Mrs. Ratkiewicz joined the Linsly boarding school faculty this year as the new English teacher for the tenth grade in the upper school. She previously taught at a Catholic high school in the northern hills of Pittsburgh, Vincentian Academy, for 20 years where she taught English as well as a film class.
She has two children and two cats, and her hobbies include reading, a part-time job at Target, and remodeling the Victorian house that she lives in. She also likes to volunteer and organize fundraisers at her daughter’s school. She faced many new changes when she came to Linsly, including the advisor program and adapting to an AP curriculum in place of an International Baccalaureate curriculum.
Some of the more interesting changes as Linsly for Mrs. Ratkiewicz have included learning how to forge relationships with students in a new way that she wasn’t used to. The uniforms are also more formal than those of her old school, and it was challenging to learn the particular traditions of Linsly. The part she especially worked towards was forming of new relationships with other teachers and the rest of the Linsly community. She was initially concerned about forming relationships with students, but once she grew accustomed to the mannerisms of her students she was able to become closer to them. When asked about her views on working at a new school she stated, “I really like Linsly, I feel very blessed and grateful to be here. It is very similar to my old school as it is academically rigorous and the sense of community is something that I really like.”
