Maureen Kuhn-Rojas

Maureen's background includes 29+ years of teaching experience in the areas of Bilingual Education, Dual Language, and English Language Learning; from Pre-K to adult learners. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education, a Master's degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Education, and an endorsement in Educational Leadership. Maureen was raised monolingual, studied Spanish in high school and college, and began to use the language more when she met her husband in her last year of college and started her bilingual teaching career. Her husband of 30 years is from Chile and spoke only Spanish when they first met. She became fluent over the course of about 10 years using Spanish in her personal life as well as her professional life. Maureen has taught Kindergarten, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade self-contained bilingual classrooms (transitional and two-way dual), as well as Elementary Bilingual Resource (K-5) in Chicago Public Schools, Naperville 203, and Berkeley School District 87. She also worked as a Dual Language Specialist for Schaumburg District 54 and for Chicago Public Schools in the Office of Language and Cultural Education. Additionally, while living with her family in Santiago, Chile from 2004-2008, she worked as an academic coordinator and taught English to adult professionals. Most recently Maureen was the Dual Language Instructional Coach and Bilingual/EL Coordinator for 9 years in East Maine School District 63 in Des Plaines, IL. Currently she is the EL Program Coordinator for Summit School District 104 in IL. In addition, Maureen has taught graduate level courses in the EL/BIL endorsement since 2016 for Dominican University. Maureen and her husband have 2 college-age children who they have raised to be bilingual and biliterate in Spanish and English.