Springston returns to teaching English at CHS
Former Chester High School teacher Mike Springston has returned to CHS to resume teaching duties after a brief stint teaching at Rend lake Junior College.
Springston resumed his duties at CHS during the fall semester this school year.
Springston grew up in the Chicago area, graduating from grade school at St. Paul of the Cross School in 1969. In 1973, he graduated high school from Maine South in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, after which he attended college from 1973-1976 at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Springston earned his bachelor's degree in Journalism in 1976.
Upon graduation, Springston began a 30-year career in journalism. He was employed by the Sparta News Plaindealer for 17 years and also worked in Albion, Flora and Olney. In 2008, he experienced a newspaper buyout with the company for which he worked and decided to go to graduate school in 2009.
He attended Southern Illinois University for two years, graduating in 2011 with a master's degree in teaching, after which he began his new career at Chester High School. Springston taught at CHS for four years until 2016, when he was let go through a Reduction in Force by the school district.
From 2016 to 2017 Springston taught at Rend Lake Junior College, where he gained experience teaching at the post secondary level. He position was not full time, however, and when he got the opportunity to return to Chester High School at the beginning of this school year, he accepted the offer.
Springston teaches one sophomore level class, two junior level classes and three senior level classes of English II, III, and IV. He also teaches a dual high school-college credit class of rhetoric and composition.
In addition to his teaching duties at CHS, Springston servers as the Sting Newspaper sponsor and he is a freshman class sponsor. Springston notes that he hopes to possibly get the "BUZZ" school television program running again.
In his spare time, Springston enjoys kayaking and watching University of Illinois sports. He is a Bears football fan as well as a Chicago White Sox baseball fan and a Southern Illinois University Saluki fan. He is an active member of the Sparta Lions Club and he has served as the Randolph County Recycling Coordinator for 10 years. While at CHS on his first 4-year stint Springston started the annual electronic recycling program.
Springston is married to his wife Becky of Sparta and he has two stepchildren and one grand child. Becky is a retired social worker, but she keeps busy working part-time one day a week at St. John's School in Chester and at Maple Creek Hospice in Sparta.
"I am tickled to death to be back here at Chester High. I did enjoy teaching at the college level, but it was a no-brainer to come back here to Chester," Springston said, "My year teaching at Rend Lake more fully prepared me to be an asset to the staff here at CHS and I am really more qualified now to teach the dual high school-college level classes."