Bulletin Article: Welcome to New Staff/Faculty (9-16-12)

“Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Romans 15:7).

I would like to officially welcome four new employees to St. John’s Parish and School.  This summer we hired three new teachers and a new Director of Religious Education and I am excited to see them work with and teach our children. 

The first of these three, Leah Kilzdonk, is familiar to many of you as she was our former DRE.  She applied for a teaching position and will be teaching 2^nd grade this year.  Before working as a DRE (both here and St. Benedict’s parish) Leah went to school at UWS for elementary education.  She is excited to get into the classroom, especially working with the children preparing for their first Communion.

Melissa Nash was hired as our new DRE to replace Leah.  She has a lot of great experiences working with children as she served as a missionary on a National Evangelization Team for a year.  She also spent last summer as one of our eight Totus Tuus teachers and traveled around Northeastern Minnesota putting on elementary, junior high and high school programs.

Amanda Herzog is our new kindergarten teacher.  This will be her first time having a classroom of her own, for which she is very excited.  Before being hired here she worked at Congdon Creek Preschool and she received her education in Early Childhood Education and Special Education from UMD.  A fun fact about Amanda—she is engaged and will be married here at St. John’s next summer.

Kelly Weingart will be our new third grade teacher.  She is also thrilled to be in a classroom of her own for the first time.  Kelly graduated from St. Scholastica in elementary education with a focus in math (which is the best school subject).  She joins us after spending a couple of years subbing in the area.

Please make our new teachers and DRE feel welcome both at the school and parish.  I have the utmost confidence in their abilities to educate and form our children.  In a very real way these four women have answered Jesus’ call: “Let the children come to me…” (Matthew 19:14a).  I am excited to see these new employees bring our little ones to Christ in the years to come.