As a student, she kept color-coded notes so, yes, Brittany Rynkewicz expects her students to be diligent. But the St. Bede English teacher also wants her kids to unlock their imagination and have fun.
Thank You, Teachers
A tribute to education's local heroes
NewsTribune/Shaw Local News Network
After beginning her career in education as an aid in Bureau Valley for a few years, Tracey Schoff decided to further explore her interest and pursued a full-time teaching degree. This decision has now led to a 17-year career teaching kids in BV, just as she once was.
After retiring after 35 years teaching at La Salle-Peru High School in May 2021, Bill Booker has taken on a part time job teaching PE three days a week at Mendota Holy Cross
Working with kids came naturally to Devert after being the youngest of six children, working as a babysitter growing up and watching her older sister man a classroom for many years before her.
La Salle-Peru High School teacher Alexandra West shares her own life experiences, from her travels to her life experiences as a woman of color, to help students connect and share their own stories to better understand multicultural literature.
Read our letters submitted by students and parents to the NewsTribune for our Thank You Teachers 2023 special edition
Adrianne Espinoza-Zamora, a Mendota High School Spanish teacher, fulfilled her childhood dream to become a teacher.
Sally Etzenbach, a speech-language pathologist at Northview Elementary, helps autism students with limited verbal communication find their voice.
Maggie Hachenberger works at Trinity Catholic Academy in La Salle, where she teaches second grade and more than matches her students in personal energy.
Lynn Quick is an Oglesby native who settled on a teaching career even before she graduated from Holy Family School, thanks mainly to an always-smiling Felician sister who inspired her to teach, if not to take up the habit herself.