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Tag Archives: Welcome
Welcome Back to 2019 – Superintendent Speech – #112Leads
“Notice every step forward and take advantage of each small success.”
– Deepak Chopra
Superintendent’s Welcome Back Message to All Staff:
The opening day of a school year is an exciting time for reuniting old friends, new friends, colleagues, thought partners, and more. All of our hopes and dreams are upbeat and positive on the first days of school — our challenge is to keep this positive vibe every day!
The superintendent of schools takes great pride in welcoming all staff in the back to school institute! I’m proud of our teachers, educational support staff, administrators, Board members, community, parents, and students. In my opening remarks today I shared our “why”, our “how”, and our “what”, please see slides linked here. (this link will open a new window and you’ll need to click to advance each slide if desired)
This school year we have many important initiatives on the horizon that present exciting opportunities and challenges. These big three areas of focus will represent our district’s “WHY” for the year ahead. Learn more about each at www.nssd112.org/BigThree.
The Big Three Focus areas for 2019-2020
Portrait of a Graduate – We “begin with the end in mind” and continue our The Modern Learning Committee’s work on a Portrait of a District 112 Graduate. The Vision for the Modern Learning Committee is to recommend actions for District 112 regarding the integration of technology, professional development, and the skills needed to ensure students are successful. The initiatives that result from the work of the committee are intended to serve as guideposts for all district operations. Developing the Profile of a District 112 Graduate was the major focus during the first four meetings of the committee. The profile characteristics for graduates in District 112 are – Mastery of Grade Level Performance Expectations, Self-directed Learner, Continuous Curiosity, Find and Evaluate Information, Learning and Innovation Skills, Open-minded to Other Perspectives, Positive and Active Citizens. See full descriptions of each of these characteristics.
Closing Achievement Gaps – Student Learning for ALL (special report to the Board on October 1). We are so proud of the impact and initial success of the teaching and learning reforms implemented over the past three years across the District. The department has also been very busy over the past summer working with teachers from across the District to develop curriculum and guides to prepare for the 2019-2020 school year. This included the development of vocabulary to accompany the units of study in middle school language arts; collaboration between Spanish and French teachers for implementation of the new world language resources; work to prioritize Illinois Learning Standards for implementation of the new social studies curriculum resources; Middle School math teachers worked on unit planning and attended the Math Learning Center Leadership Institute; teachers collaborated to develop Music curriculum for grades K-8 curriculum scope and sequence and pacing; and many other areas of professional development and curricular planning.
Facilities Upgrades & Modernization – Continuing the Northwood project and finalizing plans for the Edgewood Middle School modernization as well as ongoing upkeep of all school facilities. This also includes a transition of Northwood students and staff to Northwood Jr. High at Elm Place. Preliminary planning is also underway for a transition of Edgewood students in 2021. Visit www.nssd112.org/LRPConstruction for information regarding the Middle School Modernization Projects.
Welcome to our 24 new teachers! #Engage109
“An organization’s values are its life’s blood.”
– Max DePree
Each year we welcome new teachers into our school family. We share our mission, vision, values, we take them on a tour of the District and the communities we serve and we welcome them into our hearts and 
minds. In DPS109 we have been welcoming quite a few teachers over the past few years, nearly 60 in three years! This year we open our Little Red Schoolhouse and implement a refined and reinvigorated mentor and induction program.
New teachers in DPS109 are selected as part of a rigorous and evidenced based system. I’ve written about this in greater detail before, and here is an excerpt:
Our search for excellence is a regular part of our work. Our high expectations for and of excellence permeate all of our work. Our structured selection instruments/interviews allow us to manage the thousands of active applications in our job application database roias we screen in the applicants with the highest predictive validity metrics. While we search for excellence, we have science to back up the work. With fidelity to our process, with structured selection as well as resume review, essay review and fit interviews with input teams, we can predict, with up to 88% (.88) certainty that our chosen candidate will be excellent in the particular role.
The structured interview helps increase this validity by between .23 and .50 … without scientifically based interview instruments, traditional unstructured selection yields about a 30% (.30) predictive validity.
The slides below were shared with our new teachers today and they represent the hopes and desires we have for our talented new teachers – as well as all teachers and staff.
Welcome new teachers! DPS109 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
Innovation through Change – Superintendent’s Back To School Welcome to Staff
“One of the great ironies in life is that you must be acquainted with reality while not allowing your dream to be shattered.”
– John C. Maxwell, Put Your Dream to the Test
Today is Back to School Day for teachers, support staff, administrators, and adult employees of the DPS109 family. Today we kicked off our official start to the new school year with a gathering at Shepard Middle School. I’m sharing the presentation I used to start the day and to kick off our Engage, Inspire, Empower mission and vision as we begin the District’s 168th year in the business of education. Our public schools are populated with amazing students, staff, and community. We have so much about which to be proud and we have so much for which we are grateful! This year’s theme is 
INNOVATION and with this innovation we have much change. While our Big 5 remain constant, how we implement these Big 5 umbrella areas differs from year’s past.
I is incumbent upon us to educate for the future world our students will lead and live – not for our past. I’m embedding the presentation I used and I encourage, questions, comments, etc. I am a very lucky superintendent of schools and I am proud to share the work of our teachers and staff with the world.
Please contact me and or use the comments feature here if you have any questions or comments about the presentation or any information contained in the slides!