After teaching Fashion Design on campus for seven years, Ms. Shannon Sheldon decided to switch to Interior Design after a vacancy was left when the previous teacher quit last year.

“Being a fashion teacher and being very good at it is extremely exhausting,” Sheldon said. “My feet were getting old, sore and tired [it was time to change]. Every time the sewing machines broke, I had to fix them all by myself and the sewing machines are big. Other programs just called the tech guy down to fix their computers, but in my case I did all the work with no help.”

One reason that Sheldon cites for wanting to change is because Fashion Design is a double program. Due to this, she only taught freshman and seniors, but now is teaching all grade levels.

“Sheldon cares about our class and plans to do many interesting assignments,” junior Jennifer Shelley said. “She’s working really hard to help us learn and I know I’ll end the year off being a well rounded student. Overall, I’m glad we’re getting taught Interior and finally have a teacher here.”

Sheldon is licensed to teach Family and Consumer Sciences and Business. Under the umbrella of Family and Consumer Sciences, she can teach both Fashion and Interior Design as well as other subjects. At other schools, she taught Entrepreneurship and Foods and Nutrition.

“After a year without a teacher, it’s great to have an actual teacher who’s trained in the field,” junior Ruth Daniels said. “We had substitute teachers who attempted to teach us, but they didn’t have the proper training so we didn’t learn. This year will be stressful because we’ll have to learn things from last year and this year, so it’ll be a harsh workload to catch us up.”

Using different techniques, Sheldon plans on having her students create a piece of decor at the end of every month. They will have to use skills they learned in class to create products such as clocks, tile mosaics and pillows.

“I think that all projects this year will be better than before because we are finally getting to do hands-on projects rather than doing work on the computer,” junior Simone Ennen said. “I hope that we will get to learn more about being an interior designer and prepare us for our [end of program] test through these projects. I am most excited about learning to make our own pillows.”

Sheldon plans on changing the end of year capstone project for the Interior Design students. Instead of creating floor plans, students will design a pit for the robotics team. They’ll design the pit based off of the robotics competition theme.

“I want [the seniors] to have a more exciting capstone project [this year],” Sheldon said. “Previously, the kids would get an imaginary client and they had to design a room for that client, so instead my freshmen and sophomores will be doing that [as a project]. The upperclassmen will be doing more hands on assignments.”