ELL Teachers to the Rescue for a Cat and Her Kittens

The Cat Whisperers: Kim Evans, Joanne Conradi, Regan Davidson, and Vincent Lucas

With a hundred different languages and dialects spoken at Des Moines Public Schools, our ELL teachers are experts in many different forms of communications. Add “Cat” to their credentials.

After a professional development meeting on Wednesday at the district’s Operation Center, four ELL teachers – Joanne Conradi, Regan Davison and Kim Evans of Edmunds Elementary School and Vincent Lucas from Greenwood Elementary School – heard some meowing from a nearby semi-trailer.

They quickly sprang into action. Joanne crawled under the semi-trailer, where a mother cat and six kittens were using a wheel well as their home; Vincent and Regan helped corral the kittens in a box; and some leftover turkey bacon from Kim’s lunch provided a quick meal for a hungry mother cat.

“We just want to nurture everyone and everything,” said Regan Davison. Or as their colleague Susan Palacios, an ELL teacher at Jackson Elementary School, noted: “It made me think of how our love for little ones stretches beyond the classroom – and humans.”

The teachers got the mother cat and her six kittens safely delivered to the Animal Rescue League, where they will be up for adoption.