As a kid, we think teachers live at the school and never leave. But as we get older, we learn that teachers do go home to their family, and they don’t sleep in their classrooms. We also learn that there can be more than one place that a teacher can teach. At West, there is about 4 travelling teachers, but the one’s that travel the most lie in the classes not everybody takes.

At West, two teachers in the music department, Mrs. Martin-Boyd, who teaches the orchestra classes, and Mr. Budzinski, who teaches band classes, travel during their work day to other schools to teach music to even more students than they have within the programs at West. 

Mrs. Martin-Boyd, travels to Prairieland Elementary to teach the music classes to students there.  

“Sometimes it’s a pain in the butt to travel and have to deal with kids way younger than my high schoolers, but I usually have as much fun as I can with them,” Martin-Boyd said, “It can be stressful and test my temper on the days they’re being restless and rowdy in the classroom, but I can usually get through without too much of a headache.”

Martin-Boyd also spoke about how fun it is to see her own child who attends Prairieland in the music classes each day after finishing with the Chamber Orchestra at West. She spends the rest of her day there to cover all the grade levels.

Mr. Budzinki, travels to Normal Community each day to help co-teach the band classes with Mr. Meadows, the band director at the school.

“It’s a bit weird to have to travel to both schools during the day since I’ve spent so much of my career here at West,” Budzinski said.

Budzinski also joked about how he waivers about wearing Normal West Bands shirts now so Community students don’t attack him or think that he is biased to the West bands.

Both of these teachers have had an impact on students at West, Normal Community, and Prairieland.

“I love Mr. B,” said senior band student Nico Rhodes, “He’s a lot of fun to be around, but he can also get stuff done when it needs to be, no questions asked.”

“It was interesting to see Mr. B in the band room,”  said Mr. Meadows, the band director at Normal Community, “He seems to be getting along with the students really well. I think they enjoy seeing a fresh face in the building after seeing just me for so long.”

Mrs. Martin-Boyd has been given drawings from her students at Prairieland as thank you gifts for teaching them in music class.