Photo of Ferguson teaching his third period class. Photo taken by Celeste Hanson.
Hastings Senior High welcomes Charles Ferguson as a new history teacher for the 2025-2026 school year after the retirement of Ann Mays
Ferguson was formally a middle school teacher for half a decade. Over time, his goals and aspirations have changed from being an eighth-grade teacher to now a high school teacher.
“I’ve wanted to go to high school for a number of years now. When I first started wanting to be a teacher, my goal was to be at a high school.” Ferguson said.
Although he enjoyed his half-decade at the middle school, he misses the students and fellow teachers he was around. The high school has many of his friends who previously left the middle school and joined the staff, such as Tony Lauters, Zach Runcie, Karen Valdes, and Brian Itzen at Hastings High.
“It’s hard for me to picture in my head seeing people that I had in sixth grade, six years ago, walking around and getting ready to be done with school here,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson set expectations to improve in terms of his teaching style and learning the school’s block schedule, which has half the classes but double the class length each day compared to Hastings Middle School. Not only that, he also has to cycle through freshmen and sophomores from his World History and American History classes.
“There are a lot of similarities between there and in the middle school, but some very significant differences. And so I’ve been trying to learn those differences as quickly as possible, but it’s been eye-opening,” Ferguson said.
With a new environment, Ferguson is trying to grasp the ropes of being in high school, like adjusting to a new schedule. But the community here has been welcoming to Ferguson as he settles in.
“I can think of a couple of students [during] the first couple of days, I’m like, ‘Hey, how’s it going,’ and they’d stop and shake my hand and [ask] how I was doing. It’s just amazing,” Ferguson said.
