Originally from Weissenfels, Germany, Fabia Ziegler has been living in Wisconsin for 17 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. This is Fabia’s fourth year teaching at GSoM. After teaching the 4-5th grade Eulen class for 3 years she is now very excited to teach our youngest students in our K-1st Spatzen class this year.
Lucy Steffes is excited 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.
Meet Zach Halter who will be teaching our 4/5th grade Eulen class. Zach 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. He is looking forward to teaching the 4/5 grade class!
Einar Crego will be teaching both our 6/7th grade Moewen as well as our 8th grade+ conversation group. Einar is currently studying German and philosophy at UW-Madison. He has taught at Bel Air Elementary school and has been a substitute teacher for GSoM last year.
Jon Wood is joining GSoM in October 2022 as teacher for our adult classes. He has taught at George Washington University and lived in Switzerland, Germany and France.
Teacher for the adult classes for the 2022-23 school year tbd
Fabulous prior teachers:
Esther Meier is a native German speaker who moved to Wisconsin in 2017. She is currently Montessori Assistant Teacher in Lake Geneva. After enrolling her son in the German School of Madison for the last three years, she has been a wonderful Pre-K instructor for advanced and beginner German speakers. Esther taught at GSoM for two years in our K-1st grade Spatzen class.
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.
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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