We are thrilled to announce that Kristina Mills will become the Preschool’s new Director effective April 3. Several outstanding candidates were interviewed by the search committee made up of representatives of the preschool teaching staff, parent board, and church. Kristina emerged decidedly as the best applicant to lead the Preschool into its next chapter. She has been a teacher with us for nine years and shown tremendous dedication, compassion, and support to the children, parents, and staff during the past two months as Interim Director. During this time she has also demonstrated significant leadership skills in the Interim Director role, and she possesses the talent and vision to lead the school into a thriving future. Kristina will be leaving her classroom in capable hands. Her replacement in the Expedition class will be Suzanne Carberry, who is familiar to Expedition students. Molly Jones will be Suzanne’s replacement as an Assistant Teacher in the Adventure class on Thursdays. Thank you to the Preschool parents and Board for their patience and support during this process; the Spirit moves at the Spirit’s own pace! We look forward to dynamic connections between the Preschool and the Church as we partner in building for the future.
A Letter from Kristina:
Dear First Presbyterian Preschool families,
I wanted to let you know that I accepted the position as the new full time director for the preschool this past week. I have been serving as the interim director since early January and I am extremely excited and humbled to be offered the position full time. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with your children and the staff to ensure that everyone has the best possible experience that you have come to know and expect from First Presbyterian preschool.
While I already know many of you from having taught here for the past 9 years, I wanted to give you a little bit of my background and experience. I have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and a Masters of Education focused on multi-age classroom learning. I feel blessed that I have been able make a career out of working with children, which is something since it never feels like “work”.
I live in Lake Bluff with my husband Troy and my two sons, Jaxon and Rylie. Troy and I are coming up on our 27th wedding anniversary this fall. My oldest son Jaxon is a sophomore at the University of Dayton where he plays football and studies Communications. My son, Rylie, is a sophomore at Lake Forest High School who also plays football and is into playing and writing music.
My husband and I are fortunate to have lived across the US as well as overseas where we lived in Germany and Ireland for almost 4 years. I enjoy spending my time traveling with my family, experiencing activities in the great outdoors and reading on my porch in the summertime!
I will certainly miss teaching in a classroom but this new role will allow me to develop personally and to teach in a different capacity. I look forward to getting to know more of our First Pres families and ensuring our students have amazing first learning experiences that will develop their curiosity to learn throughout their life.
Lastly, we have been developing some new additions to our program for next year. We are very excited to release our schedule for both this and next year. We are still finalizing the details, but we should have the information to you in mid April, so stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Kristina Mills
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