Sabrina is coming to Denver Public Schools from Chicago. How cool is that? She will be taking Paul Kirschling’s position at Thomas Jefferson High School as Paul moves to East High School along with a growing stable of strong comprehension based teachers there.
East is fast becoming a true comprehension based powerhouse. Their department of ten now boasts eight strong CI teachers including our group member Sarah Rasay, Joseph Dziedzic who is coming from North High School, Jason Castellano, Megan Brown, and others. All they need is Linda Li – who taught in DPS for awhile – to make it the dream department.
What is really weird is that the current ACTFL Teacher of the Year, Noah Geisel, has left East. And this is even weirder. The other night we had a party at Joseph’s (where we got into a truly intense argument about Krashen for over two hours late into the night – with yelling going on – it was over forced output) and Noah was sitting there next to Ken Stewart from Chapel Hill. Who is Ken Stewart? He is the first ACTFL National Teacher of the Year (2005). So we had two national teachers of the year sitting next to each other for awhile that night. Luckily both left before the argument.
And now we have stolen Sabrina from Taft High School in Chicago. It looks like Diane Neubauer and the other PLC members there are going to have to keep that Chicago group going on their own. I’m sure that Sabrina’s decision to leave the fast growing TCI group in Chicago was a hard one. Honestly, I think it’s going to be fine with Diane there and the others in the PLC who anchor that group. And it’s only a two and a half hour flight so we will be in touch.
Sabrina has to do a New Educators Institute in Denver starting Monday. The fact that she is not a new educator apparently doesn’t matter. She is coming into DPS with a wealth of experience. I came into DPS four years ago with decades of experience but I had to do NEI as well. Four days of it. No comment. But once she makes it through Hell Week, Sabrina will start in at TJ and join forces with Nina Barber who is coming to TJ from George Washington High School, so there will now be a pair of excellent CI teachers right next door to each other at TJ.
Even weirder is how Lynette Lang, whose CI style I describe in detail in my book TPRS in a Year! is moving from Aurora which is a suburb of Chicago to teach at a fantastic Christian school in Douglas County, Valor Christian, which has the total opposite of our demographics in DPS. I think Lynette’s last name is now Lynette Saint George. Anyway, Sabrina is going to be living with Lynette until they can get settled in Denver.
I hope all the above is accurate Sabrina – Diana has given me all the details. Welcome to DPS! You are inheriting from Paul a classroom that has not known book teaching for sixteen years so the vibe in there from Paul will be great, and you will be great!