Early Learning Teachers Win Bonnie McBeth Scholarships

Submitted by District 202:

Plainfield’s first kindergarten teacher has rewarded two Plainfield-area early childhood teachers for their dedication to their students, and their professional excellence.

Bernadette Blaser, a teacher at the Bonnie McBeth Learning Center in Plainfield District 202; and Stacie Bauman, who teaches at the Valley View District 365U Early Childhood Center in Romeoville are the recipients of the 2013 Bonnie McBeth Early Learning Scholarships.

Each will receive $1,500 to support their graduate-level course work in early childhood education. The scholarship has been given for seven years, but this is the first year that a non-District 202 teacher has won an award. 

McBeth was District 202’s first kindergarten teacher in 1951 at Central Elementary School and taught for 38 years. She also taught reading and worked as a reading specialist during her education career.

She personally chooses each year’s winners for the scholarship that she personally endowed. McBeth praised both Blaser and Bauman for their exemplary commitment to the craft of early childhood education.

Blaser, who works with multi-needs students has been teaching at Bonnie McBeth Early Learning Center since 2011, but she’s been in love with the school for even longer. 

After graduating college in 2006 with an Elementary Education degree, Blaser couldn’t find full-time work as a teacher. She worked as a substitute teacher and applied for a teacher’s aide position at Bonnie McBeth. 

“The first time I walked through the doors of Bonnie McBeth Learning Center, I immediately fell in love,” she wrote in her application letter. “Something deep inside me was lit, some fire I never felt in my entire life.”

She returned to school and earned an Early Childhood degree focusing on special education. Four years later, she finally felt ready to apply for a full-time position, and was hired in 2011.

“Today, almost three years later, I can firmly say this was one of the best things I have ever accomplished, risking all I had to go back to school and finally fulfilling a dream I had all my life,” she wrote in her application letter. 

Now she works with many children who are non-verbal and must find ways to communicate. It’s challenging, but ultimately very rewarding, Blaser said.

“Every day is a new day. Their progress is slower, so we have to celebrate their growth.” Blaser is pursuing her Master’s Degree at Concordia University in Curriculum and Instruction with an endorsement in English as a Second Language.

McBeth said she was impressed by Blaser’s dedication and perseverance. “She had such a tough time. Many people would have given up,” McBeth said. 

Education was also a “second career” for Bauman, who worked in the travel industry before teaching. She returned to school in 1994 to follow her passion and get a degree in Early Childhood Education, Bauman wrote in her application letter.

She worked at a private day care center while in college, then started teaching in 1998. However, Bauman's career took another turn two years later when she had children. She stayed home for nine years, she said, then started substitute teaching in Valley View when her youngest started kindergarten.

“I knew I wanted to be here, so I took an office job just to stay in the system,” she said. She has been teaching full-time for three years.  She is working toward an English as a Second Language endorsement at the University of St. Francis.

Valley View serves students who speak 40 different languages, primarily Spanish. “Just seeing how diverse our community is, and how many kids need services, I thought this was an important thing to do,” Bauman said. 

“I will be able to provide a larger population of students with an engaging, differentiated, and positive educational experience,” she said.

More than simply helping students who speak different languages though, Bauman is also adept at building relationships with families, McBeth said. “That is highly significant,” she said.

Bauman’s principal, Donna Nylander, agreed. “(Bauman) signifies what an early childhood teacher should be to make a difference in a child’s and family’s life,” she wrote in her letter of recommendation.

McBeth endowed her scholarship with $25,000 in June 2007. The Plainfield District 202 Foundation for Excellence now administers the scholarship on her behalf, as it does with several others that benefit District 202 students and staff.