Superintendent's Update: 8.18.23

August 18, 2023

Dear District 230 Families,

Welcome back to another exciting year at D230! As we embark on the 2023-24 school year, you can feel a sense of enthusiasm and anticipation for all the wonderful experiences that await our students and staff. Whether you are a returning staff member, parent or community member or joining us for the first time, I extend a heartfelt welcome to each and every one of you.

Our Mission Statement - D230 is an interconnected learning community that inspires innovation, empathy, and leadership - drives how we teach, coach, direct, interact, and communicate both during the school day and beyond. We have nearly 35 new staff members who have already learned from our veterans the value of working together, while we remind our students of these vital three skills to be successful in high school and beyond. I am so excited to get going!

As we previously shared, this summer was the busiest construction summer since 2001. We have a huge multi-year expansion project at Stagg High School to add rooms, hallway access, and work/meeting spaces. The goal is to have Phase 1 completed this semester, which will allow our students and staff to start using our new classrooms by the second semester. Phase 2 will begin when possible and should be completed in a year. Additionally, we had major roof work and carpeting replaced at all three buildings, which will not only help aesthetically, but create safer, more comfortable spaces to learn and compete. Finally, our baseball/softball turf renovation at all three campuses is well underway and is on track to be completed over the next six weeks. 

There were other projects as well, such as renovated band/choir rooms at VJA, a new courtyard design at Sandburg, a greenhouse at Andrew, and several others. In addition, we are updating the bells and intercom system, a project long overdue and one that will greatly enhance our system with a keen eye on improving our school safety protocols. This is a multi-phased project that will be completed next year, but multiple steps have begun and will continue throughout the year. Finally, our stadium and main gym sound systems have been significantly improved, which will save money in the long run by avoiding constant repair work to band-aid the current systems and by avoiding renting equipment for major events such as graduation. We wished all these could be complete before students returned, but we are managing the projects well while operating school.

On Tuesday, I was so proud to share with our staff the incredible work of our student, staff, and administrative teams on the development of the Strategic Framework. We are so proud of their efforts and the input from multiple parts of our school community to inform our future direction. I’ve attached a copy of our Framework to this message for your review, but want to highlight a few important points:

• Our Framework is a reflection of where we want to go more than where we are currently at. I’ve asked our teams to be aspirational and future-focused rather than to simply correct or modify our current practices. This Framework is about the current and next generation of D230 students, not the past.

• By design, many of our goals are continued from last year. Deep impact takes time and focus. One year goals generally do not generate a significant improvement to schools.

• Some goals are new, for two reasons. First, a few goals are one year in nature (think low lying fruit analogy). Second, some goals seemed to be where we needed to go a year ago, but our process led us in a different direction. Our Framework should also be responsive and allow us to pivot as needed.

• The Framework is transparent. I believe you treat success and lack of success as learning opportunities, not as rewards and punishments. Of course, we will celebrate success, but it is more important to replicate success. Just the same, we won’t punish lack of success, but rather learn from how we got there to improve in the future. This is how we teach and learn with our kids, so we should model that with our Framework.

I look forward to a great year - a year when we are ready to launch all sorts of incredible opportunities for our students, staff, and school community. I’m honored to enter my third year as this district’s superintendent and am so excited about the potential we have and the future we will create. 

Have a great year!