Mr. Betz is the health and sports medicine teacher at Cascade High School and is loved by the student body and staff. He is incredibly good at his job, because he makes sure that everybody is comfortable in his classroom and makes the most of their class time. He is also the advisor for the Sports Medicine Club and has the acting position as an unofficial nurse, especially for Cascade’s athletes. If a student has a question about their general health, Mr. Betz is the person to go to because of how friendly and reliable he is.
At the start of the 2022-23 school year, Mr. Betz was preparing for parental leave as he was expecting a baby girl to join him, his wife Chelsea, and their two-year-old son, Ronan. Having a baby can be a stressful time in somebody’s life, especially when they are trying to correlate the timeline with their work schedule. In Washington State, new parents can receive up to sixteen weeks of paid leave to stay home and take care of their child. Mr. Betz made the decision to be gone for only three weeks before he returned to work at Cascade High School.
Mr. Betz’s last day before his parental leave was September twelfth; that evening his wife went into labor. Since he had already experienced the birth of his first child, he knew what to expect and he was ready for what was to come. However, his wife needed a C-section, and he did not know how that would go. C-sections are complicated surgeries and can be scary. He was pacing in the waiting room until the doctor came to get him. Mr. Betz admits that he did not expect the surgery to be done so quickly and affect his wife’s health as much as it did. When they arrived back at their home with Lucy, Chelsea could not move as easily, and she had some bleeding issues. Luckily for Chelsea, Mr. Betz is well educated in the field of medicine and was able to assist her in many ways, including bringing Lucy to her in bed every three to four hours to be fed.
Mr. Betz is confident about having and well-prepared for this second child, because of his previous experience with being a father. Being from a family that has a bigger percentage of boys, Mr. Betz is ready to learn about what it takes to be the father of a little girl. “Becoming a father to a baby girl was a little less known to me as our first was a boy and I grew up in a family with mostly boys. I have three brothers and no sisters,” said Betz.
Although Mr. Betz is not sure what to expect from being the father of a girl, he is excited about what is to come and is happy about his wife’s enthusiasm. Mr. Betz shared that “as far as babies go it's not much different besides the color of clothing and as my wife would say ‘cute clothes options’.”
Becoming a father of two seems like a tough job, but Mr. Betz finds it to be simple, because most of his job as a father during the first couple of months after Lucy’s birth was to take her back and forth between her crib and Chelsea. He described a spontaneous plan where he was assigned to take care of Ronan, while also helping his wife with the baby: “The challenge of being a parent of two is trying to keep all the same routines for the first child and taking care of a newborn at the same time. The changes that have been the most fun to see is the relationship between my first-born Ronan and second-born Lucy. Ronan is a proud and loving big brother but has also tested out things like biting her toes and being a little rough while holding her.”
In early October, Mr. Betz made a couple of appearances at Cascade as he was preparing himself to start transitioning back to work. After October third, Mr. Betz showed up to school for three days, and then he started coming back full time once again, while balancing the recent changes in his family life. He brought his son, Ronan, to the Pear Bowl on the evening of October seventh, where the Cascade Kodiaks played against the Cashmere Bulldogs; his wife took care of Lucy back at home. Before the game started, Mr. Betz was playing football with his son and Ronan was also running around with Mr. Joya’s kids. Ronan was introduced to many Kodiaks and was adored by all.
Stress from balancing work and family life is common among fathers across the globe, but Mr. Betz never looks stressed in the slightest. In order to keep this laid-back appearance, he is planning to step away from volunteering with school events. This will allow him to spend more time with his kids and be there for them when they have their big moments. He is prepared to do whatever he can to play a crucial role in his kids' lives and make sure that they grow up to be the best people they can be. Mr. Betz’s mentor and coworker, Mr. Sunitsch offered him advice. “They grow up really fast, so you got to spend as much quality time as you can with them. I mean, my two kids, one’s a senior and one’s twenty-one so, it goes fast, and I remember being a young father with two kids and coaching and teaching,” Sunitsch said.
The absence of Mr. Betz took a toll on the Sports Medicine Club; the members did not quite know what they were supposed to do or when they had to show to meetings. Juniors, Mackenzie McCleod and Julian Valdez took over leadership and responsibility with running the club without an advisor. “It was chaos, and I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I was trying to get people to show up to sports med meetings,” said Mackenzie. McCleod was awarded student of the month by Leavenworth Rotary for all her efforts. The slight disorganization continued for a short amount of time when Mr. Betz returned, but he quickly got his students organized.
With Mr. Betz behind his desk once again, he is sure to have substantial changes in his everyday life with a new addition to his family. Although leaving a newborn to go back to work can be an emotional and stressful time, Mr. Betz is nothing but smiles in his classroom and throughout the school. Students will still see him at football and basketball games, but he will have two little ones tagging along now.
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