of the day.    After that she goes on to coach the Jr. High girls softball team.  “This makes for a fun and fast day”, she elaborated.

“If anything, the junior high has been more of a transition for me than high school,” she explains.  Because she has subbed and taught school before, it has been fairly easy for her to get back in the swing of things.  She went on to say that, “both schools are similar because everyone is so eager to learn new things however high school is much more calm.  The maturity level is a lot different and high schoolers are more responsible.  Over all, the atmospheres are so much different.”