While Chicago’s South Side is an area buzzing with history and culture, there is one local gem hidden among the hustle and bustle: Comfort Agboola. At Edgar Allan Poe Classical Elementary School, Agboola serves as a 6-8 reading, English language arts (ELA) and math teacher. An avid writer herself, Agboola’s passion bleeds into the classroom — providing project-based educational opportunities that ignite a love of learning among students. In her classroom, students explore their creativity in the living room, library, or publishing area; a space supplied with typewriters. While learning about typewriter mechanics, upkeep and history, students truly get “hands-on” when using the devices to practice spelling or respond to writing prompts. Agboola emphasizes the importance of storytelling by empowering students to explore personal narratives through written essays, presentations and “open mics.” Providing relatable, interest-driven curriculum, Agboola teaches financial literacy using a classroom economy system, where students earn and manage their own “money” (tokens) by doing classroom jobs, filing taxes, balancing checkbooks and performing online banking. Agboola’s work has contributed greatly to the success of her students, resulting in significant growth on NWEA and IAR assessments year after year.
Serving on Poe’s Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) and Leader in Me Lighthouse Team, Agboola’s rich instructional knowledge allows her to provide walk-throughs and share feedback on teaching strategies. As the middle school lead teacher, she acts as both a leader and mentor – coaching new colleagues, leading student progress meetings and updating handbooks and discipline procedures. Agboola is committed to fostering professional development, often attending or presenting at conferences, then circling back to host virtual workshops for her Poe colleagues. She also shares her expertise at the district level as a teacher leader under Poe’s Network 13. Agboola has partnerships with the Pulitzer Center and the Chicago Poetry Center, while participating in several professional organizations such as the Illinois Writing Project and National Council of Teachers of English. Additionally, Agboola offers coaching services, workshops and tutoring in the community.
Students flourish under Agboola’s guidance — some going on to submit writings for publication and participate in the citywide spelling bee. Agboola has helped to provide students with unique opportunities to extend learning outside of the classroom over the years: A “tech day” collaboration with Microsoft, a podcasting club to build students’ speaking and writing skills, debate club, and Model UN.
Agboola earned a Bachelor of Science in elementary education from DePaul University in 2008 and a Master of Arts in psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 2012.
Press release: Chicago Teacher Recognized Nationally as Illinois’ Sole $25,000 Milken Educator Award Recipient in 2023-24
SOAR: Educator Recognition Newsletter
