As veteran teachers, we were very tired of spending hours writing plans for our substitutes that met our standards.

Joy Wenke, our CEO, has worked in both urban and rural areas for more than 33 years as a bilingual teacher, coach, and as an educational consultant. She understands the hard work and dedication it takes to be a teacher. Throughout her career, the majority of the students she taught were identified as English Language Learners. Along the way, she got her M.S. in Educational Leadership as well as an administrative credential. In reflecting on the goal for students to become proficient at reading and writing complex informational text, it is her professional opinion that we are all academic English Language Learners. Her passion is to help teachers grow in their personal practices. She facilitates educators to better meet the needs of all their students by purposefully and meaningfully using academic language across the content areas in speaking, reading, and writing.

For the last several years, Joy has been providing professional development to teachers on lesson design, execution of instruction, as well as conducting model lessons with students. Working with professional learning communities, she coaches teachers on the analysis of student work for the purpose of designing powerful and engaging instruction. One of her primary goals is to help teachers incorporate strong oral language practice in collaborative ways with their students in order to support academic language development in both speaking and writing across the content areas.

As she works in different schools and districts across the United States, one of the most frequent comments from teachers when attending trainings is about the amount of time that it takes them to write their plans for the substitute. Spending 1-2 hours writing comprehensive plans adds just one more thing to do to the already overwhelming “to do” list. As a result of this problem that teachers face, the Daybreak Team developed a website to help teachers meet this need for quality substitute lesson plans in less than 10 minutes. Making your mornings easier is our goal.

You can read more about Joy’s dynamic and interactive teacher learning sessions, including coaching, model lessons, and collaborative planning, by visiting her personal website at https://joywenke.me/

Laura Bueno, our Director of Curriculum, graduated from Elmhurst College in 2005 with a degree in Elementary Education. She later went on to obtain a Master’s Degree in Teacher Leadership from Roosevelt University in 2012.

During her 11 years of teaching experience she taught grades 3-5 in a general education setting in 3 different districts in Illinois. Having the opportunity to work in several schools gave her a diverse experience of working with high performing students, low SES students, and ELL students.

Laura understands firsthand the struggle of constantly writing sub plans. Throughout her career, she served as the PBIS coach in her building for 5 years, was a member of The School Improvement Team, and mentored new teachers. Within her district, she also served as the 3rd grade facilitator for the Math Power Standards creation. All of these roles took her out of her classroom, sometimes 2-3 full days a month, for training, curriculum work, or meetings. She never wanted her students to be without quality instruction and would always write very detailed fully scripted sub plans. It was the only way she felt she could ensure true learning in her absence.

She has recently stepped away from the classroom to stay home and be with her 1 year old daughter. She has enjoyed finding a balance in being a mom, a wife, and having her own professional ventures. She is thrilled to have found a company that allows her to use her creative nature, organizational skills, teaching experience and degrees.

Yvette Kirchhoff, our Director of Operations, graduated from the University of Illinois in 2009 with a degree in Elementary Education and later obtained her CLAD credential through Stanford University.

Out of college, Yvette taught in San Jose, California for 4 years, during which she spent 3 years teaching 4th grade and her last year serving as a Kindergarten teacher in the morning and Academic Dean in the afternoon. The majority of her students that she taught during those 4 years were identified as English Language Learners. It was during that time that Yvette also served as the school’s RtI coach, was a member of her school’s Instructional Leadership Team, and mentored 2 student teachers. After spending 4 years in California (and falling in love with the Bay Area), Yvette and her husband decided that it was time to move back to their home state of Illinois. Here she spent 3 years as a bilingual 4th grade teacher in Elmhurst.

It was during her last year of teaching that Yvette found herself out of the classroom quite a bit due to the fact that she was a part of her district’s 4th grade Curriculum Development Team and also had a baby girl at home. She understands personally the struggle that teachers face when they want to do the right thing for their family and career, but also have children that they care about in the classroom. Leaving quality sub plans was a high priority for Yvette and she would find herself spending hours in the evenings as she prepared to be out of the classroom, or would run into school at 5 AM when she found her daughter had woken up sick.

Currently Yvette is taking some time away from the classroom to be with her 2 year old daughter and to help her entrepreneurial husband with his company. She is enjoying being a part of the beginning of Daybreak Lesson Plans as she believes that it’s going to be greatly helpful to teachers.

Andrea Murgu, one of our lesson writers, graduated from Northeastern Illinois University in 2001 with a degree in elementary education and middle school endorsement in Language Arts and Social Studies. After a few years of teaching, she obtained a Master’s Degree in Education, with an emphasis in Curriculum and Instruction from California State University, Fullerton in 2005.

After student teaching (3rd grade) and working as a substitute teacher (K-5) in a Chicago public school, she accepted her first full time teaching position in a school district in Evanston, Illinois. There she was involved in a scripted reading support program for K-3 students for a year. She then moved to California and worked at a 7-12 school in Costa Mesa for 9 years. During this time, she primarily taught 7th grade Regular Language Arts as well as the Honors program, which she designed in order to challenge high performing and gifted students. Other courses include: SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) Language Arts and Social Studies, a course intended to meet the needs of ELLs, a beginning ELD class for grades 9-12, Scholastic READ 180 (a reading intervention program) for grades 7-8, and skills for teens for grades 7-8 where she worked with students on life skills including organization, time management, accountability, study and test taking skills, and homework completion.

Andrea also held various leadership roles throughout her career. She mentored student teachers, served as the middle school Language Arts department chair, and worked as the BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) lead support provider. She enjoyed sharing her passion for teaching and the balance of working with children and adults.

Andrea has taken some time off from the classroom to spend more time with her two sons, ages 3 and 6. She truly enjoys applying early childhood learning principles in the upbringing of her two sons. It is a rewarding experience for her to implement her qualifications as a teacher and a mother. She takes pleasure in traveling, exercising, and dining out with family and friends. She has knowledge of conversational Arabic, Romanian, and Spanish, which she enjoys speaking with family and friends when traveling to the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. She likes reading novels as well as best selling sociology and psychology books.

Dawin Strelow graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2005 with a degree in Elementary Education with a certificate in science. She was a substitute teacher for one year in the Madison area before moving to the Chicago area in 2007 where she accepted a full-time teaching position in Elmhurst, IL. In 2012, she obtained her Masters Degree in Literacy and certificate to teach English as a Second Language.

During her 10 years of teaching, she taught full day At-Risk kindergarten, a bilingual first grade classroom, and third grade. The diverse population in her classrooms has given her experience teaching children identified for special needs, ESL, students of low income, and children who are at risk academically, socially and emotionally. She also served on district curriculum writing teams for language arts, math, and ESL for 7 years. She was a mentor, organized an annual schoolwide event celebrating diversity, was part of a 2-year project researching the impact of daily PE and integration of movement in the classroom on student learning and health, and coached the high school varsity dance team for 5 years. From these different roles, she has developed her passions and interests in diversity, music, arts, dance, movement, building language and social skills and has integrated them into her daily lessons.

While writing the lesson plans for Daybreak Lesson Plans, she tries to focus on incorporating hands on and engaging activities, and integrating her strategies of language building, social skills, and movement into her lessons. She wants teachers to get the most out of the lessons where the crafts/activities/games can be reused in centers and for future years.

Currently, Dawin has taken some time away from the classroom to stay at home with her 2 year old daughter. During her teaching career she was consistently advised to go into curriculum, so she is happy to join the Daybreak team to pursue a path in curriculum and to keep her teaching brain alive. She is excited to have a place to share her favorite lessons and ideas, and to be a part of a company that helps teachers.

Meagan Nguyen graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2005 with a degree in elementary education. She started her teaching career as a substitute teacher for one semester, before moving to Florida where she taught 3rd grade for a year. The desire to experience different parts of the country brought Meagan to the Bay Area of California where she currently resides.

In 2007, Meagan began teaching at an independent school for students with mild/moderate learning disabilities and high functioning autism. There she taught 5th and 6th grade for four years. In this unique setting, Meagan differentiated lessons and provided classroom accommodations so that all students had access to a standards-based curriculum. In her next role, she went on to work as the school’s Resource Specialist for two years. She earned her Master’s degree in Special Education at San Francisco State University in 2012. In 2013 Meagan moved to a school in San Francisco that specializes in working with students with specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, for two years. There she focused on providing rigorous reading and math intervention in the classroom setting for students in 4th-6th grade. She stepped away from the classroom in 2015 when her daughter was born, returning the following year as a part time Learning Specialist. In this role, Meagan worked one-on-one with students, collaborated with teachers as a mentor and to differentiate the curriculum, and planned and presented professional development workshops.

Following the birth of her son in 2017, Meagan stepped away from the classroom once again to focus on raising her family. She is excited to join Daybreak in providing a much needed product for teachers. Throughout her career as a teacher she frequently participated in workshops and multiple-day WASC accreditation visits that took her away from her classroom, so she understands the time and energy it takes to leave quality lesson plans behind for a substitute. As a writer for Daybreak, Meagan enjoys using her experience in both general and special education to create engaging lesson content that is accessible to all students.

Jennifer Kaul graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelors of Science in Elementary Education. She majored in language arts, minored in science, and was part of the honors program. While earning her degree, she completed a thesis on integrating literature into the content areas of math, science, and social studies. She went on to present this thesis at the university’s undergraduate symposium and received a scholarship award as a result.

Jennifer has six years of elementary teaching experience, four teaching departmentalized fifth grade language arts and two teaching fourth grade in a self-contained classroom. While teaching, she served as a member of the language arts committee, the common assessment team, and the leadership team. She had the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues as well as experts in best practices to create standards-based instructional materials and assessments.

In addition to her time in the classroom, Jennifer has two years of curriculum development experience. Working on projects spanning from kindergarten through sixth grade allowed her to gain a deeper familiarity with standards across grade levels. She researched and composed several exam passages and instructional texts, many of which encourage students to consider environmental factors, historical events, and new technologies. She also worked to revamp an anthology program that included a textbook, workbook, and teacher guide.

Jennifer has written her fair share of sub plans. She knows how hard it can be to try to think of everything someone might need to successfully teach your students, especially when it’s early in the morning and you’re not feeling well. Jennifer has also been on the other side, as a substitute teacher, and often felt the quality of her day (and that of the students) was directly related to the quality of the sub plans left. She hopes her work for Daybreak can help make life easier for all those involved!

Jennifer enjoys spending time with her husband and their baby girl, reading, playing the clarinet, and writing children’s/young adult literature. For more information or to check out her writing (much of which is appropriate for classroom use!), visit her at jenniferkaul.wordpress.com.

Sonia Bagwe graduated, with honors, from Northeastern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education (endorsements in Middle School, Social Science and Language Arts). Upon attaining her Bachelor’s Degree in Education, Sonia began teaching 3rd-8th grade Social Studies at a private school in the city of Chicago. After a few years of teaching, Sonia decided to enhance her teaching skills and qualifications by obtaining her Master of Arts in Education – Curriculum and Instruction.

Sonia’s teaching career has been geared toward the empowerment of elementary and middle school children. Throughout the course of her career, she has had wonderful opportunities to teach diverse groups of students, including those who performed at grade level, those who were gifted/exceptional and those from various socioeconomic/cultural backgrounds. As a result, she became proficient in designing creative and stimulating lesson plans, which accommodate multiple intelligences, taking a hands-on approach to learning and keeping students interested and focused.

Aside from teaching duties, Sonia served as Lead Teacher at her school as well. Her role took on an administrative tone as she assessed educational programs, contributed to a school improvement plan, aided in the design, implementation and management of information systems to track school goals, evaluated teachers, assisted in the selection of new employees, created a school-wide discipline policy, and oversaw the school’s operation during the principal’s absence.

Sonia currently isn’t teaching in the classroom, but is an educational consultant for various educational/communication companies. Additionally, she is dedicated to serving on the Board of Directors for a charity called Cancer Kiss my Cooley (CKMC); helping children who are battling brain cancer. In her free time, you will find her indulging in her foodie side with her husband, friends, and family and cozying up with her three shih-tzus!