22 New Teachers Prepare for First Day of School

Twenty-two new teachers will climb district steps Thursday, a number that reflects an and a strengthened commitment to support struggling students.

Most teachers are replacements, filling positions vacated by retirements, resignations and teachers reducing time.

But the also allocated $100,000 to hire new teachers to aid at-risk students, and some advanced students. Classified as Tier 2 interventions, the teachers will offer supplemental support that keeps students in regular classes but offers more personal instruction outside of class.

Kindergarteners, first-graders and second-graders will be pulled out for extra help in math; seventh- and eighth-graders will get academic attention at the Student Support Center; and struggling high school students will have a new math lab and literacy lab.

Lauren Croix, a former elementary teacher from Kenosha, will oversee the literacy lab. She said so far she has 10 freshmen signed up, positioning her with about three per period, but she expects that number to grow when school begins and teachers identify more students who need help.

Croix became interested in playing a supportive role in literacy after watching a gap grow between the third-graders and fifth-graders she taught.

“It was like, wow, I had these fifth-graders two years ago and they’re already a year behind,” Croix said. “To meet the needs of all those kids is so hard.”

The literacy lab is set up with different stations for small group work and individual group work — intimate settings Croix said are key for engaging students with different learning styles.

“A lot of students are under the impression that, ‘I might be assigned to read something, but I’ll go to class and hear the important stuff,’” Croix said. “I want to do a lot of critical thinking about the reading in here, not just the list of characters and places … If you really want to make it something, you have to think about it.”

In the personalized environment, Croix hopes students will catch up quickly on literacy skills and be able to stop attending the lab.

As one of 22 new teachers to the district, Croix said she has enjoyed the abundance of introductions and knowledge swaps happening in the hallways of the high school.

"Everywhere I go people have been looking at me like, ‘I don’t recognize her,'" Croix said. "And they come introduce themselves. It’s really neat. There's a community feeling."