News Releases
District 15 Teachers Honored with
Those Who Excel Awards
One District 15 teacher and a team of teachers and support personnel are recipients of this year’s Illinois State Board of Education Those Who Excel awards. They are among just 200 people from across Illinois who will be honored at the ISBE’s 32nd annual Those Who Excel/Illinois Teacher of the Year awards banquet October 7 in Decatur.
Kimball Hill kindergarten teacher Pat Juza received the Award of Merit, and the Structured for Independence (SIP) team, which teaches autism students at Marion Jordan, was honored with the Recognition Award.
The Those Who Excel awards program each year honors outstanding teachers, administrators, student support personnel, educational service personnel, and community members for their exception contributions to schools throughout the state. Candidates are nominated by their local schools or people in their communities. Letters of recommendation are also required. A committee of peers, including representatives from statewide education organizations and former award winners, chooses the winners.
 “Long before the No Child Left Behind Act, Pat Juza had already decided that she would leave no child behind and that all children could learn,” Mary Zarr, then principal of Kimball Hill, wrote in nominating Pat. “A woman ahead of her time, she ‘collaborated,’ ‘integrated,’ and ‘differentiated’ long before these learning strategies became the focus of best practices in teaching. She has a passion for teaching that many can say they have, but that few can sustain on a daily basis. Caring, responsibility, citizenship, trustworthiness, respect, and fairness are not just the adjectives that describe Pat herself, but the character traits that she models daily and strives to instill in each of her students.”
 The Structured for Independence team comprises Michelle Miller, Kristi Schwarz, Linda Gilles-Zirbes, Terri Storino, Valerie Gruenwald, Laura Wald, and former team member Michelle Pollard who moved out of state. SIP is a self-contained special education program that services autistic students in two classes at Marion Jordan. “The SIP team continues to ‘wow’ students, parents, administrators, and community members year in and year out,” noted Marion Jordan Principal Dana Petersen in her nomination of the SIP team. “Most students come to the program with limited communication, weak social interaction skills, an inability to learn in the traditional classroom, significant sensory needs, and extreme frustration with school. Students are placed in one of two SIP classes, and their parents have described to us, ‘The world begins to make sense to them.’ Students in SIP become engaged learners quickly due to the knowledge and enthusiasm of our team of professionals.”
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