4 Fox Valley area students named Golden Apple Scholars

When teachers at Dundee-Crown High School learned former student Emily Caliendo received a prestigious award given to promising young educators, they weren’t the least surprised.

That’s because Caliendo, 19, a 2010 graduate of Dundee-Crown, was the kind of student who stood out with her witty cynicism, saxophone skills and uncanny ability to read people.

The Chicago-based Golden Apple Foundation named Caliendo, of Algonquin, one of its Golden Apple Scholars this week. This year, the foundation awarded a record 135 students from high schools and colleges across the state. Other local recipients were Brody Felix from McHenry East High School, Ashlee Ellerbusch from St. Charles North, and Sarah Kitz from Kaneland.

Now a sophomore at St. Xavier University in Chicago where she is majoring in English Secondary Education, Caliendo will receive a scholarship, as well as a place in the foundation’s summer institute. The institute is a six-week session each summer where students spend half the day observing in the classroom and half the day learning how to be great teachers. Caliendo said her focus is on special needs schools and students.

“I’m drawn to teaching in a school of need because I think that I can learn a lot from students who may be socioeconomically disadvantaged,” Caliendo wrote in an email. “I think that the potential of those students is often overlooked, and I’m excited to work with students at a school of need largely because it will offer me an opportunity to grow with them.”

As a senior in high school, Caliendo facilitated administrative meetings as part of her independent study on group psychology, said Mike Williamson, an independent study coordinator and debate coach at the school.

“She can understand quickly how another person learns,” Williams said. “As a teacher, she will be able to assess a student just by watching them, That takes a long time to develop.”

Mark Bettcher, band and orchestra teacher at Dundee-Crown, said Caliendo is one of the most self-confident and articulate students he has taught.

“We need to have teachers like that,” said Bettcher, who worked with Caliendo in the school’s top jazz band throughout her high school career. “She is extremely honest and forthright. As a teacher she will be able to tell students where they are at and what they need to do to get where they need to be.”