Today, she is an English teacher at Bourgade Catholic High School.p. Luby and Wyglendowski, 24, who grew up in New Jersey, are a first for the school near Campbell and 31st avenues.p. They are part of the Alliance for Catholic Education program, which strives to steer more people into teaching. Like public schools, private ones are struggling to find and keep good teachers.p. Notre Dame graduates receive training and spend two years in front of the classroom, after which they obtain a master’s degree. They are provided a monthly stipend.p. The program, which began in the Southeast in 1994, took Arizona under its wing last summer. Two graduates are at Bourgade and two are at St. John Vianney School in Goodyear.p. Overall, there are about 150 in 13 states.p. John Staud, Notre Dame’s administration director, said the program has three pillars: education, community (the four in Arizona reside together in a Goodyear home) and spirituality.p. “There is more than one way to produce a teacher,” he said. “This gets people into the classroom who didn’t know they wanted to teach.”p. Sister Mary McGreevy, Bourgade’s principal, said Luby and Wyglendowski are role models. “The leaders for Catholic schools will come from young people who made the commitment to this program,” said McGreevy, who oversees 350 pupils from across Phoenix.p. Neither Wyglendowski nor Luby is ruling out teaching as a lifelong career.p. “This is my way of living out my faith,” said Wyglendowski, who teaches social studies.p. After graduating from college in 1998 with a computer and government background, he took a job as a New Jersey computer consultant.p. But his heart wasn’t in it. The classroom beckoned Wyglendowski, whose father was a teacher.p. For both Notre Dame grads, teaching has been challenging yet rewarding. It’s not uncommon on the weekends for their living room floor to be decorated with lesson plans and papers in need of grades.
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