Warren Township’s English department’s beloved teacher, Kim Paasch, was recently recognized as one of College of Lake County’s Dual Credit Teachers of the Year! Although she hardly anticipated winning, Mrs. Paasch was delighted to receive this honor and be nominated by the Honors Language and Composition class of 2022 students.

Mrs. Paasch has been at Warren since 2004 and, including a few years of maternity leave, has been actively teaching for 15 years. Throughout the past 3 years of teaching dual credit, she has been an incredible asset to the English department and helped build a strong team of dual credit teachers.

Mrs. Paasch is clearly passionate about her role as a teacher, but also her role as supporter and companion for her students. Mrs. Paasch shared that “the other dual credit teachers and I were able to write this curriculum in the summer of 2020. When things went remote, we had to be creative and rethink some assignments and activities to try to keep students engaged. I think working with my colleagues so intently on that curriculum day after day helped us create a really relevant, high-interest class. We chose the themes of education and technology, respectively, for each semester, and both gave a lot of opportunities for discussion because students were able to share real-life experiences.”

As a teacher, Mrs. Paasch has always “believed that teachers can create a relaxed classroom environment and still have high expectations and the respect of the students. [She thinks] treating seniors like the young adults they are goes a long way to create a learning environment that promotes college-readiness.” In doing so, she voiced “last year, I had an amazing group of students in both of my sections. It was easy to build relationships with them because the students had so many different interests and opinions to share. I would get to hear about everything from water polo to intramural basketball to the latest Tik Tok challenge or Snapchat feature. I think every teacher feeds off of the energy of the class, and even my 0th hour class was always boisterous and willing to participate.”

As a student of Mrs. Paasch’s AP Lit class, I truly have felt valued as not only a student but also as a young adult, which is why I believe Mrs. Paasch deserves this great recognition.

Although working at a desktop within a cubicle may sound appealing to any teacher at points, Mrs. Paasch has “never for one minute thought seriously about being anything but a teacher” because she loves to celebrate “other people’s successes, and teaching allows [her] to be a small part of so many amazing moments in and outside the classroom.” 

Mrs. Paasch exclaimed, “teaching reading and writing means I get to share something I love every day. Introducing students to great writers and getting to watch as they develop their own ideas and find their own voice is really something special. It’s an amazing role, though I don’t always think so when I’m grading papers all weekend long!”

We at Warren Township High School are ecstatic to say our very own Kim Paasch is one of the respected and deserving CLC Dual Credit Teachers of the Year!