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For Maureen Koplien, past and present converge every
day. A member of
St. Dominic’s graduating class of 1981, she returned to the school in
2006 to teach fifth grade.
 “I
have always felt at home in Catholic schools,” Maureen says. “There’s a
special feeling you get when your share your faith with the people you
spend so much time with.” She found, however, that the intervening years
had brought changes. Maureen’s class was the last to graduate from the
“old church,” now transformed into the gym. In her student days, gym
class had been held in the lowest level of the building, currently the
cafeteria. “Obviously there was no basketball or volleyball, we didn’t
even have a gym teacher. Our classroom teachers taught ‘gym class’ which
was usually some type of relay races,” Maureen recalls. What was once
the art room had been converted to a high tech computer lab, while the
classrooms were now outfitted with TVs and SMART boards.
Still, much remained the same. “Parental involvement is still very
much a part of the quality of education and quality of students at St.
Dominic. The feeling of community at Mass is as important as it was when
I went to school here,” Maureen says, noting that many of her former
classmates’ children now attend this school.
Some of these children have been students in her fifth grade
classroom, participating in activities such as the “Dear Maggie”
mailbox, where students can anonymously leave letters asking questions
or voicing concerns. Maureen does not answer the letters herself,
instead taking them to “Maggie” for solutions which are then shared with
the class. “I think that I have an advantage relating to this age group
because my own children [daughters Courtney, Amanda, and Katie] are
around this age level,” Maureen says.
“I know what TV shows they watch, what music they listen to, and what
games they play.”
In
addition to her classroom responsibilities, Maureen further serves her
parish as faculty advisor to the student newspaper Knights’ News. For
the past five years, she has coached volleyball at St. Dominic beginning
as an assistant and progressing to head coach. Recently she added
coaching
8th grade volleyball at Asa Clark Middle School in Pewaukee to her
commitments, as well as participation in a three credit course offered
this year to teachers at St. Dominic School.
Maureen’s St. Dominic roots run deep. Her parents, Bob and Mary
Donohue, joined the parish in 1977, and she and her husband Craig were
married here in 1991. “I hope my students will still be coming to St.
Dominic 20 years from now, and seeing their old classmates,” Maureen
says. “I recently helped organize a reunion of the Class of '81, and had
a wonderful time remembering our great times at St. Dominic.” |
Brookfield WI 53045