Kari has taught in the middle school setting in Minnesota during all 21 years of her teaching – anything from 6, 7, & 8th grade English, to more recently 6th grade physical science, 7th grade life science, and 8th grade chemistry, anatomy, & astronomy. She was recognized as Princeton Middle School Teacher of the Year in 2005 and also received the Minnesota Leadership in Educational Excellence award in the same year. Kari stays involved as a Building Leadership Committee member, a Professional Learning Community Facilitator, and Overtime instructor after school twice a week for those students failing two or more classes. Kari has done everything from making and selling funnel cakes, to performing at Ironworld USA as an ethnic singer and dancer, to selling kitchen tools and scrapbooking materials, to frying chicken at the deli in addition to teaching! Her favorite things to do are walking her two mini schnauzers (Mattie & Clyde), reading, watching her kids play hockey, and scrapbooking.
When we first began WEB on our campus, the most dramatic difference was the lack of tears at the beginning of the year with our 6th graders! They seemed to really appreciate the help of our WEB leaders and were willing to try new things more willingly. We had a much smoother beginning of the year!
After WEB was well established in our building, we began to notice how well our 8th graders responded to their leadership roles and how much more responsible they’ve become. We’ve even had WEB Leaders who have gone on to be Link Leaders in high school and who have earned scholarship money for college as a result of their leadership in these programs!
