About:

Desiree Roffers has been teaching French at Gallistel Language Academy since 2008. During this time, she has taught preschool, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade French. She has also taught English reading and writing and provides tier III support for students in reading, writing, math, and social emotional skills. In addition, Desiree has experience teaching Middle School French and completed an internship teaching High School French. During her career, she has taught every age group from preschool through adults.

Lifelong learning is at the center of Desiree’s teaching philosophy. She is constantly exploring new teaching tools and methodology. She frequently uses technology to enhance her lessons. During the 2020-2021 school year, Desiree thrived during remote and hybrid learning. She enjoyed the challenge of finding new ways to use technology to engage and challenge students. Desiree also frequently coaches and mentors teachers with technology in her school building. She is a Google certified educator and trainer.

Desiree has taken on many leadership positions both within her school and the district. At Gallistel, she is currently a member of the Special Enrichment Team, Civics Team, Safety Team, and Instructional Leadership Team. She frequently takes on additional responsibilities in these groups such as notekeeper and facilitator. In the past, she has organized school-wide events such as International Week, guest speakers, and student performances.

Since 2016, Desiree has been a Framework Specialist within the Chicago Public School district. Within this position, Desiree has created numerous professional development tools for teachers including videos, templates, advice columns, documents, and a podcast episode. Desiree also designs and delivers professional development sessions for new and veteran teachers within the district. Within this role, Desiree has mentored fourteen new teachers and provided support for numerous new teachers in the district. Desiree is also part of the equity sub-committee that is designing a scope and sequence for mentor teachers to bring a liberatory thinking lens to their mentoring practice. During the 2021 school year, Desiree joined a pilot program that is using the Teaching Channel as a resource for video collaboration among mentors and teachers.

Since the first year REACH was introduced in 2012, Desiree has been a part of the REACH Performance Task design committee. She helped craft the initial structure and format that was used for years. Desiree has also field tested these tasks in her classroom and audited tasks given by other teachers. This experience gave Desiree an awareness of how to create an assessment that is valid, reliable, and free of bias.

In 2021, Desiree worked as part of a team to evaluate new French curriculum materials for the district. Desiree used her numerous years of teaching experience to appraise the efficacy of these new materials. She used equity and content rubrics to provide detailed feedback to the curriculum vendor.

In addition, Desiree joined the new Teacher Advisory Board for the Chicago Public Schools teacher newsletter. Desiree collaborates with teachers and Central Office staff to design marketing, structure, and content for the district newsletter. She has also created numerous short professional development videos as content for the newsletter. Since the creation of this board, newsletter readership has doubled in the district.

When Desiree is not teaching or collaborating with her colleagues in Chicago Public Schools, she loves to dance. Desiree has been dancing since she was four years old. She is currently an international champion swing dancer and instructor. She teaches swing dance in Chicago and across the world. Desiree has designed dance curricula and a Teacher Training Program for swing dancers around the world. She mentors dancers and dance teachers while helping to build the local and regional dance communities. Desiree runs a local dance organization called Chicago Balboa Underground and chairs an international dance conference with four hundred participants annually.