For the 2025-2026 school year, English teacher Katherine Lipinski will be taking on the role of “teacher leader” for the English department. In particular, Ms. Lipinski will oversee the culturally responsive-sustaining education teacher team, which Ms. Lipinski said, “will encourage teachers to visit one another’s classrooms to learn about different culturally-informed teaching practices.”
Though students finish classes after fourth band every Friday, teachers have eighty minutes of professional learning time every week. During part of that time, teachers meet in various teacher teams to develop their practices as teachers. Ms. Lipinski’s culturally responsive team is one of those teams, and through their teacher leader role, Ms. Lipinski said they will aim to create connections between teachers from various departments who will learn to make their curriculum and their instructional practices more inclusive for the diverse population of students at THHS.
In describing their teaching philosophy, Ms. Lipinski said that a key priority is to make curricula more inclusive and challenging. They also said that they wanted to assist in “advocating for our fellow teachers and students.”
English teacher Brian Sweeney, who will also serve as an English department teacher leader alongside Ms. Lipinski this year, said he looks forward to seeing Ms. Lipinski “work across departments…to make sure that the way we teach reaches students in different ways.”
According to Mr. Sweeney, another responsibility Ms. Lipinski is taking on as a teacher leader is helping to run different aspects of the English department while Assistant Principal of English Ryan Dunbar is temporarily away, serving as principal of Long Island City High School this semester.
Mr. Sweeney said that Ms. Lipinski recently helped coordinate teachers to administer the MAP reading exams that all freshmen and sophomore students have to take in English classes, and that they will also help organize and oversee the administration of the English Regents exam in January, which will be the first time that all sophomores are taking that exam at the same time in January.
Former and current students of Ms. Lipinski praised their teaching skills, providing more insight on Ms. Lipinski’s leadership skills. Freshman Riley Davis, a current student, said, “I love them. I think they’re not too tough on us, but they also don’t just let us do anything we want.” She said recently, Ms. Lipinski has started off each class by leading the discussion of a do-now question prior to beginning a lesson on “different parts of speech and about our identities.”
Many aspects of Ms. Lipinski’s classes that students spoke about relate to the “cultural responsive” practices that they will help other teachers develop as a teacher leader. According to Education Week, cultural responsive teaching involves using “students’ customs, characteristics, experience, and perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.”
Ms. Lipinski’s junior year AP English Literature class focuses on identity and literature about first-generation immigrants. Senior Ebube Ajulu, who was in the class last year, said that Ms. Lipinski “helped out a lot of students with polishing and just thinking of their college essay, so I think those are some valid qualifications [for their leadership role]…besides that they’re a super kind and very helpful teacher.”
Before becoming a teacher leader, Ms. Lipinski had six years of teaching experience at THHS. They primarily taught AP English Literature and Composition, freshman English, and freshman grade Writing Process. Ms. Lipinski also has a Master of Arts with a focus in Secondary Education from Columbia University’s Teachers College, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and History of Art and Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh.
As the school year begins, Ms. Lipinski said they are excited to collaborate with other teacher leaders in order to “plan and to facilitate professional learning opportunities.”
