Hi. I’m Mrs. Soukup.  I have been teaching for many years.  This year will mark twenty-one years in the teaching profession for me.  However, it is my fifth year at North Central Junior High.  To begin, I graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education.  My areas of specialization were Language Arts, Speech Communications, and Theatre.  Five year later, I continued my education and received my Master’s in Teaching from Coe College.  My specialization for this degree was Social Studies. After a few more years of teaching, I decided to continue my education and received a Master’s in Administration from Drake University for PK-12.  My area of specialization was Special Education Supervisor for PK-12.

In 1995, I began my teaching career in kindergarten and first grade in the Linn Mar Community Schools. But in 2000, I began teaching in the Iowa City Community Schools at Twain Elementary in fifth and sixth grade.  In addition, I taught first grade for a year.  Then an opportunity came about and I switched to Penn Elementary and taught first grade.  Shortly after, I taught first and second grade at Van Allen Elementary for a couple of years. After finishing my Masters in Administration, I was back at Penn to teach sixth grade. This was great because I had student taught in fourth grade at Penn Elementary when I started my teaching career.  In 2011, I came to North Central after three years in sixth grade at Penn. As I stated before, this is my fifth year at North Central Junior High. The various components of language arts are very important to me.  As a  result, reading and writing and staple pieces of my language arts instruction.