Nothing Cooking in Cooking Class

Alex Goleman took a culinary class to learn how to make tasty food, but instead, he spends his first period class sitting around on his phone every day. Chef Trusedale, the original teacher, left in late April, while Chef Somers left in January. In the absence of the original teachers, the culinary classes are “all over the place,” according to one of the long-term subs, Coach Kai.

Currently, both culinary classes that were once bustling with cooking have been reduced to students hunched over on their phones. “It’s just dead, nothing happening,” says junior Austin Watt. Watt’s disappointment is a result of the lack of culinary learning, “We haven’t been doing anything… and this is literally every day.” Freshman Alex Golman noted that students “are cooking more in Spanish class than we are in

culinary.”

Two students from Culinary II, junior Saniya Smith and sophomore Rayne Martin, have been figuratively turning lemons into lemonade with their prior experience from Culinary I. This includes making dishes out of resources that they have access to, such as tortellini. Although the two students are experienced, they don't have the certifications or skills to teach the class how to cook, although they said that they would like to. “We can’t do anything at all,” Smith said.

The other long-term sub, Emile Paul, is also frustrated with the situation. “It’s not a fair education,” he states. “It’s unfair to the kids, and a little on the sub…It sometimes falls on me, and I’m like, I can’t do that. I’m not trained in this.”

We reached out to Principal Taylor for her comments on this situation via email, but got no response. She said she was also unavailable for an in-person interview.

A check of the DPS job site shows a listing for a culinary teacher with a start date of February 2026, however it’s unclear if anyone has applied for the position.