Between moving buildings and striving to stay current, some faculty members feel that Souderton Area High School lost the small-town feel that was once present at the old high school once the location moved to 625 Lower Rd. in August of 2009.
According to wellness teacher Christine Nensteil, for many years, the old high school building at 41 N. School Ln. had much more school spirit and unity amongst the students, but believes that things are starting to change.
“I would say there was a lot of back and forth years that had lots of school spirit,” Nensteil said.
However, Nenstiel said that this year there is a lot more of a lively feel to the high school now with students playing outside during lunch.
According to math teacher Ed Gallagher the community was great back then and remains great today, which makes teaching enjoyable.
“I’ve lived here for most of my life, and it’s a good community. We’ve always had good kids and it’s always been a pleasure to teach here especially back then, and even nowadays,” Gallagher said.
According to math teacher Joseph Hay, the old building was more disorganized as opposed to the new high school where students and grades meld together easily.
“In the old building, everything was just randomly [located] as far as the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade, when it came to placing classes or areas for them,” Hay said.
A great memory from the old high school was back when students would play football in the mud, which would sometimes include staff members playing, too.
“We had this amazing mud football game one day. I mean there wasn’t one of us that didn’t come in head to toe caked in mud and even I played,” Nensteil said.
Hay believes that the changes in schools were much more around how people lived and interacted with each other, going from a face-to-face to more of an online approach.
“Change is just the way we live our lives now. I think there’s a lot of evidence that Instagram and things have amplified bullying, but there’s always been bullying just in different forms,” Hay said.
Gallagher feels that the changes in schools had a much more physical effect where rooms and offices were changed for better and for worse.
“It was a physical change, I love the coach’s office and the locker room at the office,” Gallagher said. “It was like a dungeon, but there was so much space. We had a room where we could actually sit and meet and do some other things but now it’s more limited.”