News station WGN featured St. Luke School’s kindergarten teacher Alexia Filice as its teacher of the month.
Camera crews descended on the River Forest school to profile the beloved teacher for the popular news segment. It aired in March.
Virginia Ryan, whose daughter Isabella Ryan is in Filice’s class, was one of the parents who made the nomination. She and other moms included in the nomination a video of all the students saying what they love about Filice. They also highlighted how she implemented the St. Joseph and St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations at the school.
“She is a legendary educator in my opinion,” Ryan said, adding that Filice has an amazing rapport throughout the St. Luke community.
Ryan said she has seen her own daughter grow in Filice’s class, beyond what she expected for a child in kindergarten.
“She is already reading – she is so excited to do her homework. She is always looking for opportunities to put math patterns together, which is something I didn’t expect in kindergarten,” Ryan said. “She is always trying to make Mrs. Filice proud.”
“She doesn’t just have that relationship with my daughter, she has it with everyone,” Ryan said. “She can have an individual relationship with each and every child and family that is personalized for them and that really maximizes their potential to achieve their highest ability.”
Such dedication had been witnessed throughout her career at St. Luke, where Filice has worked since she graduated in 2002. She earned a degree in early childhood education and sociology at Dominican University.
Filice arrived at St. Luke for student teaching in the fall of 2001 and was hired shortly after to teach kindergarten, taking a few years off after her second child was born. She also held a preschool teacher position, as well as a teacher’s aide position, at St. Luke when one of her children was diagnosed with Leukemia.
From the beginning, Filice said she gravitated towards teaching younger children.
“You get their pure innocence, I feel that you get the utmost from that age, they are like sponges, they want to learn,” Filice said. “You get their honesty. They are young enough to where they are willing to take chances and have fun and be silly, but they are old enough to try to do some things on their own.”
Filice said she decided to take after her parents, who were both also educators.
“I knew I wanted to go into teaching because I would watch my mom and be at school with her,” Filice said.
Another driving factor: she wanted to pull from her own personal academic struggles as a child and find various ways to engage “every type of learner.”
“Just knowing that I had difficulty, I just knew that I wanted to help other children who have difficulty and give them a variety of techniques so they can feel they are learning,” she said.
“I want to bring out the gifts that they have and focus on that, so they don’t dwell on the things they have difficulty with at school.”
Filice said she was very surprised and thankful about the nomination when she found out about it a week before WGN came to film the segment during her class, which Ryan said was also a great experience for the kindergartners.
Filice received $1,000 for her classroom, which she said will most likely go to update some classroom equipment and get enrichment materials, but said she is open to helping her St. Luke family should another teacher need it.
“We are blessed to have Mrs. Filice in our school community,” said Principal Andrew DiMarco. “I am so happy for her to receive this recognition which she truly deserves.”
Being at St. Luke is being at her “home away from home,” Filice said.
“It is really such a wonderful place,” Filice said. “I work amongst some amazing educators, and I feel truly blessed being there. That is why I haven’t left. It is such an amazing place to be at.”