Seven educators will represent the Stoughton Area School District in the Regional round of the Kohl Fellowship program.
First-grade teacher James Young and fifth-grade teacher Kristi LaPointe, both of Kegonsa Elementary School, will represent the district at the elementary school level. Jennifer Kolberg has been nominated from the middle school, while Amber Little and Stephen Stokes have been nominated from the high school. Sandhill reading specialist Jennifer Hopper and River Bluff counselor Lisa Koenecke are representing the district in the Special Services category.
Young has been with the district since 2005, including positions at Fox Prairie and Yahara elementary schools, and for the last several years has been a first-grade teacher at Kegonsa.
LaPointe has been with the district since 2012 as both a first-grade and now fifth-grade teacher at Kegonsa.
Kolberg has been an eighth-grade social studies teacher at River Bluff since 2013. Little has been a German teacher at Stoughton High School since 2012. Stokes has been at Stoughton High School since 1996 as both a Special Education teacher and more recently as a Health Science teacher.
Hopper is a 12-year veteran of the Stoughton Area School District who began her career at Yahara Elementary School before going to Sandhill. Koenecke has worked at the Stoughton Area School District since 2009, first at Stoughton High School and then at River Bluff.
The Kohl Teacher Fellowship program recognizes and supports teaching excellence and innovation in the State of Wisconsin, according to its website. Every year, the Herb Kohl Education Foundation honors 100 educators from across Wisconsin. Each fellowship winner receives a $3,000 Kohl Fellowship grant, and each recipient's school receives a matching $3,000 grant.
The applications from the seven SASD educators will now advance to a regional selection committee, which is coordinated in each of the state's 12 cooperative educational service agencies (CESAs). These regional committees will determine which nominees from their region will be forwarded to the state level for review.