Many new teachers were welcomed to Camas High School (CHS) for the 2025-2026 school year.
Kristin King is a new teacher at CHS who taught elementary school and has worked in the Camas School District for about 12 years.
“I taught at elementary [school]. I’ve had experience at Prune Hill, Helen Baller, and Woodburn Elementary,” King said. “I get to have a bunch of my former students as high schoolers.”
King is an art teacher who is very passionate about her classes. King teaches Everything in Art 1 and 2.
“I really like my subject matter,” King said. “I like working with teenagers. I like getting to know people as they’re getting ready to be adults and as they’re figuring out where they want their life to go.”
King is also very enthusiastic about making student connections and getting to know her students.
“I think getting to know where students are and what things they’re passionate about, and what things they struggle with, and just getting to know everyone for the unique place that they’re in and their specific personalities is very important,” King said.
Another new face at CHS this year is phone photography teacher Hope Widle. Wilde teaches Phone Photography, where students do many projects where they get to express themselves through photography and learn the basics of taking photos with a phone.
Widle taught at a school district in Oregon before coming to CHS. She taught many different art classes during her time there. Starting next year, Widle is going to teach Fiber Arts and Color Theory, which are two brand new classes to the CHS course catalogue.
Widle shared what motivates her to teach high school students.
“I love working with high school kids,” Wilde said. “I like being able to teach more advanced concepts and I also just think they’re more fun to work with.”
The student experience is always a priority in Widle’s classroom.
“I think building relationships with students is a huge part of being able to teach them and help them more,” Widle said. “Maybe sometimes they’re more vulnerable and maybe they don’t have that kind of safety and support and they might not always talk about it.”
To Widle, being a high school teacher is very important, especially when it comes to student growth.
“I feel like it’s a really fun time for kids to start growing into who they’re going to become,” Widle said.
Tyler Orr is another teacher new to CHS this school year. Orr teaches Physical Science and AP Chemistry. Orr has been teaching for nearly 15 years in Oregon and Washington. Orr taught at Hayes Freedom High School last year.
Orr shared how much he appreciates high school students and their understanding of more advanced topics.
“I love teaching high school students because they tend to be a little higher level of understanding and comprehension of material,” Orr said. “It’s easier to get more into the detailed and complete understanding of subjects.”
To Orr, high school students’ development into adulthood is very important.
“Working with students is just all about making sure that they understand that there are positive and negative consequences to actions and that those things are facilitated by the people around them,” Orr said. “As an adult, it’s helping them understand a little bit of a glimpse of what the real world looks like in our expectations of citizens.”
Orr believes that it is a teacher’s responsibility to help students grow and understand different situations.
“Students are people, and fundamentally, they’re learning how to become people, so as an adult who works with students, it’s always best to treat every situation like you would with your friends or family,” Orr said.
