Most high school students are told to consider their passions and pursue their dreams when pondering what to do post graduation. English teacher Scott Swartz took that advice and put his teaching career on hold in 2012 to pursue his own dream.
This past August Swartz returned to the RTHS English department to continue his teaching career. During his break, Swartz pursued his dream, lived and learned and realized how great RTHS truly is.
Swartz explained, “I left to pursue a dream of mine, which was to become a sports play-by-play broadcaster, and I had some incredible experiences.”
The students he teaches within the high school walls are not only encouraged to pursue their dreams but also to get involved during their time in high school. Swartz taught freshman English and those students are encouraged to see what clubs and activities are offered in the school and to not waste the opportunities they are presented during their short tenure at RTHS.
Swartz capitalized on that lesson when the opportunity to pursue broadcasting appeared in 2012.
“I had an opportunity fall into my lap, and I didn’t want to have any regrets. I knew that if I didn’t try it that I would always look back and say, ‘what if?’ So I didn’t want to do that,” stated Swartz.
Prior to his break from teaching, Swartz worked nights and weekends as a broadcaster for RTHS football and basketball games.
Swartz worked for a professional baseball team in Sioux Falls, SD for a summer and broadcasted their games over the radio there. He also worked for a USHL hockey team in Bensenville as their play-by-play broadcaster for three years, and worked for several other teams and leagues.
While Swartz looks back on his stint as a broadcast announcer he has no regrets for his time away from the classroom. He took a two year break from teaching, but found the hours and pay of play-by-play broadcasting were not conducive for someone with a family.
“I wouldn’t trade the time for anything,” stated Swartz. “I really had a blast doing it.”

While he returned to teaching after two years in the classroom, Swartz hopes his future holds another opportunity to broadcast play-by-play sporting events, perhaps once his children are grown.
Teaching
After two years broadcasting, Swartz taught for a year in Polo and spent the last two years at Hiawatha in Kirkland.
When asked why he returned to RTHS, Swartz replied, “I wasn’t planning to, actually.  Of course I always kept in the back of my head that I would like to return, but it didn’t really appear as if that would be possible for me.  So I was very happy working at Hiawatha High School in Kirkland, with some really great teachers and students too, and I planned on being there for a very long time.”
However, just like the broadcasting job appeared before him in 2012, an opening at RTHS was presented to him in 2017.
Following Mr. Craven’s departure to DeKalb, a chain reaction of faculty moving around opened a position in the English department. Jason Harper contacted Swartz asking if he would be interested in returning to RTHS and the department he formally taught in.
“I didn’t have to think very long before telling him ‘yes’,” stated Swartz.
He continued, “as far as what I looked forward to regarding returning to RTHS, there’s no doubt that working with this staff was tops among many things.  It is rare to find a group of people fully devoted to the cause of helping students make the most of themselves, and that’s what exists at RTHS.  There is not a staff member here who is in it for anyone other than the kids. That’s not all that common. But it is the thing that made me most excited about returning.  As an educator, you want to be around other really great educators; that’s how you get better.  And at RTHS, I’m literally surrounded by great educators.”
His time away from the halls at RTHS taught Swartz to appreciate what you have and a lesson in technology. He explained RTHS has great facilities and that was not the experience at the other schools he taught in. Between the three years teaching outside of RTHS and his tenure as a broadcaster, Swartz learned valuable lessons about technology and has already started incorporating them in his classroom two weeks into the year.
Inspiration
While Swartz may serve as an inspiration to his students about pursuing your dreams, he had three teachers who inspired him as a student to pursue a career in education.
Swartz explained, “I had a couple of great teachers I look up to. Two happened to be my high school English teachers, Mrs. Meester and Mr. McDonald. They always had so much fun and seemed to know everything that it was very inspiring to me. I probably emulate them in the lion’s share of what I do in the classroom. Another inspiration was my dad.  He was a teacher for 35 years, and he had a pretty good life doing it.”
While those three individuals inspired Swartz in his teaching career, he found support inside RTHS when he chose to pursue his broadcasting dream. Swartz explained the staff at RTHS was supportive and caring of his endeavor and would ask how it was going when he saw them.
Swartz stated, “people went out of their way to reach out and tell me how happy they were for me, and that’s not something any of them had to do. I am incredibly fortunate to work with them again. They make me better at what I do, and that’s the highest compliment I could give anyone.”
Swartz is currently teaching freshman and sophomore English and will teach American Literature Before 1900 and Advance Literature next semester. While he had others who inspired him, Swartz hopes to be a valuable teacher and inspiration to his students.
When asked what he hopes students take away from his classroom he replied, “I hope they learn a lot. But I hope they know that, for the time they are in my classroom, that they are valued and wanted. I hope that they take away that they are capable of way more than they realize, and that if they put in the time and effort and persevere through challenges, they can do amazing things.