COSHOCTON, OH — With Marlene Whatley’s left hip officially scheduled for replacement on October 7, the Coshocton City Schools substitute teacher list has, as of Monday morning, been reduced to two names — both of them men older than the elementary building they would be expected to walk into.
The remaining subs are Ed Hossler, 78, a retired guidance counselor whose card in the binder includes the handwritten note “does not do recess, fractions, or weather below 40°F,” and Don Brindle, 71, who coached JV softball from 1992 to 2004 and currently runs Brindle Small Engine out of his garage on Walnut. Mrs. Whatley, who has functionally been the entire substitute corps since 2019, will be unavailable through Thanksgiving at the earliest.
“Marlene was four, sometimes five days a week,” said Sarah Linden, the district’s substitute coordinator, paging slowly through a three-ring binder that has not been updated since Obama’s second term. “She told me once she did it to get out of the house. We did not have a backup plan for the house getting better.”
Coshocton Elementary principal Bill Ortega briefly floated the possibility of calling Tom Whatley, Marlene’s husband, before being reminded that Tom Whatley has no teaching certificate, has never been inside a classroom in a professional capacity, and once told a Cub Scout den that the Civil War “ended in a tie.”
The district has formally identified its options as: combining classes during prep periods, lengthening morning recess from 20 to 35 minutes, and “drawing on the senior-class study hall as a kind of resource.” The Ohio Department of Education has not been notified of any of this and, per Linden, will not be unless somebody asks.
Hossler, reached over breakfast at the Hen Roost on Second Street, was firm about his terms. “I’ll do middle school social studies, period,” he said, stirring a coffee that had gone cold around 7:15. “I will not do third grade. I did it once in 2019. I did not care for the way they looked at me.”
Brindle was unavailable for comment Monday, having been called in to cover a sixth-grade language arts block that was, by the lunch bell, simply a forty-minute lecture on the importance of changing your oil every three thousand miles regardless of what the dealership tells you.
Reached at her kitchen table, Mrs. Whatley said the surgery was overdue and that she would be back “the second the doctor lets me.” She did note that Tom had recently begun reorganizing the spice cabinet alphabetically, which she described, after a long pause, as “a development.”
Until November, the seventh-grade math classes will rotate among whichever certified teacher has a free period. The English classes will read silently. Kayla Reinhart, the 26-year-old art teacher, has been quietly informed she may be asked to “cover a few things,” but has not yet been told what those things are, or for how long, or in what subject.
Linden closed the binder gently, the way a person closes a casket. “We’ll get through it,” she said. “We always do.” Outside in the bus loop, a yellow Bluebird idled in neutral, waiting on a driver who was, district records confirmed, also Don Brindle.