Ladue’s own English teacher Kimberly Gutchewsky, who teaches four different classes this year, wrote an article entitled “Transforming Reading Education: One District’s Expansion of Literary Responsibility” to be published in the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Educational Leadership Journal.

“It chronicles the reading group professional development opportunity for Ladue Middle School and High School teachers led by Mrs. Curran, supported by Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Knoedelseder and a few other teachers,” Gutchewsky said.

The reading group has been a helpful tool for teachers at Ladue. However, many other schools do not take advantage of this professional development opportunity.

“I wanted to get it out there that this can be an effective model: when you have teachers sit down together and discuss strategies, that’s how professional development is supposed to work,” Gutchewsky said.

Gutchewsky collaborated with Joanne Curran in writing the article.  Together, they carefully decided where to send the article for publishing.

“We chose the ASCD’s Educational Leadership Journal because it has the largest readership,” Gutchewsky said. “It has a broader audience including administrators and teachers of a variety of subjects.”

The ASCD is an international organization of professional educators dedicated to the best practices and polices to help students learn successfully. Once Gutchewsky had determined where to send the article, submitting it was a straightforward process.

“They give you a list of guidelines, and accept submissions over email, so sending in the article was the easy part,” Gutchewsky said. “The hard part is going to be the dialogue between myself and the main editor.”

The editing process will start in March. Then, the article will be published in the summer online edition of the journal.

“I thought of it as a retirement gift for Mrs. Curran,” Gutchewsky said. “She does so many things that are so valuable, and I thought other districts could learn from her work.” #