517-930-0142

balesaar@gmail.com

3225 Tecumseh River Rd.

Lansing, MI 48906

Dear Hiring Committee,

I am writing this letter to recommend Samantha Kish for a high school math position. She is
caring, organized, intelligent, confident, and would be a great asset to our students.

Ms. Kish worked with me in our 11th grade Government and Economics classes at Everett this
year for her teaching internship through Michigan State University. I was impressed by the
confidence and competence she exhibited at the start of the year, which likely was due in part to
her previous teaching experience at Sylvan Learning Center. She started the year eager to
learn, but also ready to contribute immediately to the planning and delivery of instruction. In
August she started several organizational tools and structures that we have used all year, and
she is always keeping an eye on the big picture.

Ms. Kish has developed a good sense of pace and uses diverse activities and routines in her
teaching. She grades quickly and gives good quality feedback that helps students improve.
She uses assignments, surveys, quick checks, and other tools to gauge understanding and
make adjustments to pacing and activities.

While my experiences with her have been in social studies, I have observed Ms. Kish teaching
the math inherent in economics and seen her help individual students with math work. She
displays a broad range of ways to communicate math concepts, and appears to have a keen
eye for identifying the specific roadblocks for individual students. Ms. Kish also brings prior
experience teaching 7-12 math at Sylvan. Based on this and the desire to reflect and improve
she brings to all our conversations, I feel comfortable recommending her for a math position and
would want my incoming Everett 9th grader in her class..

Beyond her teaching abilities, Ms. Kish genuinely enjoys working in this building with our
students. She wants to be here, and has worked to establish herself in the building beyond her
classroom responsibilities in ways such as leading the Everett GSA, going to SIT meetings, and
attending student performances. She would be an asset to our district.

Please feel free to reach out by phone or email if I can provide any information about Ms. Kish.

Sincerely,

Aaron Bales
Teacher, Everett High School