District 109 Shows Off New Teachers

Deerfield Public Schools District 109 publically welcomed 24 new certified staff members to their ranks Monday at the regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting. Of the 22, 18 were there and introduced by Superintendent Renee Goier. 

Kellie Cacioppo will be working part-time at as a kindergarten teacher.  She has a wealth of teaching experience in day care centers and brings two years of formal experience in a kindergarten classroom, according to Goier. 

Debra Cohen will be working at serving as the response to intervention instructor.  She comes to the District through a long-term substitute position she filled at Wilmot Elementary School in the 2011-2012 school year. 

Crystal Eubanks will be working at as a seventh grade language arts and social studies teacher.  She was a teacher’s assistant with the District for the last two and a half years.  This is her first formal teaching position. 

Dr. Lindsay Galindo will be working at and will serve as the school psychologist.  This is her first position as she recently completed her psychologist internship in the Waukegan Public schools. 

Elizabeth Gunther will be working at Kipling Elementary School and will serve as a cross categorical—special education teacher.  She has eight years of experience in this role and comes to us from the Round Lake Area Schools District 116. 

Karen Howitt will be working at Shepard Middle School and will serve as the response to intervention instructor.  She comes to the District through a long-term substitute position in the same role in the last school year.  She has 14 years of experience in education. 

Katherine Kramer will be working at as a fifth grade teacher.  She brings five years of experience from the Palm Beach County School District in Florida. 

Tracy Markin will be working at Caruso Middle School.  Tracy will be teaching in the middle school Foundations program.  This is Tracy’s first formal instructional position but served long-term substitute role at Kirk School in Palatine. 

Laura McNamara will be working at Shepard Middle School and will serve as a cross categorical special education teacher.  She has two years of identical experience in Palos Heights Schools District 128. 

Dr. Peter Platten will be working at Caruso Middle School, serving as the school psychologist.  Platten comes to us from Timber Ridge School in Arlington Heights.  He has three years of experience in this field. 

Mallory Pratscher will be working at South Park Elementary School as a fourth grade teacher.    This is her first teaching position but filled two long-term substitute roles for the District in the 2011-2012 school year. 

Tara Pullano will be working at South Park Elementary School as a third grade teacher.  She was a teacher’s assistant in District last year.  However, she has five years of classroom instructional experience in Barrington schools. 

Michael Schwartz will be working at Kipling Elementary School as the music teacher.  This is his first position as he recently completed his student teaching at St. Charles North High School. 

Marissa Spector will be working at South Park Elementary School in the early childhood education program.  She was a teacher’s assistant with the District for the last two years.  This is her first teaching position. 

Svetlana Sutic will be working at Caruso Middle School.  She will serve as literacy coach.  She held a similar position with Kildeer Countryside School District 96 for two years and has a wealth of experience teaching in the elementary schools, according to Goier. 

Lauren Weisbaum will be working part-time at Kipling Elementary School as a kindergarten teacher.  She has eight years of experience in both Texas and Chicago public schools. 

Mary Wong will be working at South Park Elementary School.  She teaches in recently created intermediate structured teaching classroom for student with special needs.  She has five years of teaching experience. Her last position was with North Shore School District 112. 

Laurel Worthington will be working at Caruso Middle School as the school’s guidance counselor.  She brings one year of experience from The North Chicago Community Unit School district. 

Other new teachers who were not at Monday’s Board meeting are Anna Riddle, eighth grade language arts teacher at Caruso, Preston Krauska, instrumental music teacher throughout the District, Erin Hairrell, foreign language teacher at Kipling, Pam Strunk, school nurse at Caruso, Jessica Pertler, kindergarten teacher at Walden and Meredith Ross, speech/language pathologist at Wilmot. 

To better keep up with Deerfield news, follow Patch on Twitter and Facebook.