New at TEAM Academy

TEAM Academy is a Waseca Charter School which began in 2003 by offering kindergarten and fourth-grade classes alongside the public middle school in the Central Building. Two more grades were added each consecutive year to continue serving the current students while welcoming more, until the school became a K-6 institution. One of the school’s stated priorities is to teach students responsibility, kindness, and community in addition to academic subjects. TEAM Academy intentionally stays small, offering just one classroom per grade level, with a maximum class size of 25 students. For the 2022-23 school year, enrollment is about 100 students.

Two new teachers, Elizabeth Wellmann and Taylor Jones are beginning with TEAM Academy this school year. Wellmann will be teaching kindergarten while Jones will be teaching music. In preparation for the first day of school, a Meet Your Teacher event was hosted on Tuesday, August 30, and all the school’s teachers spent a week in “boot camp” attending workshops and preparing their lessons and spaces.

During the first week of school, TEAM Academy’s staff and students will be participating in a Walk-a-Thon to raise money for new recess and physical education equipment. Organizing and supervising the event are Jalea Priebe, the phy ed teacher at TEAM Academy, and Jenna Auen, the school’s social worker and a member of the social wellness committee. Student participants will be seeking pledges from family and community members as they prepare for a one-hour walk the afternoon of Friday, September 9. For every five dollars they raise, they’ll receive an entry into a drawing for a brand-new bike. All staff will also participate, to support the students and encourage healthy lifestyle choices.

Taylor Jones grew up and graduated high school in Reedsburg, WI and attended the University of Wisconsin-Superior for a BA in Vocal Music Performance. She enjoys hiking, reading, singing, and thrifting for clothes. She dreams of traveling to Greece. She found TEAM Academy while looking to move to the area to be closer to some of her family members, and says she didn’t expect to hear back but is happy and grateful for the chance she’s been given to start her official teaching career. She’s currently living in LeSueur with her dad and grandmother. Back in Wisconsin she has an older sister, two nephews, and a niece. Since graduating from college, she’s offered private voice lessons; for the last two summers she’s directed a children's summer theatre program she “inherited”  in her hometown.

 Working with students through this program led Jones to an epiphany. “I started out of obligation, but I quickly fell in love and decided to stick with it because there is no better feeling than really connecting with and being there for students,” she said. Her teaching style is focused on kindness, respect, patience and communication. She wants her students to feel safe and comfortable coming to her with the highs and lows of their lives. “I hope every student comes to school and is authentically themselves. That is the greatest piece of advice I have. People are inherently fun and silly and kind, and if we all embrace that, we can make some really great art and have some really fun times. Music is such a healing thing, and I want everyone to get as much from my classroom as they can.”

Elizabeth Wellmann is originally from Fargo, North Dakota, graduated from high school in St. Clair, Minnesota, and currently lives in Mankato. After high school she attended North Dakota State University in Fargo, and graduated with a degree in English Education with endorsements in English Language Learner Education and Middle Education. Wellmann’s mother Wendy teaches at St. Clair High School; her father John is superintendent of the ADM plant in Mankato. Wellmann started her teaching career at Springfield High School teaching eighth- and tenth-graders, co-directing drama, running the yearbook, and co-coaching the speech team. For the past eighteen months, she’s had a change of pace working as a behavioral therapist at Caravel Autism Health in Mankato. She’ll be teaching kindergarten at TEAM Academy, which is quite the change from her previous teaching jobs. She said that her work at Caravel, where the kids she worked with were two to seven years old, showed her how enjoyable working with younger children can be. When she was looking to get back into education, the chance to interview for a kindergarten position was irresistible. Her classroom has a plant theme, a callback to the origin of the word “kindergarten,” which loosely translates to “child garden” and was coined by Friedrich Froebel because he wanted early childhood education to help cultivate children and help them grow as individuals and community members. Wellmann says she has an interactive, project-focused teaching style that aims to help children take ownership of their education as they learn how to be students and learners. “For students and parents, know that it's okay to be nervous about what the school year will bring. Everyone gets a little nervous about new beginnings, some of us are just better at hiding it. But don't get caught up in all the anxiety and forget to enjoy the moments as they're happening. Life happens fast and if you get caught up with the little things, you might miss the big, magic moments.