The first Holly School teacher was Mrs. Whaley. Diana Bowman Tait (whose mother Florence “Flossie” Pfundt Bowman Clark is 4th from left in back row – white outfit dark plaited hair) provided the names of all pictured and identified the teacher as Mrs. Whaley.
The History of Holly (1975) compiled by Ruth Stever, Flossie Clark, and Neva Swift named 16 teachers who taught Holly students between 1893-1946 and it appears they named them in chronological order: Mrs. Whaley is placed before Emma Gantke.
It seems likely Emma Gantke was actually the second teacher in the “new” school.
We can call Miss Gantke “one of the first teachers in the new school”. We don’t have a 1923 class picture so the first we see of Miss Gantke with her students is in 1924.