St. Joseph teacher wins Distinguished Service Award

ROUND LAKE – Sandy Quackenbush knew from the time she was in first grade that she wanted to be a teacher.

The Iowa native made good on that goal and has been teaching for the past 30 years - the last 20 as a kindergarten teacher at St. Joseph School in Round Lake.

But she didn’t just become a teacher. Quackenbush has become a mainstay at St. Joseph, and her dedication to her school children has won her an award from the Archdiocese of Chicago Office of Catholic Schools.

Quackenbush is one of 25 teachers who will be awarded for dedication, leadership and service to a Catholic school. She was selected from a pool of more than 5,300 educators in the 255 Catholic schools found in Lake and Cook counties. On Sunday, Feb. 21, she will receive a Distinguished Service Award at a dinner at the Chicago Marriott in Chicago.

Shelly Daun, a teacher’s aide to Quackenbush for the past 14 years, said the consistency that Quackenbush shows to her students sets her apart from other teachers.

"I think [it's] her dedication and love toward children in her heart," Daun said. "She's trying to prepare them for the future for the rest of their lives."

Why she teaches
When Quackenbush graduated from college, "teachers were a dime a dozen," the veteran teacher said. So, at first, she settled into the education field as a bilingual aide.

That early training has come in handy here, where the Round Lake community is diverse. But teaching young children in general is no easy task, she said.

“It’s always different and it’s always a challenge,” Quackenbush said. “Especially at a younger age, you never know what’s going on in their little minds. So, to reach them ... is really a challenge. I love it.”

Things have changed in schools since she first stepped foot in a classroom.

“Our expectations for kindergarten are not what they were for first-graders 30 years ago,” Quackenbush said. “We want kindergartners to read now. It used to be first-grade.”

The attention spans of kindergartners has significantly decreased over the years, as well, Quackenbush said. Finding ways to keep her students attentive is a constant battle.

Two things have remained a constant in her teaching curriculum, however. First, she frequently takes time to read to her students.

“Children’s literature has not changed,” Quackenbush said. “My philosophy is kids, especially in this area, will never pick up a book if they dont’ know there’s something in there.”

“She’s the best story teller in the world for reading stories,” Daun said. “The kids love it.”

Second, Quackenbush has the children create Big Books – a compilation of pictures drawn by each child in the classroom, based on the literature that has been read in class.

For 5-year-old Joshua Fusco, who Quackenbush said wants to be an artist when he grows up, the Big Books offer him the chance to do the two things he loves most in kindergarten at once.

“Doing our work [and] coloring,” Fusco said, as he helped point to pictures in the class’s Haunted House Big Book.

Twenty-three Big Books will be bound before the kindergartners graduate, Quackenbush said – one for each of her students to take home at the end of the year.

The thought of having her own Big Book made 5-year-old Jessica Harbeck very excited.
Her favorite kindergarten activity?

"Doing a Big Book," Harbeck said, as she flipped through the class's Mitten Big Book.

It almost didn't happen
Quackenbush has taken on more than just a kindergarten teaching role over the years. She has coordinated the school's Extended Day Program, provided music at school liturgies and tackled assistant principal duties, as well – all on top of volunteering the little free time she has left to other school functions.

After all that Quackenbush has done for St. Joseph School, there is some irony. The kindergarten teacher almost wasn’t around to be nominated for an award, at all.

Last June, Quackenbush went in for double knee replacement surgery, and her body collapsed. The tutor and mentor of St. Joseph’s 5- and 6-year-olds lay in a coma for 10 days, and spent another three weeks in intensive care before being moved to a residence for two months.

She missed the beginning of the school year, much to the dismay of her school family, and just made her way back to the classroom in November. It was both exhausting and exhilarating, Quackenbush said.

Principal Jeanne Petkus, who nominated Quackenbush for the Distinguished Service Award, said in her nominating letter that “things did not seem ‘right’ when we had to start a new school year without [Sandy].’”

The school had rallied with prayers and well wishes for the teacher that has seen nearly 1,000 students walk through her classroom doors, and the volume of that support surprised even Petkus.

“It was just an outpouring of prayers, not only from current students, but graduates ...,” Petkus said later. “When [Sandy] came back, it was just amazing. It became clear that in the hearts and minds of the community of St. Joseph, she was distinguished.”

“Coming back here is why I teach,” Quackenbush said. “Feeling that I was missed and needed, and not just by the little kids, but the parents of eighth graders. It was such a humbling feeling for me.”