Freshmen Faculty
As the director of the newly developed wellness center, Jennifer McKeown is excited to return home. McKeown grew up in Clayton schools, attending Meramec Elementary, Wydown Middle School and graduated from Clayton High School.
“Clayton is my home; it feels like family,” McKeown said.
Clayton is a family affair for McKeown, who spent several years coaching JV tennis with her mother, Susie Luten, ending her tenure only to raise her two kids, Charlie and Jackson.
After graduating from CHS, McKeown attended Tufts University and studied psychology.
“I was always interested in helping, therapy and supporting. I fell in love with social work, not just helping and supporting people but all of the systems, families and communities,” said McKeown. After earning a Master’s degree in social work from Washington University, she worked as an in-home therapist for Youth in Need, a local non-profit. Finally, she settled in as a school-based social worker.
“It was intense, working with little ones and having little ones during Covid, it was crazy, but also, I loved it,” McKeown said.
The opportunity to return to her home school and start a new Wellness Center was enticing.
“I have a passion for mental health and connecting students to mental health support. It’s so cool that I could do that at a school that made me who I was. It seems like a pretty exciting opportunity,” she said.
The new Wellness Center, which will eventually be housed in the old bookstore across from the art classrooms, is still in development. McKeown will spend the first-semester gathering input from students, staff, administrators and the student support team, which includes social workers, nurses and guidance counselors.
“I’m going to work with the staff to see the gaps and needs, but I want it to be a collective school vision. My task right now is to understand what is already going well and add to that,” said McKeown.
Wellness centers are developing nationwide through Swell Schools Well, a non-profit organization helping teens thrive in school settings. McKeown has frequent training with the organization and meets with other wellness coordinators to exchange ideas.
McKeown is excited to be in a new role that hopefully alleviates pressure on counselors, social workers and nurses.
“My role is to coordinate care and support students. [So students] that have the highest [level of] need are getting help and support, so the counselors and social workers can meet with kids one-on-one,” McKeown said.
She also wants to collaborate with existing school and community resources, including All-In Coalition and PreventED.
“I want students to be able to access support, community agencies for mental health support; that’s my vision,” McKeown said.
The new Wellness Center is set to open in January.
A few weeks into working at Clayton High School, Special Education teacher Jocelyn Schuh already loves her job.
“Everyone is so welcoming and friendly,” she said.
After spending 12 years co-teaching English and Study Skills classes at Lindbergh High School, Schuh was ready for a change.
“I love the independence and freedom that Clayton gives the students and teachers,” Schuh said. “There are great systems here that help kids succeed, not just academically but post-secondary too.”
Before becoming a special education teacher, Schuh taught elementary in a city charter school.
“I did not fit in with those people, so I ended up quitting that and reassessing,” said Schuh.
While in school, Schuh worked as a paraprofessional with the Special School District and fell in love with special education.
“My brain doesn’t naturally think in a linear direction, so I have a knack for the kids in special education,” Schuh said.
Outside the classroom, Schuh is active and loves being outdoors. She and her husband own a cabin in southern Missouri and love to hike and float on the river with their dog, Chip. They also visit the Caribbean each summer.
“I would spend every minute by the pool tanning if I could,” Schuh said.
She also loves true crime podcasts, fun pranks and any orphan fantasy book. Her favorites include Harry Potter and the Hunger Games.
For her “freshman year” at CHS, Schuh is eager to connect with her new school community. “[Clayton] has a real community vibe,” Schuh said.
New Clayton High School and Wydown Middle School Spanish teacher Michael Crowell eagerly shares his passions with his students.
“As a teacher, I have the summers off, so I try a new hobby every year,” Crowell said. Past favorites include home improvement and beekeeping.
Born in Utah, Crowell grew up in Kansas City as the youngest of six kids. He has a twin sister.
“Growing up, everything came super easy to me. The first thing that I experienced in my life that was challenging was learning Spanish,” Crowell said.
Crowell studied Spanish in college before trying to start a Latin American tour company and eventually becoming a teacher.
“I started teaching, and I didn’t like it at first, but as I’ve grown as a professional, I’ve learned to enjoy it and make it what will be enjoyable for students,” Crowell said.
Crowell believes that direct instruction, teachers talking at students, causes them to struggle with Spanish and become bored. He incorporates technology to engage his students in various activities.
“The majority of my class is talking and getting the kids interacting with each other and playing games, trying to get them to be intrigued and curious,” Crowell said.
After teaching various ages and levels of Spanish, this is Crowell’s first foray into teaching middle school. He teaches three seventh and eighth-grade classes at WMS.
“Eighth grade is similar to what I’ve taught because I used to teach freshmen mostly, but the seventh graders are a different ball of wax. I’ve never encountered such energy, they’re super excited, but they are also loco and just all over the place,” Crowell said.
Teaching at WMS and CHS has allowed Crowell to interact with various students, teachers and administrators. Still, it has made learning names difficult, with two sets of faculty and administrators to keep track of.
“I like that there’s different people. I don’t like that there’s double the emails,” Crowell said.
In addition to his work inside the classroom, Crowell is passionate about enhancing the introduction of foreign languages to students at an earlier level.
He helped Kirkwood, his last school district, develop their new curriculum and is also eager to be involved with this process at Clayton. So far, he has abetted in selecting “Descubre,” a Spanish textbook for middle and high school students now used within the Kirkwood and Clayton districts. Clayton is moving away from “Descubre,” searching for a curriculum that will encourage teachers to spend more classroom time teaching in the target language: Spanish.
“A textbook is just a tool in our toolbelt. But whether or not I have to teach in Spanish all the time, how do you enforce that?” Crowell said.
Crowell is excited for the rest of his “freshman year,” teaching in the way he likes best, only en español.
“I’m a person who likes to allow choice in the classroom. Clayton is a place that likes that, so it worked out well for me,” Crowell said.
Assistant Principal Drew Spiegel enjoys Seeing students shine inside and outside of the building, which drives Spiegel. Spiegel aims to attend as many swim meets, soccer games, plays and speech & debate spirit events as possible.
He enjoys watching students grow throughout high school and interacting with the student body. Spiegel spent seven years as a science teacher at Fort Zumwalt West High School before becoming an assistant principal there.
“I loved being in the classroom but only worked with 100 kids. In this building, that’s only ⅛ of the student population,” Spiegel said.
Spiegel also views working at CHS as a homecoming after being a student-teacher under CHS science teacher Craig Sucher in 2009.
“At the time, I realized how special Clayton was, in how student-centered and caring for the whole of the individual that the district is,” Spiegel said. “The fact that Clayton is here to serve all students pushed me to come into a familiar community.”
In his previous positions, Spiegel was a coach and teacher. He volunteered as a baseball coach and worked as a swim and dive coach for both boys and girls at Fort Zumwalt West. Under his leadership, the boys’ swim and dive team nearly doubled.
“Swimming gives students the opportunity to grow in a way that they have never grown before,” Spiegel said, “Growing their confidence and getting to know them and their families.”
As both a father and an educator, Spiegel is excited to work with families to find ways for their children to succeed in school. He appreciates the depth and breadth of classes and extracurricular activities to engage different types of students.
“Over the summer, I [walked] with my son through the building, and we walked by the robotics room. We stopped and stood there for 10 minutes to observe what the students had built. It was very impressive to him and to me,” said Spiegel.
During the year, Spiegel plans to integrate himself into the school community and support students and staff through his presence.
“My goal is to be as open and visible as possible,” Spiegel said. “Students can see me at these events and feel supported long-term with what they are doing.”
After a childhood living in four cities, CHS and WMS social worker Lauren Stoelting has become a creature of habit. She eats at the same Mexican restaurant weekly with her wife, Suzanne, and two sons, Westley and Roman.
Stoelting is the child of two journalists and spent her childhood exploring different cultures and cities within the US, giving her a broad perspective on schooling and life.
“I love this aspect of my childhood as it gave me a beautiful blend of experiences. I also think being “the new kid” helped develop my ability to be flexible, courageous and adapt well, even when I was nervous,” said Stoelting.
Stoelting is integrating herself into the tight-knit Clayton community, with plans to meet as many students as possible. She is thrilled to work with her favorite age groups, middle and high school, along with a strong team of support staff, including counselors and nurses. She hopes to break down barriers between students and their success at school and change student perceptions of social workers.
“The term ‘social worker’ tends to have a negative connotation, and we are only called on when it’s a ‘crisis.’ But we are also here to offer daily social-emotional support and check-ins for students and families,” Stoelting said.
Stoelting’s focus on helping individual students succeed continues her passion for equity, which began as an undergraduate at Fontbonne University. After graduating from Webster Groves High School, Stoelting studied Sociology and American Culture, encountering the fundamental idea that not all schools provide students with equal opportunities, particularly through Jonothan Kozol’s novel, “Savage Inequalities.”
“The idea that some students from the jump were disadvantaged angered me. I knew, after reading that, I wanted to dedicate my life to ensuring that all students have access to a quality education, and my goal was to remove any barriers keeping them from it,” Stoelting said.
With this passion, Stoelting worked in Memphis City Schools through Teach For America before becoming a school-based social worker through the Special School District of St. Louis County.
“[After Teach for America], I knew I wanted to continue to work in the school setting but have a different impact on students and families, so I chose to be a school social worker and never looked back,” Stoelting said.
Stoelting finds her colleagues to be welcoming and supportive.
“The students I have met have been kind, insightful, mature and down to earth,” Stoelting said.
New Special Education teacher Sara Koci cannot wait to learn the ins and outs of Clayton High School.
“I’m excited to learn more about the Clayton community,” Koci said.
Koci is excited to work with her SSD team in a collaborative environment.
“I’m just excited to be working with my SSD team that I feel like I can count on and I can reach out to if I need support,” Koci says. “There’s a lot that comes with teaching, but the main aspects that I enjoy [are] working with others, learning from each other, and being a part of a team that you can grow [with].”
While looking for a new job, Koci prioritized finding a place where teamwork was emphasized.
“The last three years, I have found the most challenging was working with a team that I felt I couldn’t collaborate with,” Koci said.
Coming to the United States as a child who did not speak English, Koci admires the teachers who spent time helping her after school and enrolling in specialized programming, which helped her make progress.
“It made a lot of a difference to have those teachers that I felt like I could rely on, and I hope I can be that for my students,” Koci said.
In high school, she realized she wanted to be a part of the special education program after immersing herself in her school’s program and helping set up dances for students with Autism or ADHD who had difficulties with loud sounds.
“It was very rewarding to make a difference not only academically but also socially,” Koci said.
Koci cannot wait to start her journey with her students and watch them grow.
“The most rewarding part of it is when you see [students] progress,” Koci said.
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