Faculty Awards

Schilderink Family Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teaching

Toutes nos Félicitations, Amy Sterling

By Tanya Bricking Leach

Lower School French Teacher Amy Sterling is a Cincinnati native who has a passion for global education.

The Summit honored that passion by awarding her this year’s Schilderink Family Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teaching, the highest honor awarded to one teacher annually, for willingness to go above and beyond what is expected. 34 “It represents the highest-level performance, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, year-in and year-out,” says Head of School Rich Wilson.

“Every year, the Educational Team agonizes over to whom to give this honor,” he says. “There are so many worthy candidates. Sometimes, they select someone everyone knows. Other times, they select someone who may not stand out in the crowd but yet performs like the best of the best.”

Making an impact

Mrs. Sterling, a 2008 graduate of DePauw University, taught English at an elementary school in France before she came to The Summit 10 years ago. Since then, she has made an impact on the Lower School with her involvement in Global Citizenry. She was instrumental in creating a world map identifying all the areas throughout all divisions in which global topics appear in our curriculum.

“This teacher is extremely diligent about getting to know every child and his/her needs,” Mr. Wilson says. “She takes learner profiles seriously and communicates observations or concerns to classroom teachers. She keeps a secret grid on a clipboard for every class, and as the class leaves, she has her own notation system to discretely mark each child’s participation and perceived level of having mastered that lesson so she can track it over time. She does formative assessment that way without students even knowing it’s happening.”

Nominators described Mrs. Sterling as a great team player who constantly reflects on how she can contribute and do her part.

“I marveled at her desire and ability to move the Lower School forward,” retired Lower School Director Helen Clark writes in her nomination. “It was Amy’s idea to place a monitor outside of the office to show Lower School current events as well as global information. Amy spent part of her summer vacation finding developmentally-appropriate/ child-centered material to post. Because of prior financial and tech commitments, it took two school years for the monitor to be hung, but then future Schilderink winners are a tenacious lot.”

Personalized instruction

Nominators praised Mrs. Sterling for being a dedicated colleague who arrives early and stays late to design and run a hands-on, energetic program for her students. They also pointed out that she’s always willing to help other teachers when they have technology questions, contributing to iLabs, always with the outlook of wanting to be part of a solution rather than part of a problem.

“She differentiates to any and every level, as she often has students with zero language experience sitting right next to students who have been studying the language since pre-k,” Mr. Wilson says. “She adapts her content to accommodate that seamlessly. She tailors her entry/exit ticket questions to each student’s ability, so every student can experience success.”

Mrs. Sterling uses a variety of tools to make instruction engaging and effective such as: animated ActivBoard lessons, Flipgrid activities, practice speaking and hearing French, songs, rhymes, workbooks and stuffed animal plays.

Praising the humble

Sometimes, humbleness is overlooked. But Mrs. Sterling’s colleagues praise her demeanor.

“She is the consummate professional,” Mr. Wilson says. “Outside the classroom, she’s quiet and humble. Inside the classroom, she sparkles.”

She greets each child at the door with a smile, third grade teacher Stacy Remke says. And they appreciate it.

“My students love going to Madame Sterling’s French class,” Mrs. Remke says in her nomination. “Her lessons are engaging and fun. I appreciate her active interest in my children’s learning styles, and her willingness to work with me to ensure each child’s success.”

Given her niche teaching position, Mrs. Sterling is not typically in the spotlight, nominator Mrs. Clark says, but she deserves the praise. “Amy is not one to call attention to herself. She acts from a love of her profession, her students and her school, not self-aggrandizement.”

A servant-leader mentality motivates Summit Way Award recipients to strive for excellence, to aim high in all that they do. Their defining characteristics are hard work, a can-do spirit, honesty, integrity, kindness, respect and, above all else, humility. Jane Schmerge and Julie Ventura were given this year’s Summit Way awards.

Jane Schmerge

Jane Schmerge, Assistant Director of Admission for the Lower and Middle Schools for the past 12 years, is kind, warm and compassionate. She is a passionate parent of Summit lifers. “Our mission looks lofty hanging in a beautiful frame on the wall,” she says, “but it is breathtaking to watch it unfold in your child as they learn and grow in grace and wisdom.”

Last year, she led enrollment of the largest number of new Lower School students in more than a decade. She emphasizes the value of a Summit education. She observes and talks about creative problem-solving and character-based leadership. She created a coding experience in the Exploratarium for kindergarteners and their parents to showcase innovative programming in the Lower School.

After enrolling their children, parents often offer unsolicited testimonials about the depth of Jane’s knowledge. She and her husband Paul SBS ’78 gave all four of their children – Alexandra ‘14, Caroline ‘17, Benjamin ’20 and Jack ’20 – Summit education from the start.

One new parent provided this unsolicited testimonial: “You have made all of us feel so cared for ... whenever I connected with you, a Maya Angelou quote floated across my mind: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ You are the master of making people genuinely feel so happy and secure. We can’t thank you enough for welcoming our kids in such a special way.”36 Julie Ventura

As you might expect from someone who danced professionally for the Cincinnati Ballet Company for 10 years, Julie Ventura is full of grace. She is also full of wisdom about Montessori education.

The dance background comes in handy in a classroom filled with active young kindergarteners. Now entering her 23rd year at The Summit, Julie is a teacher in a Montessori advanced enrichment classroom. “Children need guidance, a loving hand, encouragement and a positive attitude,” she says. “I want to provide those things for them.”

But in keeping with The Summit Way, Julie does a lot more day in and day out. Whether she is caring for her children’s individual needs in the classroom, demonstrating yoga poses, organizing materials in the classroom and the school’s supply closets or categorizing and coordinating “Free to a Good Home” items, Julie is on it.

She and her husband, Joe SBS ’65, gave their son, Nicholas SMS ’07, a Summit education. Fully dedicated as a teacher, wife of an alum and parent of an alum, Julie exudes The Summit spirit and mission. Always supportive of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, she keeps their values ever-present. She is always mindful to balance the needs of the children. Often going into school on weekends to prepare or organize, she does what she needs to do to get the job done and she gets it done well.

Leaders of Character seize opportunities and lead others to get strategic results. They model the traits we teach the children: kindness, caring, respect, fairness, responsibility, courage, perseverance, accountability, justice, patience, humility, compassion and gratitude. Betty Woodard and Marsha Wermes were given this year’s Leader of Character awards.

Betty Woodard

As lead teacher in our Extended Day Center, Betty Woodard’s patience, peacefulness and general demeanor instill a sense of calm and emulate the character traits we teach.

Leaders of character recognize the importance of relationships which are vital with young children who may not have the words to express how they feel. Relationships are also key for parents who worry how their youngsters will fare when they are not around. Since she started at The Summit in 2018, Betty has already become a trusted and respected advisor.

“She is often called upon for behavioral consults and provides tremendous help to parents in developmental and in disciplinary issues,” says Head of School Rich Wilson. “Her role is far from easy, but she handles it with grace and professionalism even on the toughest of days. The children love her and embrace Extended Day as a home away from home. She has a keen sense of how to prioritize the needs of the students which are at the center of her interactions with them.” More than anything, she has created a warm and nurturing environment that makes the children feel loved and respected.

She and her husband, the Rev. Chris Woodard, are the parents of one alumnus, Jaden ’18, and three current students, Bryana ’21, Aniya ’22 and Sasha ’26. Guided by her strong faith and our mission, she is kind and respectful – modeling and inspiring all of us to use our God-given gifts to value and improve the world we inherit. Marsha Wermes The 101 members of the Class of 2020 couldn’t gather in the chapel for their graduation this year, thanks to social-distancing restrictions caused by the global pandemic. Students and their parents were greatly upset by the loss of their senior year traditions and celebrations. The overseer of those events since 1986 when she began to work at The Summit, Upper School Administrative Assistant Marsha Wermes fervently felt that loss as well.

She ran the programs for 18 different graduations. Each one had a script tailored for them. The sheer enormity of the tasks that have faced Marsha during this pandemic might overwhelm anyone else. She often stays into the evenings or comes in on her off days to make sure school events don’t just happen but are done well. Her kindness, compassion and ever-present positivity earned her the Leader of Character award.

Every student, teacher or staff member who enters her space is treated with kindness and compassion. Whether she finds herself facing a sick student, a frustrated teacher or an upset parent, she always greets them with a smile and maintains a positive attitude throughout the day.

“Marsha is the beating heart of the Upper School,” says Head of School Rich Wilson. “She always thinks of the needs of the students, parents and faculty before her own. She lives The Summit mission by always doing everything with grace.” 37

Summit Tastemaker Hangs Up Apron after 40 Years of Service

By Lisa Cox

In the late summer of 1966, a young MaLissa (Walter) Geers ’76 stepped onto the campus of The Summit Country Day School to begin an academic career in the Lower School. MaLissa, a third-generation member of the Walter family, is one of eight children of Edward Walter (attd.) and his wife, Mary Agnes Moran. Cooking large meals was commonplace in this household. As the eldest child, her birth order implied that she would assist her mother in the kitchen – cooking, doing the dishes, herding younger siblings away from the hot stove and learning the secrets of a midwestern cook. The kitchen was the pulse of the household. Meals were cooked, chores were assigned and togetherness happened. Conversation, creative problem-

solving, laughter and song were always on the menu here.

As a student, the spelling of MaLissa’s first name would throw her teachers for a loop. The capitalized “L” was not an error, it was not hyphenated and could not be separated. It was intentionally placed by her parents to honor the combined names of her two grandmothers, Margaret Moran and Elizabeth Walter ’22.

Culinary art and food enterprise are part of the family heritage – as was adding The Summit Country Day School to their curriculum vitae. Her father, Edward, was a hard-working small business owner, who operated his own coffee and vending business while Mary was a stay-at-home mother raising her children and creating meals from scratch. Inspired by her mother’s creativity, MaLissa developed a palate for cooking. In her youth, MaLissa entered a family recipe for zucchini casserole into a community cooking competition and won. She was awarded a food mixer. At that point, MaLissa knew a culinary career would be her destiny.

After graduating from Summit, she headed off to the University of Cincinnati to study Dietetics and became a Registered Dietician through their C.U.P. program. During college, she studied at the elite culinary school, Le Cordon Blue London and completed an internship at Holmes Hospital. MaLissa’s credentials piqued the interests of former Summit head of school, Ed Tyrell. In an interview, MaLissa served up her knowledge of nutrition, expertise in cuisine and her affection for her alma mater. Ed realized what MaLissa brought to the table. He hired her on the spot as his dining services manager, and she was told she could “start Monday.”

She quickly proved she could spin plates as well as she could balance meals and run a professional kitchen – ordering supplies, planning menus and managing a team. She ran a tight ship with emphasis on praise and commendation whenever her staff would exceed her high expectations.

Soon, MaLissa was a young mom with four children of her own; and in true Walter fashion, dietician and École de Cuisine La Varenne-trained chef, younger sister Josie (Walter) Funk ’80 was brought into the kitchen to help. It was as though time had stood still from the days in their mother’s kitchen. There was teamwork, creative recipes, laughter, family and food. Over the course of her 40-year tenure, it is estimated that MaLissa and her team had served more than 7.14 million lunches alone. The number of plates would be astounding if the additional morning coffees, school celebrations and special occasion meals were also counted.

It is because of her tenacity that The Summit has been able to continue a legacy of serving nutritious and delicious homestyle meals with an in-house dining staff instead of an outsourced food service. “She established a tradition of excellence in our dining services, and her impact on the school is beyond measure,” said Rich Wilson, Head of School.

Josie, who was promoted to Dining Services Manager when her sister retired, had this to say about her sister: “When MaLissa enters, she infuses the room with an energy. She was always looking to perfect a recipe and make the students happy. Her creativity and drive have inspired me in ways I cannot express.”

MaLissa’s Recipe for Success:

1 Summit education 5 generations of kinfolk at The Summit Country Day School 23 Walter family members who are Summit alumni 40 years of service 15 dining services team members 1 whole lotta love

Montessori Director Kathy Scott retires The Montessori School is the front door for enrollment, offering the first opportunity for families to join The Summit community. Kathy Scott has opened her arms to new families for 21 years. She has been an advocate of evidence-based teaching principles. She created a sense of community among the Montessori families and encouraged families to transition to the Lower School.

Named Montessori School Director in 2016, Kathy provided an authentic and holistic experience for both the empathetic students she has cultivated and her highly-trained teaching team. Like Dr. Maria Montessori, Kathy transitioned from her first profession in healthcare to education because of her passion for working with children.

Her Montessori career began in 1999, working with 3- to 6-year-olds, and she created the Early Enrichment curriculum. In her tenure, she coordinated Montessori summer camps, initiated the summer day camp for 3- to 8-year-olds, broadened sports camps and enhanced the summer education and enrichment curriculum for ages 3 to 18. Kathy took the time to learn the needs of families with two working parents, realizing that supervision beyond the regular school day was a priority. She ran the Extended Day programs for before and after school care. She also initiated Homework Start to assist the academic success of students in the Lower and Middle Schools.

She is succeeded as Montessori School Director by Lauren Guip, who grew into the director role under Kathy’s tutelage. Bob Baechtold: 33 years Awarded the Schilderink Family Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teaching in 2017, Upper School Spanish teacher Bob Baechtold is passionate about developing leadership qualities among students. For many years, he worked with the Upper School student government. A role model for humility, he was often observed picking up trash on campus, arranging chairs in St. Cecilia Hall, operating the scoreboard during basketball games, organizing Thanksgiving baskets, running carnival games for Unity Day events and more. Alongside fellow retiring Spanish teacher Sue Kelly, Bob’s contribution to the Spanish program proved successful with a great number of students becoming nationally recognized for excellence in national examinations. During his career, he coached a variety of sports and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002. His student athletes speak of his positive, encouraging attitude and how he motivated them to stretch their abilities to reach their greatest potential.

Al Sagel: 32 years Al Sagel is a Renaissance man – an intellectual, a craftsman and a musician. Professionally, he is a master teacher who was awarded the Schilderink Family Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teaching in 2008. An expert mathematician, he has helped countless students who struggled with abstract concepts gain an understanding for higher-level equations. He shared his savvy with numbers with colleagues by providing financial planning to help them maximize their

resources. Aside from being a tradesman with proficiencies in architecture, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, floor installation, vehicle mechanics and HVAC expertise, he has also played the organ at Mass. He pitched in during what should have been his summer vacation to paint and repair facilities and on many weekends helped design sets for productions while teaching students practical building skills. He provided level-headed mediation to help colleagues and students discover solutions and find common ground. He is described by his colleagues as a good friend.

Nancy Wojcik: 23 years Nancy Wojcik’s childhood love of learning led to her long career in a Summit classroom. Nancy taught foundational concepts in reading, writing and math to students in our Lower School and demonstrated her stewardship of the character-based leadership curriculum by example. Respect is the second-grade character trait, and Nancy is intentional in showing her students respect and empowering them to exercise respect in the classroom, on the playground and beyond the campus. Students fondly recall her productions of “Troll Under the Bridge” and Christmas performances. She will be remembered for her personal attention to each child. In one instance, a young girl with a severe language disorder who had little confidence was placed in Nancy’s classroom in the fall. By Christmas, she experienced such a breakthrough that she soon excelled in math, reading and gained faith in herself and her abilities. Nancy is an engaging teacher, who frequently sent home notes and pictures of a child’s classroom activities. She built strong relationships with students, their parents and her colleagues. Nancy Snow: 15 years The Lower School Administrative Assistant, Nancy Snow was extraordinarily organized and detail-oriented. She kept her part of the organization running like clockwork, listening to her own inner clock which reminded her when things needed to be done as well as the tabdelineated three-inch binder that takes the division step-by-step through every event, every year. She prepared the “blue folders” for her teachers, giving them everything they needed to know for a successful start every year. But she may best be remembered as being a second mom to 150 to 200 young students every year. She loved and cared for our children and watched out for their physical and emotional well-being. The appreciation of parents and students was evident in the outpouring of affection shown for her during the end-of-year parade of students.

Sue Kelly: 13 years Gracious, caring and dedicated, Sue Kelly taught Spanish in the Upper School. She had a magical way of helping students remember complex or confusing grammar topics – often called Kellyisms by her students. She did whatever was asked of her without complaint. She joins her husband, longtime English teacher J. Patrick Kelly, in retirement.

Norm Arnold: 10 years A school bus driver, Norm Arnold drove the Mason-West Chester route every day and drove a second bus for field trips, practices and athletic events. Ever-positive and friendly, he spent countless hours on the road with our students and followed their athletic careers long after they graduated. 41