As the eighth-grade Intervention Specialist at Cuyahoga Heights Middle School, Lyndsey Wisniewski works closely with teachers to modify and accommodate the needs of all students. She also works closely with students that may be struggling with assignments and finds ways to explain material in a way that enables them to understand. Her tenacity toward helping all students succeed has put her in the Staff Spotlight for January 2025.
For Wisniewski, creating positive relationships with students, teachers, and staff, is key to helping students achieve. “The students love their teachers and building strong relationships with them is critical to them being comfortable to learn and grow,” she says. “It has also taught me to adapt and make sure that I am continuing to push the students to work hard, to try, and to not give up when something is hard.” Toward that end, Wisniewski has learned to work well with other teachers, to adapt to the learning environment, and to create lasting relationships with everyone involved.
Wisniewski appreciates the Cuyahoga Heights Schools’ welcoming atmosphere and the profound impact it has made on her success. She says her colleagues and students are one of the many reasons she loves working at Cuyahoga Heights Schools. “From day one, the community embraced me as part of their family with open arms. The support from my fellow teachers has been invaluable,” she said. “They consistently demonstrate their willingness to put aside their tasks to ensure I have what I need to succeed. Their readiness to help whenever I reach out has created an environment where I feel genuinely supported and valued. This collaborative spirit among the staff has made my transition into the district seamless and rewarding.”
Having envisioned being a teacher since preschool, Wisniewski has effectively turned her dream into reality. “My grandma was a kindergarten teacher and she always let me do crafts and play school with her,” Wisniewski remarked. “I never wanted to be anything else. When we had career days in high school, I always picked the teaching career.”
A Cuyahoga Heights High School alumni, Wisniewski enrolled in the Education Professions program at the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center her senior year. “I found my love for education in this program with the experience and opportunities I was given,” she said.
Wisniewski’s teaching career has spanned the gamut. She taught in Maple Heights, Ohio from 2013-2021 and in second grade in another Ohio school from 2014-2016. A Cuyahoga Heights teacher for a total of four years, she has taught special education to seventh and eighth-grade students in all subject areas. This year, she is co-teaching math.
“Everything I do is for the kids,” Wisniewski remarked. “All my time, effort, and creativity goes into making sure that I am addressing my students' needs and building relationships that help motivate them to work to do better and to try to motivate them intrinsically so they want to do better for their own sake, and not just because someone is telling them to do so.” She is also committed to maintaining consistency across grade levels and to setting high expectations for students so that they will continue to succeed as they progress through the grade levels. “People who do not try or push themselves to do better and just give up because it is hard,” is one of her pet peeves and she strives to help students overcome this challenge every day.
When she’s not in the classroom, Wisniewski can be found enjoying Mexican food (she could live on it for the rest of her life), and spending time with her new husband, Steven, and their two playful dogs, Maverick, 6; and Kaia, 4. The couple enjoy taking the dogs for walks in the park or woods, and visiting friends' houses to have play dates with other dogs. She also enjoys basketball, softball, volleyball, puzzles, trivia, reading, doing crafts with her mom, and spending time with family and friends. “I couldn't live without family and friends,“ she proclaims.
Pictured: Lindsey Wisniewski (center) and some of her students.