Mrs. Ukleja is an ELA teacher here at Liberty North. She teaches ELA 9 and ELA advanced 12. Ukleja was originally a journalist but decided to become a teacher after a while.

     “While I was a journalist, I interviewed these two people who had basically the same backgrounds and had grown up the same way, but one of them had a good education and one of them didn’t. It made such an impact on their lives. Just seeing what a difference education could make, I decided teaching was something I was interested in doing,” Ukleja said.

     She has always worked in LPS in her 15 years of teaching but has gone around to a few different schools.

     “When I first got hired, 9th grade was down to the junior high level so I worked at Liberty Junior High. Which does not exist anymore. I worked there for two or three years. Then I worked at South Valley Junior High for three years, and then they moved all the freshmen up to the high school and I’ve been at Liberty North ever since,” Ukleja said.

     For Mrs. Ukleja the students are always a challenge at first, but they are her favorite part of teaching.

     “They are always funny. It’s always a challenge, they’re new every year, they like different things. I get to know them, trying to figure out how to help them become better readers or better thinkers, just help them to be successful as humans. Definitely, the best part is relationships with kids,” Ukleja said.

     While the students do eventually become her favorite part of teaching, the challenge doesn’t stop there. 

     “I would say the most challenging thing is that kids are so different. You know, I have 170 kids, and they need 170 different things. So it’s trying to find something in the world for all of them and trying to meet individual needs. As well as just taking care of what they need on a daily basis, answering 10,000 questions and just doing all of that while not going crazy can be a little challenging,” Ukleja said.