To Whom It May Concern: I highly recommend Liz Brekke as a candidate for a teaching position.

I have worked with Liz at Lincoln High School where I was her student teaching mentor for eight weeks. During her student teaching at Lincoln Ms. Brekke was involved in the co-taught classroom where she taught four blocks of Environmental Science alongside a regular ed teacher. Cotaught classes at Lincoln High School have a wide range of student abilities and range from having six to twelve students with IEPs in the classroom. Liz did a great job of addressing these special needs, while not letting their differences stand out. In addition to co-taught classes she instructed two classes of self-contained Environmental Science. These classes present a whole different set of skills and behavioral challenges. While content in the self-contained class is reflective of the co-taught class, the skill level is much different and requires a different approach to instruction and evaluation. Liz has a great ability to connect with students in both classrooms, as well as deal with the challenges of being a mobile teacher. Liz has excellent organizational skills and is awesome at unwrapping standards to design instruction. She worked great in the co-teaching model coming up with ideas and strategies to make instruction more effective in both types of classes. I am confident that Ms. Brekke will be an asset to any staff that she works with. She is confident, knowledgeable, and will adapt to any situation. I believe that she will continue to grow and become even more effective as a teacher with further opportunities. Please feel free to contact me for more information at (515)242-7500, or angela.chapman@dmschools.org. Sincerely, Angela Chapman Special Education Teacher Lincoln High School