Construction at WHS: CSI class is new to course selection for 2025-26 school year

Windsor High School is excited to announce the introduction of a new and innovative CSI class, taught by Sarah Gray (staff). This course is designed to provide students with a hands-on, immersive experience in the world of forensic science and criminal investigations.

Gray, who is in her second year at WHS, will lead the class, which will consist of juniors and seniors. The emergence of this class has sparked the interest of many students, some of whom are involved in Aurea Fehringer’s (staff) anatomy course. Many of these students, like Emily Couch (11), have been taught by Gray and were intrigued upon hearing she would be teaching the class.

“I have always been interested in CSI and think taking the class would be fun and interesting,” Couch stated. “I also love Ms. Gray’s teaching.”

The idea to generate this class sparked from Gray’s grandfather and her old high school teacher. 

“My grandpa was a forensic scientist for the government and would always talk about it growing up. As I got into my early teaching career — student teaching — there was a teacher at Rocky Mountain High who taught CSI,” Gray said. “I would look at her lessons and her crime investigating room, also known as her murder room, and was envious and influenced by it, knowing that if possible, one day I would teach a similar class.”

Though many topics will be taught throughout the semester, the main few consist of toxicology, pathology and blood spatter analysis. Fehringer and Gray have both been interested in starting this course since the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.

According to Gray, the process of getting this class approved was smooth, partially due to the presence of the course at Severance High School already. With a plan as to how the course would run, it was quickly accepted.

“I got the class approved through the help of Mr. Sesemann and Mrs. Fehringer,” Gray explained. “We were able to go to the district and ask for this class to be available for students to select. Since Severance High School already has a forensics class, we were able to speed the process up by giving the district a course description as well as possible prerequisites for getting it approved at Windsor High.”

Fehringer and Gray worked together to offer this class for upperclassmen. The aim is to help students pursue their passion in CSI.

“The concepts and activities we do will require prior knowledge from both biology and chemistry, which the majority of students take their freshman or sophomore year,” Gray said. “We want to be able to explore more and do hands-on and deeper level activities, which cannot be done if we have to teach some of the basics from biology and chemistry.”

Couch plans to pursue a career in CSI when she grows older. With the new class coming to WHS, she believes she will get a good head start and start learning ahead. 

“I think it will inform me more about CSI and give me more information on the career to know if I want to pursue a career in CSI,” Couch explained.

With the help of Fehringer, Gray felt empowered to pursue it. Fehringer’s support helped guide Gray into wanting to teach this course. 

“Partly because she has experience and knowledge outside of the lower level classes,” Fehringer said regarding why Gray should teach it. “We wanted to give her the opportunity to take that knowledge to an upper-level class so that she could tie in a lot of what she is currently teaching.”

Though she has to wait until next year to begin teaching this course, Gray has ample amount of time to plan and to keep herself excited for the new opportunity.

“I think I am most excited to dive in deeper and have plans for labs … My investigations will involve physical and trace evidence where the students will then analyze the scenarios,” Gray explained. “There will also be law and courtroom procedures but from the point of view of a forensic scientist. Overall, there is so much I want to create and teach, and I am mostly excited to learn and grow with my students.”