Penelope Abstetar

Currently I work at South High School in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Our school of 1,200 is a fantastic school, and we are inspired to continually improve and implement best practices in our work with students. Currently I hold three titles in my job: Reading Teacher (45%), Interventionist (10%), and Instructional Literacy Coach (45%). Which basically means I work with 30 of our 9th grade struggling readers, manage the paperwork for all Tier 3 interventions in the building, and work with 3-4 PLCs per semester to strengthen and develop a disciplinary literacy focus in curriculum and instruction.

I originally earned my BS in 6-12 English education from UW-Milwaukee. I also had a minor in English Language Learning, but did not pursue certification in that field. I worked as an ELA teacher for 18 years before I was asked (harassed–depends on who you ask!) to pursue a Reading Teacher license so I could take over the program in our building. I received my Reading Teacher certification from UW-Stout in Spring of 2016. Prior to that, I had also earned my M.S. in Instructional Design for Online Learning (Capella University 2005) and my Ph.D. in Educational Studies (Capella University 2013).

I’m hoping to grow in my knowledge about data and responsible decision-making for students at the high school level. I have become a very reluctant “expert” in RtI at the high school because I’m the only one doing it in all these ways in our region. However, I am constantly amazed by what I don’t know versus what I do know. We’re moving forwards, but in the proverbial 2 steps forward, 1 step back.