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Mission: In my classroom, ALL students will be successful in communicating in Spanish
Vision: Through collaborating, communicating, participating, and problem solving, students in my classroom will be able to use their Spanish to be able to communicate at varying levels and continue to improve and develop their abilities daily.
Values:
I will create a classroom environment that is safe and every student is a member of the learning classroom.
I will believe in and support ALL of my students in their successes and that they can and will persevere.
I will personalize each student’s learning through speaking, writing, listening and reading and as a team we can work to the highest individual potential for each student.
2020 Covid quizlet live winners- quick pic of in class and virtual!
About me
This is my 21st year in education. After this year I will have been with the Van Meter family for nineteen years. I received my BA in Spanish Teaching 5-12 from the University of Northern Iowa, my K-6 elementary endorsement from Grandview University and am a graduate from Graceland University with a Masters in Education. I have had the opportunity to study abroad in Spain, living with a family and also backpack across the country visiting several awesome cities. Because of my experiences, one of my passions is to allow students to experience the Spanish world in person.
In 2010, I founded the Van Meter Spanish Travel Program and with this club, have headed trips to Spanish speaking countries, which are offered every other year. During the Summer of 2013 the students experienced Spain, traveling from Madrid to Barcelona along the Northern Coast! During the Summer of 2015, we traveled from Lima to Cuzco to the amazon, experiencing all parts of the vast country that Peru has to offer! These were experiences of a lifetime! Typically trips are offered every other year, but because Peru filled so quickly we ventured to Costa Rica during the Summer of 2016 allowing students to still travel before they graduated. A trip to Spain in 2018 was amazing affording opportunities of a lifetime! We just experienced Costa Rica and Panama in July 2022 and are super excited to venture to Spain in 2024! If you are wanting to grab a seat on this trip of a lifetime, we would love to have you join us! I have traveled several times to many areas of Mexico and Spain and love experiencing the culture and history that has a huge effect on our own country even today! My husband and I live in Waukee with our two Great Danes Gus and Cleo and our three children. We have a seventeen year old daughter, Kadence, fifteen year old son, Kaegan, and eleven year old son, Grayson. All are part of the Van Meter School District.
I was raised in Spirit Lake Iowa in the family business and have a lot of my parent’s values and work ethic that have been instilled in me since I was a small child. I carry the value that my students need to have good work ethic in the classroom so that they can be better prepared for life and the responsibilities life brings after High School; therefore I do have high expectations. Above all I carry the classroom expectation of kindness in all parts of life. This attribute is a skill that every person is equipped with and being a good person is one of the most employable skills outside of grit and perseverance. I strive for a classroom environment that encompasses kindness. I love teaching and I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was in grade school. I had a very influential Spanish teacher when I was in High School that I can only hope to one-day create a shadow that would mirror his work. The Spanish language is my passion. My goal is to share some of that passion with students in hopes that the boundaries of their world expand to include places and customs that differ from their own while recognizing that as a people, we are very much alike. I also hope that the idea of learning a second language takes on more meaning than fulfilling the minimum requirements in order to get into a four-year college, but rather a necessity in today’s changing society and the job world. Being bilingual is a real possibility and I have seen it through my own eyes students at various proficiency levels earn the seal of biliteracy, a huge accolade in language acquisition and growth, at Van Meter. Because language acquisition is our goal, we speak primarily Spanish in all levels of Spanish focusing on the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening through various communication activities. It is amazing to see students growth within just weeks of starting their language acquisition journey. It is because of those moments that I know I have found my passion. I look forward to learning with your child this year and throughout their middle school years and the next four years of High School Spanish.
Resources
Students and parents can access the below resources for class!
Van Meter Schools home page
Looking for our other Spanish teachers? Click here for a direct link to Profe Newell.
At Van Meter Schools we offer a K-12 proficiency based program centered around language acquisition using Comprehensible Input. Proficiency leveling at the high school level including dual enrollment DMACC options and Seal of Biliteracy awards. We are a Standards based school and a 1:1 Apple and google school Prek-12 .
Class of 2020 Spanish Seal of Biliteracy Honors
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