The typical high school student hits the road for school between 6:30 and 7 a.m. Whether they pick up a friend or drive alone, it is usually a straight few miles. It is normal for these teens, even when they’re stuck in treacherous Main Street traffic.
What most students do not consider when they complain about the traffic is that there are a few teachers who have it much worse.
Call them the extreme commuters of Huntley, but three teachers make a five-day-a-week, hour-long drive from Wisconsin.
Junior and senior gym teacher Mike Slattery lives slightly north of Lake Geneva, Wis. That is 41 miles away from Huntley High School, making it a 60 minute drive.
Getting up at 5:30 a.m., he leaves by 6 and makes it here by 7.
“My wife wakes up at 4:45 a.m.,” said Slattery. “She has an hour long drive as well.”
His wife, Melanie, teaches at Reuther High School in Kenosha, Wis.
Slattery has been commuting from Wisconsin to Huntley High School for 22 years, and working here for 23.
After 22 years, he has gotten used to it, even though it is difficult in the fall during the football season. He puts in long hours and does not leave the school until 7, which is hard considering he has a son in second grade.
Winter the tough part. He considers this long drive time to “decompress after the day” and relax.
Math teacher Heather Ghilani is another Wisconsin-commuting teacher. Ghilani lives in the Powers Lake area, about three miles north of the boarder.
Ghilani’s drive is 33 miles. Without traffic it takes 40 minutes, but normally closer to 50.
She has lived there for five years, and commuting since. It is not the most ideal situation for Ghilani, and like Slattery, the commute causes long days.
Ghilani also has an 18-month-old son that she and her husband take to and from day care. Her husband takes him to day care, since he has a 10 minute commute.
“It’s almost like a challenge to see how fast you can get here,” said Ghilani. “Other than that, I like living in Wisconsin. it is a little bit cheaper than living down here.”
Derek Morehart is a sophomore gym teacher and he lives in Milton, Wis, just a few miles north of Janesville. With a trip of 80 miles, he is the teacher who has the longest commute.
It takes him approximately and consists of 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Morehart wakes up between 5 and 5:30 a.m., and has to be on the road by 6 a.m. to get to school on time.
This is Morehart’s ninth year teaching here and commuting. The drive extends his day to sometimes even 14 hours when he is not home. Coaching days could range between 16 to 18 hours a day.
For Morehart, driving in the winter is difficult. There are times in the winter where he’ll have to be on the road by 5:30. It is a challenge but the drive in the morning wakes him up.
The drive is hard when he just wants to get home when Morehart just wants to get home. Plus, a drive this long means he has to put in 35 dollars on gas every other day.
“It was a wise investment to have bought a car with great gas mileage,” said Morehart.
Most high school students could not imagine paying that much on gas.
For various reasons, these teachers chose to commute from Wisconsin, but in that they take additional costs.
A 38 mile round-trip driving is an estimate of total driving cost of $ .51 cents per mile, that’s $19 per day of direct driving and car ownership costs.
Additionally, there is the time spent. At Morehart’s 160 miles per day, equivalent of almost an entire work day to each work week. He spends nearly an entire work day driving each week.
After 10 years, multiplied across two cars they each own and having different work schedules, the decision to commute costs about $125,000.
That is 1.3 working years of those 10 years worth of time they risking behind the wheel.
“I enjoy driving because it clears my mind of any negativity,” said Morehart. “On the drive home I am in the car long enough that I decompress and very rarely do I hold onto negative thoughts.”