Oregon teacher Kimberly Radostits meets Sen. Durbin during visit to Washington, D.C.

Oregon Excessive Faculty’s Kimberly Radostits, the 2022 Illinois Instructor of the Yr, met with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, on Thursday, throughout her latest go to to Washington D.C.

Radostits is an eighth grade to twelfth grade Spanish trainer andleads a freshman mentoring program, Hawks Take Flight, with the aim of retaining college students on monitor for four-year commencement.

Hawks Take Flight makes use of an early warning system to establish struggling college students and supply them further help as they enter highschool.

Along with Hawks Take Flight, Radostits based and co-directs a New Instructor Academy, which supplies help {and professional} improvement to new academics in her district to advertise retention and college connection. She was awarded Illinois Instructor of the Yr by the Council of Chief State Faculty Officers and was one among 5 finalists for 2023 Nationwide Instructor of the Yr.

Durbin congratulated Radostits on her achievement, and the 2 mentioned the significance of supporting college students as our nation emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, civics schooling and the detrimental results of social media on college students.

“We belief our academics with the momentous activity of teaching and shaping the subsequent technology. Ms. Radostits has gone the additional mile to supply help to the scholars at Oregon Excessive Faculty and the academics within the Oregon Neighborhood Unit Faculty District,” Durbin mentioned in a information launch. “It was inspiring to fulfill together with her at present to speak about her expertise within the classroom and the way the federal authorities can supply further help to academics and college students in Illinois and throughout the nation.”