Fellow Profiles

Nashville Teaching Fellows recruits a range of diverse professionals from all walks of life that have made the decision to change their lives and start raising student achievement in Nashville by teaching in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Nashville Teaching Fellows are just like you: engineers, business men and women, clergy, lawyers, journalists, students, social workers, and others who realize that they want to address inequalities in education by teaching. Here is your chance to meet some Nashville Teaching Fellows that are positively impacting change in Nashville schools, one classroom at a time.

Chris Hillenmeyer, Biology

Chris Hillenmeyer was the owner and operator of a local landscape architecture firm in Nashville before making a career switch to become a teacher. Having hired several young men who had attended Nashville schools in his landscaping company, Chris realized that he had bright, capable employees, yet they had no high-school diplomas. "I made a comment to my wife that I wished I had met these guys earlier" he says, "I wished I had a way to reach them before they dropped out of school."

Following in the footsteps of his mother, a teacher for sixteen years, Chris applied to be a science teacher with the Nashville Teaching Fellows program. Now in his classroom, Chris applies his knowledge of horticulture and biology to lead his students to academic achievement. Chris saw much success in his first year teaching biology and physical science (and coaching soccer) at Cane Ridge High School. His Freshman Biology class achieved a 100% pass rate on the state End of Course Exam, scoring higher than all 19 other Biology classes in the school in department-wide testing as well.

With scores like that, was being a first year teacher easy? "In my first nine week grading period, I found that 15% of my students were failing," he remembers. However, he refused to lower his high standards, and instead, maintained his standards and focused on his teaching. The performance level rose steadily and significantly throughout the year. By the end of the year, 97% of his students met or exceeded his high standard for a passing grade.

His greatest accomplishment? One particular student came to Chris's classroom failing seven of his eight classes, preventing him from playing soccer, a game he loved. Through one-on-one weekly meetings, intense tutoring sessions, and meetings with other teachers, Chris was able to support the student in raising his scores. Instead of failing seven classes at the end of the year, he passed seven classes, and finally got to join other students on the field. "This is the kind of story you love," says Chris, "It was great to be a part of that kind of a turn around."

Becky Banaszak, Exceptional Education

Becky spent several years as a journalist, most recently as a reporter and producer at WHNT-TV NewsChannel 19 in Huntsville, Alabama – where she also volunteered at the Huntsville Inner City Learning Center, before joining the Nashville Teaching Fellows. Now an Exceptional Education (Special Education) teacher at Park Avenue Enhanced Option Elementary, she uses creative instructional methods, including chants, mnemonic devices, guided notes, and manipulatives in order to ensure that her students succeed.

Walking through the bright, colorful halls of Park Avenue, you can tell that the Becky has become an integral part of the staff quickly. Echos of "Hey Ms. B!" ring through the atrium as she bounds up the stairs on the way to an after-school tutoring session. "We all call her Ms. B" says Deltina Braden, Park Ave.'s Principal, "and we all love Ms. B." From the looks of her classroom, her students have the same respect for her that her colleages and fellow faculty members do – student work is highlighted and hand-written questions about the day's lessons are tacked to the question board. Scattered around the room are several stations, set up to reach students that each learn in a different way.

In her application to NTF, Becky pointed out that as a member of the news media, she "covered many stories involving low-income school districts" and had seen first hand the impact of education inequality. "I believe that one of our country's greatest injustices" says Becky, "and I'm willing to dedicate my life to help make sure every student, rich or poor, has access to a good education." But what about all of that great journalism experience? While teaching full time, Becky donated her expertise to produce a 10-minute video about the Nashville Teaching Fellows program to get the word out about the acheivement gap in Nashville and what she, and her fellow Fellows, were doing about it – watch it now on YouTube.