Laura Swartzle has been teaching for 30 years,  graduating from DePaul University. She attended summer classes towards her Masters at Carthage College in Wisconsin.  Education has always been an important part of her upbringing since her grandmother was an English teacher and her father was a professor of marketing at DePaul.  Her father always told her, “Anything is possible” which was forefront in many of the decisions that she made during her teaching career.  Her teaching experience includes private schools in Chicago, Skokie, Beach Park and Lake Forest. Laura has primarily taught  Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and has multiple years of experience at the 1st grade level.  Having said that, this experience has helped her to understand children and their diverse social/ emotional needs, and their academic growth and achievements have been celebrated. She developed a phonics system while teaching in Beach Park which helped her classes improve their phonics, reading and written skills. Laura is an animal lover and has kept classroom pets throughout her teaching years.  From bunnies and degus, newts and leopard frogs, ant farms and butterflies, life science has always been central to her teaching style.  She enjoys walking at Bear Lake, swimming and biking and is delighted to now be working at Prairie Crossing Charter School whose campus embodies nature and abundant life. Most importantly, she is eager to continue touching the hearts and minds of the kindergarten children entrusted in her care.