The following certified staff candidates were approved by the Board of Education for the 2022-23 school year.
Jennifer Andersen - YE Early Childhood
Jennifer Andersen will be joining the Young Explorers Program at Westmoor School as an early childhood teacher. She has worked as a preschool teacher at Frances Xavier Warde School for the past two years and was previously a Master Preschool Teacher at Chicago Commons. She earned a master’s degree in early childhood and special education from National-Louis University.
Sophia Halkias - NBJH Literacy Instructional Specialist
Sophia Halkias has spent the past 14 years with the Distinctive Schools network in Chicago as a middle school history and reading teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal and regional director of literacy. She will provide literacy instruction support to the core subject teachers at NBJH. She has a master’s degree in school leadership from Concordia University and a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Alexandria Hibbard-Brown - Orchestra
Alex Hibbard-Brown will graduate with a music education bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in May. She completed her first student teaching placement at Vernon Hills High School and is currently in her second placement at NBJH under the guidance of Mike Govert. While at ISU, Alex was the chapter president of the American String Teachers Association and served as a lead teacher for the String Project that taught lessons to local middle school students.
Trina Newman - Gifted & Talented Coordinator, Westmoor School
Trina Newman is joining Westmoor after spending 22 years at Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in Chicago Public Schools. She has taught 5th grade for many years and has experience with both departmental and self-contained teaching with an emphasis on gifted and talented education. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with additional endorsements in ESL and Gifted.
Jamie Zimniok - Band
Jamie Zimniok has spent the last 13 years as a band teacher in District 64 at both Lincoln and Emerson Middle Schools in Niles School District 64. As a District 28 and GBN alumnus, she is happy to return to Northbrook. She earned a master’s degree in music education from Northwestern University and a bachelor's degree in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.