Waitsfield Elementary School (WES) will welcome four new staff members this fall – two teachers and two interns.
Lindsey Vandal, who joined WES as a third- and fourth-grade teacher this past March, will be continuing in that role. WES principal Kaiya Korb wrote in her recent newsletter that “Lindsey's attention to the whole child, her strong expectations for students informed by a great understanding of child development and needs and her calm and sense of humor match our school community well and we're thrilled she will continue to lead in third/fourthgrade.”
Becca Auritt, a resident of Lincoln, Vermont, will join as a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher, filling Tom Drake’s position. Previously, Auritt taught at Vermont Day School in Shelburne, as well as teaching in Boston and Philadelphia, where she is from. She is especially interested in thematic studies and project-based learning, Korb wrote.
Finally, WES will welcome two interns in the spring. Abigail (Abby) Young, a freshman studying early childhood education at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, will intern in the pre-K classroom. She spent time in Tom Young’s classrooms a few years ago and Korb wrote in her newsletter that “we have been looking forward to any opportunity to have her back since then.”
Karen Obertubbesing, a graduate nursing student at the University of Vermont (UVM), will join the health office in the spring. She has a B.S. in Environmental Studies from UVM and a background as an experiential educator across a variety of settings. She got interested in nursing after experiences with backcountry and wilderness medicine, and worked as a medical assistant in community health centers in Burlington and Winooski before returning to UVM’s Nurse Practitioner program.
