We asked our principal and teachers to share some information about their lives and send us some pictures of themselves. We will post the information as we receive them. Welcome to Rilke Schule!
Our Principal comes to us from the ASD Administration Building. She has worked there for the past 5 years in the Curriculum Department, specializing in Science and Math. As well, she substituted as an administrator at various schools whenever possible. She is accomplished in adult education; curriculum development; classroom delivery models; national, state, and local conference presentations & planning; and large-scale field trip productions.
Frau Wrabetz has K-12 administrative experience and has taught all grade levels; including multi-disciplinary elementary, multi-age, single subject secondary, and college. She worked as a district trainer in Science, Math, and Cooperative Education.
Frau Wrabetz has traveled to Germany and other German-speaking countries, as well as many areas of the United States and other parts of the world. She is very excited about learning German right along with the students, and is planning on future trips to Europe.
Frau Wrabetz brings a love of Children, Science, Math, Sports, Theater, Music, and other Arts. You will find that she welcomes you to Rilke Schule and listens carefully to your concerns and ideas.
Frau Julie is the friendly, smiling face you usually see sitting at the front desk when you first arrive at Rilke Schule. She is always ready to help answer your questions and solve any challenges you may send her way. She likes chocolate.
Born and raised in South Carolina, Terri first came to
Anchorage in 1996. She met her husband, Jason, within an hour of stepping
foot in Alaska. She has been married for 11 years and has 4
wonderful children. Her interest in Rilke Schule began in February of
2007 when she first saw a flyer and made the decision to enroll her kids.
She is not bilingual nor is she multilingual, but she does at least speak
English. She is looking forward to taking the adult German classes. After being a stay-at-home mom for
10 years, working at Rilke Schule has been exciting, challenging,
satisfying, frustrating, and rewarding. It has never been boring! She is thankful to be part of such a great team and loves to watch the
students thrive. When she can, she also enjoys spending quality time with
her family at their cabin in Petersville.
Michael Helgesen is one of the English kindergarten teachers at Rilke Schule. He has been teaching kindergarten in the Anchorage School District for more than a dozen years. Herr Helgesen learned to speak Spanish and taught in South-Central Los Angeles for four years. He then worked for three years in early childhood at the Providence Hospital Early Childhood Learning Center. Michael has also studied German, Norwegian, French and Russian. He lives in Anchorage with his wife, Yuliya, his two sons, Roos and Alek, and their cat, Rock.
Frau Claudia was born and raised in southern Germany. In 1984, shortly after she passed her Abitur (high school exam), she came to Alaska for “just one year”, and she is still here! In 1990 the Bittlingmaier family decided to re-locate to the Pacific island of Guam, and even though they intended to live there for “just one year”, they lived on Guam until 1997.
During this time, Frau Claudia graduated from UOG with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. The following three years she taught a diverse population of 5th graders at M.U. Lujan Elementary School. Upon returning to Anchorage in 1997, she taught 6th grade at Taku Elementary for 10 years. She lives with her husband, Kurt, and a German shepherd on the outskirts of Anchorage. In 2007, Frau Claudia took a leave-of-absence from the school
district in order to travel to South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana with
her husband. En route they visited many local schools and Frau Claudia
volunteered regularly at an orphanage in South Africa. While still in
South Africa, Frau Claudia became aware of Rilke Schule through e-mails
from friends and co-workers at Taku Elementary. She applied for a
teaching position, and is excited and happy to now be a member of the
Rilke Schule team.
Judith Keihl-Teekell was born and raised in the beautiful country-side of Oberschwaben (Swabia), a region in the very south of Germany. Adventurous and curious about other cultures, Judith traveled early on and found herself in Alaska after graduating from her German high school (Gymnasium). It was then that her life started to change and her travels would turn into a commute between Alaska to be with her now husband, and Germany to visit family.
When she made the decision to move to Alaska, she first studied business administration as an international student receiving a bachelor's degree in logistics. She then worked for the University of Alaska. Rilke Schule had just opened when she looked into a career change to finally pursue her calling as a teacher. Months later, she substituted for Jo Sander’s Kindergarten classes and knew from then on that she wanted to teach primary grades (German immersion, of course). She is currently studying towards her Master of Teaching at Alaska Pacific University.
She enjoys skiing, hiking, and other outdoor activities. But lately, she spends most of her free time training and playing with her Bouvier dog Maja.
Personal background: She was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and has been living in Alaska since 1985. She studied German in high school and was pretty good at it then, but it has been more years than she cares to admit and, to say the least, it will take a bit of a refresher to uncover what she knows is buried in her brain somewhere. She's been married to Gary Nelson since 1986. They don't have any kids or pets, but they have lots of plants. In her spare time (of which she has little), she works on home improvement projects, gardens, crochets, and reads John Grisham books. She also likes to do Sudoku and crossword puzzles.
Professional background: She received her B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Frostburg State University in Maryland in 1979 and has taken lots of Continuing Education credits, enough for a Masters Degree plus if they counted. She has focused on literacy instruction because learning to read and write is key to a quality education. She taught 1 year (subbing) in Pennsylvania right after college, then took a many-year detour into the legal secretarial field. After moving to Anchorage, She subbed for the Anchorage School District for 2 years before being hired at Klatt Elementary. She taught at Klatt for 9 years (8 years of 1st grade and 1 year of Kindergarten). She then taught at William Tyson Elementary for 5 years, where she taught 1st and 2nd grade classrooms and 2nd grade literacy.
Why she chose teaching as a career: She loves working with kids -- they are fun to be with and it is exciting to watch them grow. Young students make so much progress throughout the year. It's amazing to see them mature both academically and socially.
She is excited to be teaching at Rilke Schule again this school year!
Frau Cooper is originally from Great Falls, MT. She taught grades 7 - 12 German, and also taught for 2 years in a rural school in Victor, MT. Prior to that she earned an M.A. from Ohio State University and taught Russian to college freshmen. She speaks German and Russian, plus a smattering of Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. She is an avid cross-country skier and hiker. In addition, She is married with two daughters. They hunt and fish as a family; her primary role in hunting has been to run around with the pheasant decoy to train the dog. She is excited to be a part of Rilke Schule and to finally make it to Alaska!
Debra Schwicht - 2nd Grade English
Frau Schwicht will be telling you more about herself, soon.
Peter Birmanns was born in Aachen, Germany exactly twenty years after it became the first German city to be liberated by American soldiers in 1945. Peter grew up in this city which is often called the heart of Europe because Charlemagne built his cathedral here in 800 and because it is a bordertown to the Netherlands and to Belgium. After graduating, Peter absolved an apprenticeship as pastry baker and then entered university in the romantic town of Tuebingen in South Germany. He graduated with an MA in History and German literature. Two years of college teaching in Northern Minnesota preceded his career as a roofer. During that time Peter acquired his High School teaching license for German, Spanish and English. After ten years teaching High School, Peter came to beautiful Alaska in 2008 and joined the faculty of Rilke Schule.
Frau Cati graduated from college in 2003 with a B.A. in German and Latin, having spent her junior year in Vienna, Austria. Subsequently she moved to Freiburg, Germany and was an English language assistant in a Gymnasium (grades 5-13) there. After that she moved to Gimmelwald, Switzerland, a tiny farming village in the Alps, and worked on a farm and at a B&B while being totally immersed in Swiss mountain culture. After deciding she needed a full time job (though raking hay and making cheese was quite enjoyable), she moved back home to Texas and taught 3rd-5th grade Latin at a private school. She wanted to pursue German, though, so she applied to graduate school and received her M.A. in German with teaching licensure in 2008 from Tufts University in Boston. She and is thrilled to be able to help kids along on the road of discovery that is a natural result of learning another language. She loves to ski, play piano, hike, take pictures, and learn about the Middle Ages.
Charmin has a Master of Arts in
teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies, focused on Russian
studies. She speaks Russian and German and enjoys learning new languages. Charmin taught English as a second language
at Bartlett High School for her internship. She then switched gears and taught ESL at the elementary level at
Tanaina Elementary. During her time at
Tanaina, she also taught an hour and a half extension of kindergarten in
Russian. Charmin started at Rilke the
first year it opened as a substitute teacher, felt like she had found her home,
and stayed. Charmin’s thirst for
knowledge and experiences is something that she looks forward to sharing with
her students to promote lifelong learning.
Charmin is an avid climber of ice,
rock and mountains. She relishes outdoor
experiences like sea kayaking, biking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and ice
skating, and is trying to add whitewater kayaking to her skill set. Charmin also spends time exercising her
creativity making cards, beading, sewing, scrapbooking, lettering, drawing,
coloring, color design, painting, and doing papercrafts, wire crafts and
calligraphy. She spent four months traveling through Estonia and Russia and spent a week in Austria. This jump started her hunger to experience
new cultures, gain new perspectives and meet interesting new people. She is very excited to add to her travel
experiences.
Mr. Whiteley just graduated from Washington State University in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. He knew that he either wanted to teach near his hometown, in the Seattle area, or move to Anchorage. After receiving a phone call at a Mariner’s game asking him how quickly he could relocate to Alaska, he started to realize he was about to begin a new journey in his life. About a week later he found himself in a new city he hadn’t been to and teaching at an interesting and exciting place. He looks forward to furnishing student learning in the classroom and showing students how they can apply themselves outside of the classroom. He knows he made the correct decision to move to Anchorage, and he looks forward to leaving a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Herr Charles grew up here in Anchorage, having graduated from Bartlett High School. He went to University of Alaska to study math and accidentally earned a German degree along the way, being unable to keep himself out of the foreign language classes. He closed his degree with a year over at Heidelberg University, strategically timed when Germany hosted the World Cup. He came back to Alaska and began substituting when Rilke opened; turns out he just never left, other than the annual trip he makes to succeed in his goal of bungee jumping from country to country across the world.
Frau Stephanie has taught for the Anchorage School District for the past 11 years. She began her teaching career at Nunaka Valley Elementary, where she taught for 5 years, teaching 4th through 6th grades in the Slingerland program. She then moved to Baxter where she could be more involved in the technology program. After teaching at Baxter for several years, she moved to Highland Tech High when they opened in the fall of 2003. At Highland she taught middle school English, Science, Social Studies, Math and Technology. She also taught 9th grade World History for a semester. Ms. Campbell has been a Lego League Robotics coach for the past 3 years as well as Highland Tech's F.I.R.S.T. Robotics coach, coaching the first Alaskan team to ever be team captains at a regional playoff.
Ms. Campbell's classroom philosophy is "Work hard so we can play hard." She encourages students to follow their passions, to think outside the box, and to expand the limits of their comfort zone each day. Chicken mummies, bog water studies, quarterly speeches, earthquake preparedness videos, musicals, black plague simulations, and swing dancing are some of the activities that have come out of her classroom in the past. Ms. Campbell is a theater and opera fan and her class usually attends several plays and operas each year as well as making museum visits whenever something exciting is being shown. Ms. Campbell believes that consistent classroom structure gives students the foundation they need to focus on learning.
In her free time she enjoys reading, sewing, beading, dancing, playing video games and spending time with her son, Kyle.
Herr Downie was born and raised in Alaska. He has worked for the Anchorage School District teaching music for the last 14 years. He spent a year studying music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria and enjoys teaching with some of his materials from the institute.
He loves teaching and has a philosophy that all
children can learn and be successful in music. He teaches kids to learn to
read, write and play music through singing, performing, listening,
dancing, and creating.
He loves to ski, climb, and travel, and his most exciting
adventure in the last few years has been a successful summit of
Denali in 2005. He and his wife now enjoy skiing with their young daughter.
He is excited to be the music teacher at Rilke Schule and enjoys being part of the Rilke Schule community.
Yuliya Helgsen-Thompson - Artist-in-Residence
Yuliya Helgesen-Thompson was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She was raised in both Russia and Leipzig, Germany. Yuliya has a master’s degree in art education and a bachelor’s degree in art and interior design from the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Ekaterinburg, Russia. For the past three years, Yuliya has been the artist-in-residence at Turnagain Elementary School and 2008-2009 at Rilke Schule. She has also done all of the original art for the Russian Immersion Program in the Anchorage School District for the past seven years. Yuliya also teaches Russian at the Aurora Waldorf School here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is represented at the Fiddlehead Gallery, which is located in downtown Anchorage at 416 G St. Yuliya participates in numerous group and juried shows around Anchorage and the state of Alaska. Her most recent shows were held at Doriola's and at the Mixx Grill here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is also often featured at MTS, International, Middle Way Cafe, and Virtu galleries here in town.
In 2009, Yuliya received Third Place in the Alaska Water Color Society's 35th Annual Juried Exhibition. Yuliya has also done two standout art performance pieces at the MTS Gallery here in Anchorage. She is also a founding member, costume designer and performer in the Russian Dance Troupe Sudarushka. Additionally, she gives private art lessons and lives in Anchorage with her two sons and husband.
Yuliya's art can be viewed on her web-site at: www.yuliyaht.com If you would like to join her mail list for upcoming shows please email Yuliya at: yuliyaht@yahoo.com
Frau West grew up in south west Germany and was fortunate enough to travel and learn many different languages. Her goal was to work with children in many different places. She got close!
She became a ”KINDERGÄRTNERIN” in Germany in a Fröbel seminar, then studied pediatric nursing and spent months in England and a year in Minneapolis, USA. After several years as a nurse and nanny, She really wanted to return to the USA. Through friends she learned about the Montessori Method.
She landed in Fairbanks in 1966 and taught for approximately six years at the Fairbanks Montessori school, nine years at the Anchorage Montessori school, and 15 1/2 years at the Providence Center for Child Development. She happily retired and did a little volunteer work. But she got bored and then heard about the NEW German School. So here she is! She loves working with the staff and children and experiencing the new challenges of a new charter school.
She has grown twin children and is the proud Grandmother of 3 grandchildren.
Amanda is the smiling face you often see in the morning and afternoon directing traffic, and at midday on the playground helping the children. In between those times she is tirelessly helping out wherever she is needed. If you ever need to know where anything in the building is, ask Amanda!
Frau Jo Sanders - Curriculum Director
You can email Frau Sanders at Frausanders@alaska.com or you can telephone her at 345-0203.
Jo Sanders is a 35 year veteran of the Anchorage School District (West HS, Bartlett HS, Village Charter, and Aquarian Charter). She is one of the founders of Rilke Schule. She is currently the Chair of the Academic Policy Committee and is in charge of the German Curriculum at Rilke Schule. Frau Sanders has been the president of the American Association of Teachers of German, the Northwest Council on Foreign Languages and the Alaskan Foreign Language Association. She was named the outstanding German teacher in the United States by the American Association of Teachers of German, was Anchorage Teacher of the Year, a Walt Disney Salute to American Education Teacher, a Fulbright Exchange Teacher, recipient of the national Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language and received the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Honor) from the Federal Republic of Germany.
Frau Sanders is a consultant and trains teachers all over the United States for the Goethe Institute and the AATG. As a local teacher, she co-founded the state German Camp, which has run since 1973 and the state Foreign Language Declamation Contest. Many of the local German teachers did their student teaching under Frau Sanders. Her personal interest in nature is reflected in her classroom teaching and her methods emphasize hands-on learning, lots of songs, games and physical activities.
Our Principal comes to us from the ASD Administration Building. She has worked there for the past 5 years in the Curriculum Department, specializing in Science and Math. As well, she substituted as an administrator at various schools whenever possible. She is accomplished in adult education; curriculum development; classroom delivery models; national, state, and local conference presentations & planning; and large-scale field trip productions. 
Frau Julie is the friendly, smiling face you usually see sitting at the front desk when you first arrive at Rilke Schule. She is always ready to help answer your questions and solve any challenges you may send her way. She likes chocolate.
Born and raised in South Carolina, Terri first came to
Anchorage in 1996. She met her husband, Jason, within an hour of stepping
foot in Alaska. She has been married for 11 years and has 4
wonderful children. Her interest in Rilke Schule began in February of
2007 when she first saw a flyer and made the decision to enroll her kids.
She is not bilingual nor is she multilingual, but she does at least speak
English. She is looking forward to taking the adult German classes. After being a stay-at-home mom for
10 years, working at Rilke Schule has been exciting, challenging,
satisfying, frustrating, and rewarding. It has never been boring! She is thankful to be part of such a great team and loves to watch the
students thrive. When she can, she also enjoys spending quality time with
her family at their cabin in Petersville.
Michael Helgesen is one of the English kindergarten teachers at Rilke Schule. He has been teaching kindergarten in the Anchorage School District for more than a dozen years. Herr Helgesen learned to speak Spanish and taught in South-Central Los Angeles for four years. He then worked for three years in early childhood at the Providence Hospital Early Childhood Learning Center. Michael has also studied German, Norwegian, French and Russian. He lives in Anchorage with his wife, Yuliya, his two sons, Roos and Alek, and their cat, Rock. 
Frau Claudia was born and raised in southern Germany. In 1984, shortly after she passed her Abitur (high school exam), she came to Alaska for “just one year”, and she is still here! In 1990 the Bittlingmaier family decided to re-locate to the Pacific island of Guam, and even though they intended to live there for “just one year”, they lived on Guam until 1997. 
Judith Keihl-Teekell was born and raised in the beautiful country-side of Oberschwaben (Swabia), a region in the very south of Germany. Adventurous and curious about other cultures, Judith traveled early on and found herself in Alaska after graduating from her German high school (Gymnasium). It was then that her life started to change and her travels would turn into a commute between Alaska to be with her now husband, and Germany to visit family.
Personal background: 
Frau Cooper is originally from Great Falls, MT. She taught grades 7 - 12 German, and also taught for 2 years in a rural school in Victor, MT. Prior to that she earned an M.A. from Ohio State University and taught Russian to college freshmen. She speaks German and Russian, plus a smattering of Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. She is an avid cross-country skier and hiker. In addition, She is married with two daughters. They hunt and fish as a family; her primary role in hunting has been to run around with the pheasant decoy to train the dog. She is excited to be a part of Rilke Schule and to finally make it to Alaska!
Frau Schwicht will be telling you more about herself, soon.
Peter Birmanns was born in Aachen, Germany exactly twenty years after it became the first German city to be liberated by American soldiers in 1945. Peter grew up in this city which is often called the heart of Europe because Charlemagne built his cathedral here in 800 and because it is a bordertown to the Netherlands and to Belgium. After graduating, Peter absolved an apprenticeship as pastry baker and then entered university in the romantic town of Tuebingen in South Germany. He graduated with an MA in History and German literature. Two years of college teaching in Northern Minnesota preceded his career as a roofer. During that time Peter acquired his High School teaching license for German, Spanish and English. After ten years teaching High School, Peter came to beautiful Alaska in 2008 and joined the faculty of Rilke Schule.
Frau Cati graduated from college in 2003 with a B.A. in German and Latin, having spent her junior year in Vienna, Austria. Subsequently she moved to Freiburg, Germany and was an English language assistant in a Gymnasium (grades 5-13) there. After that she moved to Gimmelwald, Switzerland, a tiny farming village in the Alps, and worked on a farm and at a B&B while being totally immersed in Swiss mountain culture. After deciding she needed a full time job (though raking hay and making cheese was quite enjoyable), she moved back home to Texas and taught 3rd-5th grade Latin at a private school. She wanted to pursue German, though, so she applied to graduate school and received her M.A. in German with teaching licensure in 2008 from Tufts University in Boston. She and is thrilled to be able to help kids along on the road of discovery that is a natural result of learning another language. She loves to ski, play piano, hike, take pictures, and learn about the Middle Ages.
Charmin has a Master of Arts in
teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies, focused on Russian
studies. She speaks Russian and German and enjoys learning new languages. Charmin taught English as a second language
at Bartlett High School for her internship. She then switched gears and taught ESL at the elementary level at
Tanaina Elementary. During her time at
Tanaina, she also taught an hour and a half extension of kindergarten in
Russian. Charmin started at Rilke the
first year it opened as a substitute teacher, felt like she had found her home,
and stayed. Charmin’s thirst for
knowledge and experiences is something that she looks forward to sharing with
her students to promote lifelong learning.
Mr. Whiteley just graduated from Washington State University in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. He knew that he either wanted to teach near his hometown, in the Seattle area, or move to Anchorage. After receiving a phone call at a Mariner’s game asking him how quickly he could relocate to Alaska, he started to realize he was about to begin a new journey in his life. About a week later he found himself in a new city he hadn’t been to and teaching at an interesting and exciting place.
Herr Charles grew up here in Anchorage, having graduated from Bartlett High School. He went to University of Alaska to study math and accidentally earned a German degree along the way, being unable to keep himself out of the foreign language classes. He closed his degree with a year over at Heidelberg University, strategically timed when Germany hosted the World Cup. He came back to Alaska and began substituting when Rilke opened; turns out he just never left, other than the annual trip he makes to succeed in his goal of bungee jumping from country to country across the world.
Frau Stephanie has taught for the Anchorage School District for the past 11 years. She began her teaching career at Nunaka Valley Elementary, where she taught for 5 years, teaching 4th through 6th grades in the Slingerland program. She then moved to Baxter where she could be more involved in the technology program. After teaching at Baxter for several years, she moved to Highland Tech High when they opened in the fall of 2003. At Highland she taught middle school English, Science, Social Studies, Math and Technology. She also taught 9th grade World History for a semester. Ms. Campbell has been a Lego League Robotics coach for the past 3 years as well as Highland Tech's F.I.R.S.T. Robotics coach, coaching the first Alaskan team to ever be team captains at a regional playoff. 
Herr Downie was born and raised in Alaska. He has worked for the Anchorage School District teaching music for the last 14 years. He spent a year studying music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria and enjoys teaching with some of his materials from the institute. 
Yuliya Helgesen-Thompson was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She was raised in both Russia and Leipzig, Germany. Yuliya has a master’s degree in art education and a bachelor’s degree in art and interior design from the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Ekaterinburg, Russia. For the past three years, Yuliya has been the artist-in-residence at Turnagain Elementary School and 2008-2009 at Rilke Schule. She has also done all of the original art for the Russian Immersion Program in the Anchorage School District for the past seven years. Yuliya also teaches Russian at the Aurora Waldorf School here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is represented at the Fiddlehead Gallery, which is located in downtown Anchorage at 416 G St. Yuliya participates in numerous group and juried shows around Anchorage and the state of Alaska. Her most recent shows were held at Doriola's and at the Mixx Grill here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is also often featured at MTS, International, Middle Way Cafe, and Virtu galleries here in town. 
Retirement did not last long because she could not stay away from Rilke Schule. Yes, she is back and we are thrilled!
Frau West grew up in south west Germany and was fortunate enough to travel and learn many different languages. Her goal was to work with children in many different places. She got close! 
Amanda is the smiling face you often see in the morning and afternoon directing traffic, and at midday on the playground helping the children. In between those times she is tirelessly helping out wherever she is needed. If you ever need to know where anything in the building is, ask Amanda!
Jo Sanders is a 35 year veteran of the Anchorage School District (West HS, Bartlett HS, Village Charter, and Aquarian Charter). She is one of the founders of Rilke Schule. She is currently the Chair of the Academic Policy Committee and is in charge of the German Curriculum at Rilke Schule. Frau Sanders has been the president of the American Association of Teachers of German, the Northwest Council on Foreign Languages and the Alaskan Foreign Language Association. She was named the outstanding German teacher in the United States by the American Association of Teachers of German, was Anchorage Teacher of the Year, a Walt Disney Salute to American Education Teacher, a Fulbright Exchange Teacher, recipient of the national Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language and received the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Honor) from the Federal Republic of Germany.