Once student and educator, now colleagues: Woodstock District 200 grad teaches with her former teacher

Twenty years ago, Elle Creighton was among the first dual-language students in Woodstock School District 200. And Lillian Hayes was one of the program’s first teachers.

Fast-forward to now, and Hayes is still teaching dual-language third graders in the district, at Dean Street Elementary, and Creighton works with her former teacher instructing second graders at the school.

Creighton’s mom enrolled her in dual language as a child. Her family was mostly in the medical field, but as she grew up, Creighton said she realized that wasn’t for her.

She went to the University of Iowa and minored in Spanish. She thought she would be teaching in Costa Rica, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and upended those plans. She said other states aren’t as big on dual language as Illinois, and she returned to her home school district to give the next generation of students the same opportunity she had.

Hayes began as a bilingual teacher in the district in 2000. She said in an email that her classroom was profiled in a Northwest Herald story in 2003, and the dual-language program began the next year.

[ See early coverage of Woodstock District 200's dual language program ]

Hayes’s mother was an immigrant from Mexico, who came to the U.S. without knowing English and “learned it the hard way,” Hayes said.

Like Creighton, Hayes minored in Spanish in college. She then began as a bilingual teacher. She recalled the first year of the program was “bumpy” and noted the educators were learning “as we went.”

In dual-language classrooms, material is taught in both English and Spanish. And Hayes recalled that “parents were nervous” at first about whether their kids were going to learn English.

But 20 years later, “things have really changed,” said Hayes, who left teaching for a while to raise her kids.

Hayes said seniors look forward to getting the state seal of biliteracy. Since the first dual-language class graduated from high school in 2016, about 750 district graduates have received that recognition, for which students have to “demonstrate rigorous written and spoken language skills,” the district has said. And results for bilingual students are overall better than for monolingual students, Hayes said.

Hayes not only teaches with former students but has taught children of former students. As for working with Creighton, “she’s wonderful,” Hayes said. Creighton said Hayes has even hung onto books and other crafts that she made in first grade and will show them to her class.

The dual-language started with 51 first graders in Fall 2004 at Mary Endres Elementary School, and the first class graduated from Woodstock North in 2016, district spokesperson Kevin Lyons said in an email.

This year, 43% the district’s roughly 2,700 students are enrolled in dual language. And as of this past fall, six graduates of the program are teaching in it.

Mary Endres is recognized as an “international Spanish academy” by the Spanish government, and the high school graduation rate for Latino students has increased from 64% to 96% since the program started, according to the district. Of the district’s 6,200 students, 38% are Latino.

“This program can benefit you” if you come back and teach, or just in life in general, Creighton said.