Madeleine Sexton
Secretary
Click to read bio
Madeleine Sexton has worked as a Spanish teacher at Eastern High School in Jefferson County, Kentucky for the past 12 years. During that time, she has served as the school’s instructor for Dual Credit Spanish through Morehead State University; additionally, she brings aspects of Hispanic culture and history to the humanities department by teaching ballroom and social dance. In the classroom, Ms. Sexton is passionate about planning opportunities for students to use their language in authentic contexts. At the district level, she has worked on the World Language curriculum development cohorts and has facilitated a variety of Professional Development experiences for teachers, primarily focusing on effective implementation of technology for language learning. In 2016, Ms. Sexton received her M.A. in Spanish from the University of Louisville, including taking courses on teaching Español como Lengua Extranjera at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Jennifer Hoban
President Elect
Click to read bio
Jennifer is a French teacher at Louisville Collegiate School. While predominately teaching at the Middle School level, she has also taught all grade levels between Kindergarten through College-level French. During her time at Louisville Collegiate, the French program has seen tremendous growth in the Middle School with full classes and the opening of new sections. Jennifer is also secretary, treasurer, and social media director for AATF KY and also an item writer and reviewer for ACTFL’s AAPPL. Jennifer passionately believes that every student should have the opportunity to learn a World Language. Learning a language not only brings students undeniable cognitive and long-term professional benefits, it also opens up new worlds to them. Jennifer believes that learning another language also allows students, through listening and observation, to participate and connect with others, to become curious, empathetic, and engaged citizens of the world.
Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby
President
Laura Youngworth
Past President
Click to read bio
Dr. Laura Roché Youngworth taught French for twenty-four years at the high school and middle school levels and is currently the K-12 World Language Specialist for Fayette County Public Schools. She provides support for 43 language programs and professional learning opportunities for 130 language educators, including traditional and immersion language settings. Laura graduated from the University of Kentucky with a Bachelors in English, French, and Secondary Education, a Masters and Rank I in Curriculum & Instruction and a Doctorate of Education in Administration and Instruction with a research focus of language proficiency. Laura has served as the President and Vice-President of AATF of KY prior to her role as President of KWLA, writes and hosts the UK/KWLA podcast series Language Talk: KWLA and presents at numerous conferences throughout the state and nation. In 2017, Laura was a finalist for the ACTFL Teacher-of-the-Year and has prior recognitions as the 2016 SCOLT Teacher-of-the-Year, 2015 KY World Language Teacher-of-the-Year, and 2015 and 2013 KY French Teacher-of-the-Year. She embraces any opportunity to share her passion with colleagues and takes great pride in her district’s adoption of the Seal of Biliteracy.
Sara Merideth
Treasurer
Click to read bio
Sara Merideth is currently in her 19th year of teaching Middle School French, most recently at Leestown Middle School in Fayette County. She has been an active participant in KWLA since she began her teaching career at The Lexington School in 2002, serving as a Regional Representative (and Board Liaison), Treasurer, President-Elect, and President. She is now returning for an encore of her role as Treasurer for the organization. At the National level, Sara is a member of the LILL institute, Cohort 1, that helped bring the 6 core practices from ACTFL to the classroom. Aside from serving KWLA, Sara also serves as a member of the Advisory Panel for the State Standards adoption at KDE, as well as the Grand Concours state chairperson for the Kentucky Chapter of AATF. Finally, Sara works at the district level as one of two Middle School World Language Proficiency Leads for Fayette County, as well as a Middle School World Languages Department Chair. She loves to travel, especially with her family, and is looking forward to her daughter’s high school graduation this May!
Jennifer Kennedy
Communications Director
Brenna Byrd
University Liaison
Click to read bio
Brenna Reinhart Byrd is an Assistant Professor of German in the Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department at the University of Kentucky. She received her PhD in Germanic Linguistics from UCLA in 2010 and has been working at the University of Kentucky since then as Director of Beginning German, overseeing the curriculum and training of instructors for the first three semesters of German. At the University of Kentucky, she regularly teaches classes on language pedagogy, linguistics, and Norse mythology. She is a recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the 2016 KWLA Outstanding Teacher Award and the 2017 SCOLT Teacher of the Year Award, and was a finalist for the ACTFL Teacher of the Year Award in 2017. She also created a language based off of Proto-Indo-European with her husband and fellow linguist, Andrew Byrd, for an internationally successful video game, Ubisoft’s Far Cry: Primal. Together they are working on creating their own educational video game to teach about the prehistoric world of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, for which they received an NEH Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant in 2019.
Hubert Schroer
Regional Rep Liaison
Click to read bio
Hello, my name is Hubert “Hubie” Schroer. I am in my second year serving as the Principal of Hopkins Elementary School in Somerset, KY. I have taught Spanish at the high school, middle school, and elementary school level before becoming a school administrator. During my time as a Spanish teacher, I modeled technology use with my students and implemented it to help build a digital learning culture within my classroom. I continue to push technology in our school because it can increase student achievement while also keeping students engaged and excited!
Jill Susini
AATF President
Click to read bio
Jill Susini teaches high school French at Trinity Christian Academy in Lexington, Kentucky. She has been teaching, coaching, and mentoring adolescents and adults for many years in both France and the US. Married to a Frenchman, mother of two trilingual children (20 and 17 years old), she lived overseas for over 12 years and experienced first hand the importance of learning about language, culture, and people. She decided to continue sharing this passion with American high school students both inside and outside the classroom with travels abroad, community outreach, and cultural outings. During her downtime, Jill enjoys the outdoors, time spent reading by the fire, and opportunities to visit friends in far-away places.
Collin Smith
AATG-KY President
Click to read bio
Bio coming soon.
Na Li
KACLT President
Click to read bio
I am currently working as a Chinese instructor at Modern Language Department of WKU. I received my master’s degree, TCSOL—Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages from Liaoning University in China in 2012 and a K-12 Kentucky teacher certificate in 2014. I have been teaching Chinese for the past 10 years, 3 years in a Korean high school, 3 years in an American K-12 public school district and 4 years at Western Kentucky University.
Pilar Gomez
AATSP KY President
Click to read bio
Pilar has been an educator for eighteen years. She currently teaches Spanish at Anchorage Public School in Anchorage, Kentucky. She earned her Master’s degree in Education from Cumberland University and is a National Board Certified Teacher.
Pilar is originally from Colombia and was raised in south Florida in a melting pot of different cultures. She loves teaching Spanish, traveling, and gardening. She has been married for twenty-two years and has two wonderful teenagers about to graduate high school.
Her passion for teaching has allowed her to create the first Spanish club and Spanish summer camp for elementary students at her school.
She is an active member of KWLA and the chair of the annual KWLA silent auction. Pilar is driven towards the development of world language education in the state of Kentucky.
Koji Tanno
KAJLT President
Click to read bio
Koji Tanno is an Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of Kentucky. He received his Ph.D from the University of Washington. Previously, he taught Japanese at Lewis and Clark College, Eastern Michigan University, Arizona State University, and Middlebury Summer Language School. His research interests are grammaticalization, pragmatics, discourse markers, and second language acquisition. He also spends time on developing online tools for teaching Japanese.
Lucianne Junker
KCA President
Click to read bio
Currently in her tenth year of teaching Latin in Kentucky public high schools, Lucianne Junker has developed her own curriculum and utilizes active Latin in her classroom. Lucianne has a Bachelor’s of Arts in Classics and Philosophy, a Master’s of Arts in Teaching World Languages, and a Graduate Certificate in Latin Studies from the University of Kentucky. Lucianne received the Swift-Longacre-Scaife Fellowship in 2009 and the Outstanding Latin Teacher of the Year in 2018. As a participant and discussion leader in the active Latin community in Lexington both during the school year and summer conventiculua, Lucianne continues to develop her active language use by reading Latin literature and conversing in Latin both in and outside of the classroom. Lucianne credits her professors of the MATWL and Institute for Latin Studies programs at the University of Kentucky for her active Latin capabilities and pedagogy.
Nadine Jacobsen McClean
NNELL KY Representative
Click to read bio
With over 15 years of experience as a Spanish teacher, Nadine appreciates being a part of a community of dedicated educators. As a teacher in Jefferson County Public schools in Louisville, Kentucky, Nadine enjoys creating project based learning experiences. She is currently working on her dissertation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as she continues to explore the parent perspective of early language learning programs. Her experience as a past president of the National Network for Early Language Learning, NNELL, strengthened her lifelong passion to advocate for every child to have an opportunity to learn another language.
Click to read bio
Regions are aligned to the KDE Educational Cooperatives. Please click HERE to find your regional representative.
We are currently looking for regional reps from several regions! If you are interested in serving on the extended board please contact us at info@kwla.org.
