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Kendall Constertina, new Prospect math teacher, smiles for a portrait.

On May 24, seniors at Fenwick High School were preparing to say goodbye to their childhood and enjoy the summer before college began. As everyone hurriedly shuffled to leave Kendall Constertina’s math class for the last time, one student hung behind and handed her a letter. 

Because the day was so chaotic, it wasn’t until later that Constertina got to open the letter undisturbed. The student wrote about how he dreaded coming to school, but Constertina’s math class was the one place where he found light and could forget about his troubled home life. 

“To this day, it serves as a reminder to me of why I choose to be a teacher and show up for my students every single day,” Constertina said. 

Constertina is a new math teacher at Prospect this year. After graduating from Carthage College with a masters degree in education and one year of student teaching, Constertina went to work her first job at Fenwick High School where she taught for a year. She is now enjoying her newly renovated home in Arlington Heights with her husband of one year and beloved shih tzu, Ollie.

Before Constertina went to Carthage and met her husband, she lived in Arlington Heights with her parents, John and Debra, and younger sister, Sydney. She describes her childhood as “nothing but good memories,” and her family as “close knit.” A big part of her upbringing was spending time at her aunt and uncle’s house with just four of her 27 cousins.

“It was like I had two extra parents and four more siblings,” Constertina said.

Constertina feels exceptionally grateful to have been blessed with such a carefree childhood considering what her mother went through as a young girl. Debra had to work for everything growing up — she even had to pay for her own braces — and was never able to earn a college degree.

Debra had experienced more than her fair share of sexism in the workforce to know that businesses “look for certain quotas.” She wanted to make sure that her children had the same opportunities as men when an employer looked at their resume. 

Debra’s upbringing led her to make strategic decisions when picking names for her children. Both parents agreed on unisex names, Kendall and Sydney. 

“She had to double prove herself. One, for being a girl, and two for not having a college degree,” Constertina explained. 

According to Debra, she also wanted her girls to have strong names with purpose behind them. Sydney means loyalty, and Kendall means chief. Every move that Debra made was planned out to give her daughters the opportunities she never had, one of which was playing college sports. 

From an early age, Constertina was involved in many activities such as soccer, basketball and lacrosse. Her love for the game and competitive environment is what set her apart from other athletes, as well as her grit and resilience.

”She’s always been this adventurous, ambitious and magnetic bright light,” Debra said. 

She also recalls when Constertina was five years old and chose to paint her room the brightest shade of yellow. 

“I wanted to feel like the sun was always shining around me,” Costertina said at the time.

It was clear from a young age that Constertina was a bright young girl, but her true resilience was not discovered until she had a traumatic boating accident. 

Then fifth grade Constertina and her family were enjoying a beautiful summers’ day out on the lake when disaster struck. Constertina had accidentally jumped off of her floaty and into the propellers of her friend’s boat. She tried to squirm free, but the propellers held tight to her bathing suit. 

When she was able to swim away and climb back onto the boat her leg was already cut so deep in multiple places that you could see her bone.

As soon as Constertina recovered, she continued to make it a priority to be active even though she faced many physical and mental hardships during this time. 

“She has this positive mindset of what she wants to do and where she wants to go, and there isn’t anything that can get in her way of getting there,” Debra said.

Constertina’s determination throughout injury recovery also helped establish a positive and hard working mindset that she put to use in her future endeavors. 

One example is when she stepped onto her D3 college lacrosse team with no prior experience in the sport.

Constertina recalls her first ever collegiate game when the field was covered in snow. Although she didn’t know where any of the lines were, Constertina’s teammates were beyond supportive during her learning experience. They helped Constertina develop her talent and wear their bright red uniforms with confidence. 

Seeing how much of a difference people can make in building up your character inspired Constertina to become a teacher.  Constertina wanted to do the same things for her students as her teammates did for her.

“You want to reach your students,” said Constertina. “You want to connect with your students. You want to get through to them, but you have to accept that not everyone is going to like you when you want to help them, and that’s a hard thing to accept.”

Constertina believes that to teach you need to be an understanding person and establish a student-teacher dynamic of mutual respect for one another.

Already in her two months at Prospect, Constertina has helped a student realize that in order to achieve their aspirations of becoming a pilot, they need to work harder in math class. Since then, she has seen visible improvements in their motivation and attitude towards her class.

“The coolest part of my job are those little victories that I get every day with a student or a colleague,” Constertina said. “These moments give me that spark and remind me that the reason I teach is because I want to help other people.”

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