Madison teacher's impact fondly recalled

Ted Widerski, who taught math at La Follette and worked with gifted students across the district, passed away last month

Tamira Madsen  —  7/09/2008 7:41 am

In his job as an educator, Ted Widerski left an indelible imprint on the lives of many Madison Metropolitan School District students.

Friends and family are remembering Widerski as an exemplary teacher and person as they come to terms with his unexpected death at age 56 on June 29. Widerski suffered a massive heart attack at his Cambridge home.

Widerski was so influential to Bailey Wundrow during her prep years at La Follette High School that she followed in his footsteps and became a math teacher.

Besides being Wundrow's homeroom teacher for four years, Widerski laid a strong foundation for Wundrow with math as she prepared to pursue an education degree at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wundrow, a 2002 La Follette graduate, recently completed her second year teaching math at Verona High School. She said Widerski set an example she wanted to follow.

"He enjoyed what he did every day," Wundrow said. "He sold me on that end of teaching. He wrote me a letter of recommendation for (UW) Madison and I told him I wanted to teach. He always joked, 'I'll wait and when I retire and you graduate, you can have my job.' "

Widerski got a bachelor's degree in 1973 from UW-Madison and received a master's degree in math education from UW-Milwaukee in 1976. He taught in Green Bay and Waterloo and eventually became a school principal in Waterloo before starting in Madison 12 years ago.

Widerski taught at La Follette for seven years and joined the school district's Talented and Gifted (TAG) program three years ago as a resource teacher. Widerski oversaw programming for talented students at the middle and high school levels.

He also was instrumental in creating the district's first MathFests, events that gave students the opportunity to compete individually and in groups to decipher math problems.

Welda Simousek, who will retire in August as coordinator of the Talented and Gifted program, said her staff will create a fund in Widerski's name so the MathFest competition can be held on an annual basis.

Widerski also created a program called Growing Each Math Student for exceptional students, who got together several times a week to discuss math.

"The team really relied on him a lot and we laughingly always referred to it as Ted's TAG team because he had such an influence," Simousek said.

"He would not let anything stop him from matching and meeting a kid's needs. He would just keep on going until he got a yes for an answer or an avenue opened up for kids. He just worked really, really hard at that."

Despite the fact that he came to the Talented and Gifted program with a background of teaching older students, Simousek said Widerski easily handled the needs of students at all age levels. And his ability to listen and talk to parents was also helpful.

"Ted came to us with this secondary knowledge and this ability of working with high school kids, but he worked with kids as young as kindergarten when he was with us," Simousek said. "And he worked with them well and really related to the kids.

"He made every kid feel better about themselves. One of the things he shared with us was the ability to look at kids that way."

Widerski's death comes a little more than five years after La Follette lost another active teacher. Math teacher Christina Stafslien, 27, died of a coronary arrhythmia in May 2003 when Widerski was chairman of the math department.

Assembled a winning team

La Follette Principal Joe Gothard said Widerski's lasting legacy at La Follette was hiring a strong crop of teachers for the math department, with many of those people still on staff.

Gothard said much like Widerski, the teachers are committed to providing the best educational opportunities for children.

"I think people in education get a great deal of respect when you know that their decisions are based on kids and what is the best thing for kids," Gothard said. "That isn't always the case. You'd think in education that it always is, but Ted certainly embodied that with all of his decisions with his advocacy for both staff and kids."

Former La Follette principal Mike Meissen said Widerski, in addition to pushing through improvements with math curricula, implemented after-school and tutoring sessions within the department that were adopted by other department heads in the school. He said because of Widerski's enthusiasm and approach to education, an unprecedented number of La Follette students studied calculus at second- and third-year levels.

"He understood that his support for quality and innovation was transferable schoolwide," said Meissen, who worked at La Follette for 14 years before leaving in 2006. "He was very much an influential leader in the school at my time."

"He had a demeanor and rapport with students that was of a can-do spirit and I think that is something he believed and practiced, and as a consequence, students and the department really flourished."

The memorial service for Widerski took place July 3. Survivors include his wife, Jennifer Fagan, and four children and stepchildren.

The family said in his obituary that donations may be sent to Grace Lutheran Church in Cambridge, the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (433 West Washington Ave., Madison, WI 53703) or the Greater Dane County Talented and Gifted Network (900 E. Garfield, Mount Horeb, WI 53572).

Tamira Madsen  —  7/09/2008 7:41 am