For the 2025-2026 school year Conrad Wharton was hired to replace Shawn Morrison to teach English at Cashmere high school. Mr. Morrison had taught English for more than 20 years, but has now been replaced by Mr. Wharton who is really excited to be part of our school.
Switching teaching paths from Cascade to Cashmere, Mr. Wharton explains how different the schools are. “I would say the school environment, it feels a little bit more competitive in some ways, which can be a good and bad thing,” he says.
Mr Wharton also talked about how student groups are different in Cashmere. “On the plus side, students seem really motivated here. They want to succeed and they have a lot of interests and identities that work together, that fit with that competitive nature a little bit. Sometimes that can also make the environment a little bit harder or a little bit intimidating for kids too,” he explains.
The classes that he teaches here are study strategies, English for 11th and 12th grade, and college level English. One of the most challenging classes is EWU 101 English. ¨I would say one of the secrets about the class is that the ideas are really complex, but if you put in the work, you can succeed grade wise. But keeping up the pace of things can be challenging,¨ he says.
Mr Wharton understands that students face a lot of challenges at school. He can identify with some of these challenges when he explains some of his own, “I think everyone has to work to become a better version of themselves. And I think that just happens through difficult moments a lot of times. Like you know my best friend from high school died when we were both pretty young, shortly out of high school. So you know, just dealing with those kinds of life events, I think has made me a better, more generous, and less selfish person. Especially when I look back on, like, who I was as a high schooler.”
I interviewed Kate Croci about how she felt about English 101. “I’m not the strongest in English, it’s fine right now. Just a lot of reading.¨ Kate has Mr. Wharton for English and Study Strategies. “He’s very supportive, he helps me out a lot and helps me further understand the text and how I should be writing,” she says. Some advice she would give the students is “talk to the teacher because he’s very helpful, he checks in on us and wants us to talk to him about everything.”
