Being a brand-new teacher while starting school during a global pandemic will give new Language Arts teacher Jes-C French an advantage: she doesn't know what things looked like before. French, a Holyoke native, begins her teaching career at Haxtun High School this week.

"People keep telling me things will look so much different this year, but I wasn't here before, so it will all be new to me," French said from her desk in her new classroom.

French grew up in Holyoke and graduated from Holyoke High School in 2007. After high school, French moved to Massachusetts where she attended Amhe...