Plainfield ELA teacher recognized by state as one of south suburbs top educators

The teaching style of an award-winning Plainfield teacher can be summed up in three words: making literary connections.

Jennifer Gruca is an English Language Arts teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Plainfield.

And for years, Gruca has worked tirelessly to make reading and writing come alive for her students.

Earlier this year, Gruca was named the 2025 Illinois State Board of Education Far South Suburbs Regional Teacher of the Year. On March 8, ISBE held a reception for Gruca and 13 other teachers.

AJ Hundal, principal at John F. Kennedy Middle School, said Gruca is a “phenomenal teacher” who does “amazing things” in terms of promoting reading, writing and literature.

“She’s been able to expose kids to cultures, to other people and their backgrounds, allowing kids to share about themselves, which allows the kids to have a voice, too,” Hundal said and later added, “This is why we get into education.”

“I think that when you’re reading and writing about yourself and about your location and the people around you, you’re more prone to start being interested in literature as a whole.”

—  Jennifer Gruca, John F. Kennedy Middle School i

To foster those connections, Gruca developed a global collaboration program to connect her students with students in Portugal, Turkey, Albania, North Macedonia and Moldova, according to a news release from Plainfield School District 202.

Gruca is also a Transatlantic Educators Dialogue Program fellow and a Global Learning fellow with the NEA Foundation, “where she just concluded her field study in Costa Rica in 2024,” according to the release.

Locally, Gruca brings Chicago area artists into the school to lead workshops for all eighth grade students. These artists include authors, community members, motivational speakers, poets and songwriters, according to the release.

“I think that when you’re reading and writing about yourself and about your location and the people around you, you’re more prone to start being interested in literature as a whole.”

Why does Gruca make all these extra efforts? Because students won’t “appreciate even the most famous short stories or poems if they’re not having a love for the language arts,” Gruca said.

Gruca said connections with “real people” personalize literature for students.

“Isn’t that what literature is?” Gruca said. “Aren’t we always telling our story?”

To that end, Gruca encourages students to tell their own stories through poems and stories, which she said sets a stronger foundation in literature than if you just “handed them textbooks.”

“I tell them they are the textbooks and they come in feeling more confident,” Gruca said. “You have to start somewhere. And the only thing they have in common is that they can tell their own stories and their own thoughts about the world.”

And when local artists come into the school, students can talk to them and ask them questions, which helps students understand that artists are “actually human, too,” Gruca said.

“And suddenly storytelling means something,” Gruca said.

This all helps students connect with the stories and poems they read by other authors and in their textbooks, Gruca said.

“I think that when you’re reading and writing about yourself and about your location and the people around you,” Gruca said, “you’re more prone to start being interested in literature as a whole.”

Gruca began her career 21 years ago, teaching family and consumer science at Heritage Grove Middle School in Plainfield. But Gruca’s heart was in English.

So Gruca moved to the English department of John F. Kennedy Middle School when District 202 opened the school in August 2007.

In addition to Gruca’s recent honor, Gruca also received a previous WGN Chicago News Television Teacher of the Month award and a 2020 WE Teachers Award presented by Walgreens.