In a school year marked by a new administration, a return to in-person learning, and ever-changing Covid regulations, it seems there’s an element of novelty all around Coginchaug Regional High School. However, students might find another change: seeing a familiar face in the halls. Katy Reddick is a new teacher at Coginchaug for the 2021-22 school year, but she is anything but new to the district. She has been teaching in the district for thirteen years, but this year marks her first working at the high school. Previously, she worked at Frank Ward Strong Middle School in Durham, teaching Latin to seventh and eighth graders. 

For this school year, Mrs. Reddick is stepping into a slightly different role. While she still teaches at the middle school, she also teaches Latin II, III, and IV at the high school. When asked about the experience of teaching at both schools, she said that it was fun to go back and forth between different classes and see the development of their language skills. She gets to “see where students have come and where they are going,” all in a single day. Mrs. Reddick’s favorite thing about teaching at Coginchaug now is the content, especially the literature she gets to teach. She is able to engage her students with stories from the Roman era, such as a unit on Roman comedies. 

Mrs. Reddick comes to Coginchaug with ambitions for the Latin department. In the classroom, building Latin fluency and literacy through the use of easy-reading books in Latin is a plan of hers. She also wants to incorporate board games, movies, and Roman cooking into her lessons. 

Prioritizing student engagement with the language through the Latin Honor Society and the district Latin Club is another part of her plan. There is a need for promotion of the Latin program at Strong, especially to the new sixth graders that she is unable to teach due to her full teaching schedule. Mrs. Reddick wants to build connections between students across grades. Already, she has had the members of the Latin Honor Society organize their own events for students at both schools to participate in such as Latin story writing, make-your-own monster, and a (postponed) Saturnalia holiday celebration. Another potential plan is to have students attend State Latin Day this school year. 

Mrs. Reddick also wants to put a focus on modern slavery. When asked about why, she discussed how it was embedded in the ancient world. While the conversation can be uncomfortable and hard, it is an important way to think about the ancient and modern worlds, bridging the gap between them. In her eyes, “we can’t change the slavery of Cicero’s time, and we can’t change the slavery of Lincoln’s time, but we have the opportunity to change the present.”