May 13, 2019

The School District U-46 Board of Education Monday night will host the "Top Two Percent" ceremony at South Elgin High School to honor the academic success and accomplishments of graduating seniors. The students are the top-achieving graduates from the District’s five comprehensive high schools and are featured on the U-46 website in the District’s Class of 2019 section.

Also Monday, the Board of Education will recognize Karen Osborne, a social worker at Fox Meadow Elementary School in South Elgin, for recently being named the 2019 Kane County Student Support Personnel of the Year. Mrs. Osborne, a U-46 alum who graduated from Streamwood High School in 1981, has worked in U-46 for more than 30 years. She began her career as a social worker in 1988, and has worked at several U-46 elementary and middle schools. She has been at Fox Meadow Elementary since 2016.

“Every day I see her go above and beyond what is expected of her with both students and staff,” said Fox Meadow Principal Sjoukje Brown. “She is frequently sought out by students and has a line outside her door every morning and afternoon with kids who want to say hello or goodbye.”

Mrs. Osborne said she decided to pursue a career in social work based on her own experience with a social worker when she was a high school student. After experiencing the loss of her father, a social worker offered to help her process her grief. She was very appreciative of someone going out of their way to ask her about her father and realized she wanted to do the same and be a sounding board for children. She earned her master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

“I tell the students that my job is to help out them, parents, and teachers with any kind of problems that they are having,” Mrs. Osborne said. “There is nothing so awful you can't tell someone, and everyone has a right to feel safe all of the time.”

Mrs. Osborne meets with students in classrooms, small groups, and individually to support their social-emotional and behavioral goals. This year she is piloting a new curriculum that teaches students resiliency.

“When you can connect with a student as young as 5 years old and see them using strategies that you taught them to calm themselves, it is amazing,” Osborne said.

The Kane County Regional Office of Education hosts the annual Educator of the Year banquet to recognize and celebrate educators within the region. School districts, staff, and administrators nominate exceptional individuals who demonstrate a love for learning and a commitment to education. The May 3 event marked the 44th Kane County Educator of the Year banquet.

The Board of Education will recognize Mrs. Osborne with an “Accent on Achievement” certificate during the 6 p.m. special Board meeting in the auditorium at South Elgin High School, 760 E. Main St., South Elgin.

Following the awarding of an Accent on Achievement to Mrs. Osborne, the Board of Education will honor the students who have finished in the top two percent of their graduating class.

"Congratulations to our top two percent of the Class of 2019," Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Instruction and Equity Lela Majstorovic said. "We are proud of their dedication to academic achievement and grateful to the teachers, friends, and family who have supported them as they achieve this milestone.”

The top two percent of graduating seniors are as follows:

Bartlett High School

Aakash Nagarapu

Aaron Farabaugh

Amy Chen

Harsh Chheda

Nimesh Tailor

Rohan Shah

Rushi Patel

Tessa Wanthal

Theresa Videckis

Zain Sattar

 

Elgin High School

Caroline Kaczmarek

Guadalupe Chavez

Joshua Placko

Kyle Coates

Lauren Dimayuga

Riya Kumar

Shrinal Patel

Simona Simeonova

Viseth Som

 

Larkin High School

Caroline Przywara

Emily Crawford

Jordan Kosin

Kassia Lesiewicz

Kevin Duffy

Noa Greenfeld

Scarlett Ford

 

South Elgin High School

Abigail Culloton

Bridget Bondi

Carli Allen

Hannah Anderson

Jace Warrick

MacKenzie Molina

Madeline Kordecki

Madison Caliendo

Nicole Allen

Sara Pfeil

Sarah Boghossian

 

Streamwood High School

Anna Rataj

Brianna Yi

Jakub Adamek

Marcos Villarreal

Mary Chung

Nicole Rataj

Nikky Jordan

Victoria Bajorek

William Morgan