Esther Meier will be returning to teach at GSoM and lead both of our Pre-K classes. She is a native German speaker who moved to Wisconsin in 2017. She is currently Montessori Lead Teacher in Lake Geneva. Esther has previously taught at GSoM for many years.
Kathrin Rogalsky is excited to be teaching our Kindergarten/1st graders this year! She is born and raised in a German-speaking household in Brazil, has taught first graders in multiple countries. GSoM is excited to have her be part of our teaching team!
Lena Wiebe is excited to be joining GSoM this year to teach the 2nd/3rd grade Falken class! Lena was raised in a German-speaking household and grew up spending time in Germany with her family. Most recently, she lived in Berlin last year. She graduated from Grinnell College last spring, and is working to become a teacher in Madison.
Isabelle Marema lived in Böblingen, Germany for 4 years where she attended Gymnasium from 7th to 10th grade before relocating to Wisconsin. She is currently a student at UW Madison studying German and also preparing to become a Speech and Language Pathologist. She looks forward to returning for another year to teach our 4th/5th graders!
Finn Shepherd is a graduate student at UW-Madison in the department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+. He studies German and Dutch linguistics and teaches German and Dutch at the university. He has lived in Germany both during an undergraduate study abroad experience and later as an au pair. He is excited to teach all 3 levels of adult classes for another year for the 2025-26 school year.
Our fabulous prior teachers:
Savvy (Savannah) Leland, 25, grew up dual citizen and German speaking. She visited Germany every summer as a child to spend time with my family there, and she loves traveling to many different places. Her goal now is to learn Japanese and move to Japan some day with her fiance. Savvy has spent some time working with preschool age children as well as being an au pair in Germany for 9 months, right as Covid hit. She is very excited to meet everyone and looks forward to a semester filled with learning and laughter teaching our Pre-K class!
Originally from Weissenfels, Germany, Fabia Ziegler has been living in Wisconsin for 18 years. She lives and works for LeMans Corporation in Janesville,WI. Fabia has 2 bilingual daughters, the whole family enjoys traveling to Germany once or twice a year to visit family and friends. Fabia has taught at GSoM for 5 years for various age groups including 5/6th and K/1st grade classes.
Lucy Steffes is excited to continue to teach our 2/3rd grade Falken class this year! Lucy attended Milwaukee German Immersion School from Kindergarten through 5th grade and continued German through high school. She was also a summer exchange student in Lindau after her freshman year of high school. She is now a junior at UW-Madison, double majoring in Astrophysics and Physics and recently completed her certificate in German with an Undergraduate Achievement Award.
Zack Halt taught our 4/5th grade Eulen class for 2 years. Zack is a student at UW-Madison and is studying Supply Chain Management and Economics. He previously learned German as an exchange student in Berlin, Germany and is currently pursuing his German certificate.
Jon Wood taughts our adult classes for 2 school years. He has taught at George Washington University and lived in Switzerland, Germany and France.
Lily Hofstetter is a senior at Edgewood High School in Madison. She grew up in a German-speaking household and has been taking higher-level German classes at UW-Madison. Lily plans to attend University in Germany after graduating high school. Most of her family still lives in Germany and she enjoys visiting them every summer. Lily is particularly excited to be teaching the 2/3rd grade class as she herself was a
student taking that class at GSoM when she was younger.
Isabella Lund is a student at the UW Madison German department. She received an Undergraduate Achievement Award for excellence in German. Bella has been a Summer Camp Assistant teacher at Madison Country Day School and taught our 2-3rd grade Falken class .
Anika Scholz-Ruf grew up in Madison with her German speaking family. She currently goes to school at UW-Madison for People Environment Geography, and completed her German certificate last year. She is looking forward to teaching the 6/7 grade class!
Anastasiia Stolyarova comes from Russia. She has been living in Madison for the last three years and enjoys this picturesque city very much! She holds a position of Russian Flagship tutor at UW-Madison and is in the process of getting her PhD in Germanic languages at Moscow State University. Learning German has always brought happiness to her, and today, as a teacher, she is glad to share this happiness with her students. Anastasiia’s taught both of our adult classes.
Aaron Greenberg has served as an assistant teacher for our 1-2 grade and lead teacher in grades 3-5 Falken Class. Aaron is a senior majoring in German, Linguistics and Russian. He has received multiple language awards and credits his German skill due to his participation in an immersion program in Frankfurt, Germany.
Lisa Middleton holds a PhD in German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in the morphology of Wisconsin German. Lisa spent five years studying, living, and working in Mainz, Germany and has seven years of language teaching experience. She has taught English as a second language in Germany as well as German language courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She taught our adult courses during the 2020/21 school year.
Leighty Hanrahan graduated from UW Madison majoring in German, International Studies and Political Science. For her exceptional German Studies, she was awarded the Lisbeth Pisk Scholarship in 2018 as well as an Undergraduate Achievement Award for Excellence in German in 2017
Jo Drury (Schwalben/Swallows) has a B.S. in Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is also certified in Wisconsin as a Teacher for German (grades 6-12). She has taught German at several middle schools in Wisconsin and currently teaches German at the Madison Waldorf School. She also has extensive teaching experience through the Concordia Language Villages immersion program (Waldsee). As someone who has lived and worked in multiple cities in Germany for over a decade she is very familiar with German culture and Germany as a workplace.
Connor Fuglestad (Falken/Falcons), originally from Green Bay, and was a student at UW-Madison, majoring in German and Economics. He spent one semester at the Universität Bonn and was an officer of the German Club at UW. Connor returned for a second year with the German School, after helping in classes last year and working with our 2018 Sommercamp.
Hayden Godfrey (Möwen/Seagulls) was a graduate student with the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic Studies at the University of Wisconsin, before which he served as an Instructor of Record for the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona.
Delaney Jacobson (co-teacher for Falken/Falcons) was a German and anthropology major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as the president of UW’s German club. She has spent an extensive amount of time in Germany, including a semester spent studying at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn, Germany. After teaching with us, she moved on to be an educator at a German Immersion School!
Our prior Entchen/Ducklings teacher was Michelle Kästner, who trained as a preschool teacher in Germany before she moved to the US. She spent the academic year 2015-16 in Germany, connecting with her family and teaching P.E. at a German elementary school. Her son also attended our school and she recently enjoyed her third year as a teacher for our school.
Kirsten Koehler (Eulen/Owls), originally from DeForest, Wisconsin, is in her fourth year at UW-Madison in the World Languages Education undergraduate program. Kirsten just recently came back to Madison after spending a year studying in Freiburg, Germany through the Academic Year in Freiburg (AYF) Program.
Mary Ellen Rutemeyer (Adult Classes) has an M.A. in German Studies from Ohio State University. She has taught German in the US and in Germany in many different environments, including to immigrants in Berlin. After teaching her 3 years, she left to pursue a Ph.D. in German. Additionally, Mary Ellen was the school’s administrator.
Ellen Moen is a native German citizen and grew up in Rheine in Nordrhein Westfalen. She has been living in Madison for 17 years and worked as a German Tutor for about five years and is looking forward to having the opportunity to teach our 6th/7th grade class at the German School of Madison.
If you are interested in joining our teaching team, please email us at germanschoolofmadison@gmail.com. We are always looking for substitute teachers.
German School of Madison 
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