Ms.+Schmidt's+Bio

= = Kristie Schmidt is currently an English teacher at Valley Regional High School in Deep River, CT, where she is in her tenth year. A twenty year teaching veteran, she belongs to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the [|EC Ning], and was faculty advisor to the school's online literary magazine ToKnowEnd. She currently teaches AP English Language and Composition, Creative Writing, Media, and English 12, formerly British Literature now World Literature. In the past she has taught English 9, Sports Lit and Detective Fiction. A former advisor to the Voices of Valley newspaper, she is the alternating coordinator (five years) of the [|Summer Reading Committee], and has served in the past on the Professional Development and Evaluation Committee. Ms. Schmidt most recently was trained as a UbD (Understanding by Design) turnkey trainer and facilitates a Critical Friends PLC group at the high school. She has presented on UbD to K-12 Region 4 district faculty and administrators multiple times as well as delivered professional development presentations on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), now CT Standards, aspects of the Performance Plus data tracking program including curriculum mapping, and creating a wikispace. Formerly the English department coordinator, Ms. Schmidt has taught elementary and middle school as well. Ms. Schmidt was a Fulbright Exchange teacher to England (Gosport) and is a graduate of Harvard University and Smith College.

Ms. Schmidt lives in CT with her four cats: Buddha, and brothers Yoda and Obi Wan, and Lucy, and is an accomplished flute player. She loves anything story related: TV, movies, musicals, and gardening. Her interests also include American Sign Language. Ms. Schmidt writes primarily non-fiction personal essays and commentary and poetry.