Penn Delco Teacher Makes Time for Students, In and Out of Class

For Pennell Elementary School Reading Specialist Michele Raucci, being involved in the students’ lives outside the classroom makes all the difference., writes Colin Ainsworth for Delaware County News Network.

“If the kids feel you care about them as a person and not just as their third-grade teacher or reading specialist, that’s the buy-in—and the same thing for the parents,” she said. “Teaching is not a job you can do from 8 to 3:30 and then go home and go about your business,” she said.

The 2019 Excellence in Teaching award-winner for the Penn-Delco School District has taken students on college visits, attended sporting events, dances, recitals, birthday parties, and helped with fundraisers.

“The one common thing has always been my outside activities. That’s the buy-in; that’s the niche I found.”

Inside the classroom, Raucci hones the reading skills of students performing below grade level, working with them to build their reading confidence.

Raucci was a full time high school reading teacher in Collingswood, N.J. before taking a job as a reading teacher for eight years at Sun Valley High School.

In 2012, she arrived at Pennell Elementary School as a third grade teacher.

Read more about Michele Raucci’s career here.

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