“Employees are your most valuable assets. They are the heart and guts of a company.” – Carlos Ghosn
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
It is recruiting season in education right now! In the Deerfield Public Schools, District 109, we’re proud of the rich and diverse history of our century and a half legacy of public, community education. We take great pride in showcasing the work of our students, staff, leadership team, board of education, and community.
If you are looking for a place to work, we’re among the top rated employers – at last count, 94% of our nearly 500 employees indicated we are a great place to work. It takes relationships, trust, cooperation, communication, strong culture, and pride.
Take a few minutes to check out one of our award winning videos sharing what it is that we value in our public school system. If you are interested in employment, visit the Department of Human Resources Web Pages.
American Education Week—November 14-18, 2016—will present all Americans with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate public education and honor individuals who are making a difference in ensuring that every child receives a quality education.
2016’s theme, “Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility,” was reflected in special observances each day of the 2016 weeklong celebration:
Monday, November 14, 2016: Kickoff Day
Tuesday, November 15, 2016: Parents Day
Wednesday, November 16, 2016: Education Support Professionals Day
Thursday, November 17, 2016: Educator for a Day
Friday, November 18, 2016: Substitute Educators Day
In the Deerfield Public Schools District 109 we like to honor, celebrate, and encourage all members of the district, teachers, support staff, administrators, board members, students, parents, business partners, etc. It’s nice to have formal days/weeks like the American Education Week because we also get an additional excuse to say Thank you!
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
We are proud to “brand” and “tell our stories” every day through multiple media sources including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN; we are especially proud to share via the district hashtag: #Engage109 The stories of excellence are found in the classrooms, training rooms, boar rooms, and all over our community.
We have been in “business” since 1847 and we have no plans to stop providing world class educational opportunities for all children. Our award winning schools, teachers, administrators, learning spaces, and district continue to inspire us to work harder, lead stronger, and excel in every way possible.
This week we will give each and every employee a “high five” as a thank you and as our continued gratitude and appreciation for the selfless, innovative, and engaging work they provide for children every day! Horace Mann is credited with stating:
Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
In our school system we are focused on meeting the needs of all children and making certain that all children deserve and are capable of an education that is meaningful, engaging, relevant, and purposeful.
Please join us in saying THANK YOU to our educators during
American Education Week.
Engage, Inspire, Empower
Also this week:
From a good friend and co-worker:
“Ironically, while we celebrate another year of life for [my husband], the world prepares to celebrate World Pancreatic Cancer Day, which will take place next week on November 17th. In celebration of [his] inspiring battle with cancer, please consider supporting an organization that funds research for Pancreatic Cancer. Contributions from these organizations played a major role in funding research that led to [his] treatment. Imagine a day when pancreatic cancer is detected early enough that survival rates improve dramatically.”
In his weekly newsletter, Dr. Tony Smith, the Illinois State Superintendent listed the 16 Illinois schools who won – of the 329 schools in the United States, 16 hail from our state, 10 from our county and 2 from our district. It truly takes a village and we are so proud of the efforts of the school communities, parents, business members, students, support staff, teachers, administrators and our Board of Education!
Please take a few minutes to listen to Secretary King make the announcement in the video clip. We are grateful to him for his acknowledgement of all of the educational excellence, as well as his special shout out to the Walden School Girls/STEM Lunch N Learn program that emerged from the Superintendent’s Task Force on Middle Level Education and was organized and run by parents at Walden!
We are quite fortunate in Deerfield (most of Riverwoods and some of Highland Park, IL) to have parents and community members who value education. We are quite fortunate to have powerful partnerships with the police, fire, village, public works, park district, library, township, and all local governments. We are quite proud of the pride and engagement in our schools from our award winning teaching staff, amazing administrators, and visionary members of the Board of Education.
While the awards are bestowed upon two of our schools, the celebration and credit and excitement belongs to the entire school district community.
Last year I had a life-changing, impactful experience helping change the situation for people in the Dominican Republic on the LifeTouch 2016 Memory Mission Trip. I and many others had the honor of helping to build a school for people in an area where none had existed (beyond 4th grade). That school is almost open! That school is just about to change the equation for life and culture and society forever. I was able to see, hear, and feel what change is. I was able to be part of something way larger than me! I am still humbled at the fact I was able to serve so many in such an impactful and meaningful way.
For the past quarter century I have been fortunate to engage in public education. I’ve been a teacher (in both English and Spanish), a social studies coordinator, an associate principal, a principal, an assistant superintendent; and now as a superintendent I serve.
I and my colleagues have dedicated our lives and professional careers serving children, teachers, and communities. We study, we read, we experience reality in the classrooms, we know what needs to be done! What we don’t know we learn – what we don’t understand we figure out – what we know is that “zip code based educational practices are unfair”.
The old state house in Boston, MA. The balcony is where the Declaration of Independence was read publicly in 1776 and 1976.
Our nation was founded on the principles that all men are created equal – well it’s time for all schools to be brought up to the highest of standards and results so all educational opportunities can be equal – level up is what I believe – rigor is what I believe – meaningful, viable, and differentiated curriculum is what I believe!
I’m proud of the many innovations in District 109! I’m proud of the courage of the public, Board, leadership team, teachers, students, partners, and everyone with whom we work in making a new reality for our local public education. Over the past four years we have changed more than perhaps had changed in the preceding 50 years. As a result, we now have the best learning spaces in many of our schools – we select the best teachers in all of our schools – and clearly we have an abundance of resources in all of our schools!
Our reality in Deerfield is such that we can change, innovate and improve for the future.
We must – it’s a sense of urgency in Deerfield as well as all over the nation. Thank you for your continued interest in our story and the support for our continued “Challenge the Process” attitude.
In order to stay up to date we join professional organizations, we study the latest research and train our staff to implement evidence based practices, and we share what we have tried, what has failed, our learnings from that which we tried again, and stories of how we have suceceeded.
One modern source of inspiration is TED talks. Please take the time to listen to courageous and successful leader Dr. Geoff Canada.
This TED Talk from Dr. Geoffrey Canada is a “must watch” and then a “must act” video message – as Canada says, we must REFUSE to let any child fail!
Why you should listen
Geoffrey Canada grew up in an impoverished neighborhood in the South Bronx, with a mother who believed deeply in education. So upon getting his degree from Bowdoin College and continuing on to a masters in education from Harvard, Canada dedicated himself to working with kids in poor neighborhoods. In 1983, he accepted a position at the Rheedlen Institute in Harlem as education director. Seven years later, he became president and renamed it the Harlem Children’s Zone.
While the Harlem Children’s Zone started out focusing on a single block — West 119th Street — it has since expanded exponentially. It now encompasses more than 100 square blocks and serves an estimated 10,000 children, providing pre-kindergarten care, after-school programs, health care, college planning and classes for soon-to-be-parents.
Meanwhile, Canada has become known nationally for his work, appearing on shows as diverse as Oprah and This American Life. The recipient of the first Heinz Award in 1994, Canada was named one of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News and World Report in 2005 and, in 2011, he was listed as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Both Canada and Harlem Children’s Zone figured prominently in the 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman. And President Barack Obama’s Promise Neighborhoods program was modeled after HCZ, offering grants to programs in 21 cities across the country to try and emulate its success.
So now what are we going to do about this?
As always, I welcome your comments, suggestions, ideas, and conversation!
In District 109 we are engaged in Strategic Planning right now. Working with national expert ECRA Group we have held focus groups with stakeholders, interviews with Board members, and a survey is forthcoming.
I hope every member of the DPS109 community takes the time to complete the survey. We’re seeking the input of our community – it is a cooperative endeavor to run public schools. Looking forward to the next few years in our district I am confident that the innovations, change process, and overall improvements will leave a lasting legacy for decades to come!
“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change.” – Unknown
In the Deerfield Public Schools we have enjoyed three full years change, growth, progress and joy. We credit our Board of Education for their effective and impactful governance and vision, teacher and student and administrator collaboration and innovation, and community support!
In this blog post I am sharing an article that two Deerfield Public Schools District 109 principals and I co-wrote and was published by a national principal organization.
Your comments are always welcome!
The following article was Published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, NASSP, in their journal, Principal Leadership
How one school district used a holistic approach to produce a dozen award-winning science labs
As principals move from No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds era, the traditional school improvement model that narrowly targeted student achievement is no longer standard operating procedure. In our district, we have broadened our view of school improvement, and the results have been dramatic—we’ve redesigned middle school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning spaces and curricula.
We accomplished this by using a holistic school improvement planning process that utilized the power and collective capacity of student, staff, parent, and community voice. Working under an intensive, two-year Plan-Do-Study-Act process, principal leadership transformed student learning and school facilities for decades to come. For example, we now have 12 award-winning science labs available to all students in grades 6 through 8.
Potent Process
In 2013, Deerfield Public Schools District 109 embarked on a new format for school improvement planning. Rather than form a team of staff to focus narrowly on measures of student achievement—as had been the model in Illinois and across the nation for many years—we took steps to gather a large group of constituent stakeholders. One hundred and forty staff, parents, students, and community members came together to research areas for improvement. The Superintendent’s Task Force for Middle Level Education reviewed middle school education in six broad areas: fine arts, STEM, exploratories, world languages, gifted programming, and social emotional learning.
Each subcommittee of the task force was chaired by a middle school building administrator, and subcommittee membership comprised balanced representation among constituent group members. Subcommittees were encouraged to think and dream big. The task for each group was not to focus on incremental improvement, but rather to develop audacious goals for improved student learning experiences that reflected their vision for contemporary education. One student put it best when she stated it was her opportunity to, “share my ideas in order to make things work.”
One specific goal that emerged was the redevelopment of the middle school STEM experience. Principal facilitators educated the 27-member STEM task force subcommittee on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Common Core State Standards. The group studied and engaged in dialogue about current realities and future projections. The national and international need for improved science education was identified, and opportunities in STEM employment fields were discussed. With the United States underperforming in STEM education, and the unfilled STEM job gap growing, the committee felt it was incumbent on the school district to act.
The subcommittee developed a shared vision statement with the help of principal leadership. The shared vision was for “District 109 to lead the state in developing innovative and inspired thinkers and problem solvers.” To achieve that vision, the group set a goal to rewrite the science curriculum and to design new science lab spaces for all middle school students.
Dramatic Design
With the goal of developing cutting-edge middle school science facilities and curriculum, a team of science teachers and principals were selected to work with the district’s architects. The design phase was unique for two reasons: First, the curriculum that would be delivered in the space was still in development; and, second, the end users were highly involved in articulating the needs of the labs to the architects.
This design approach was a significant departure for our organization; past construction had focused on architect-directed design to meet established curricular programming. Now, the voice and leadership of the principals was central during all phases of design. The Board of Education and superintendent recognized the need to empower school-based leadership to effect lasting, second-order change.
Because the NGSS-aligned curriculum was not yet complete, the design team emphasized the need for flexibility and design agility in the final layout. What seemed an impediment to effective design emerged as a strength. The completed learning spaces would need to remain pliable: They had to serve the unknown now, and ultimately in the future. Furniture could not be static, the teacher’s mobility could not be constrained to a single demonstration station, the location of wet lab and classroom space could not be restrictive. The space needed to be versatile enough to allow for innovation now and in the future.
Design highlights of the completed space include:
Mobile student seating and lab stations
Movable walls
Three points of projection throughout the room for students to see teacher- or student-presented material
Networked monitors at each lab station for use of science-specific software, and to allow students to see teacher lab demonstrations from a demonstration camera
Green-energy technology (wind turbines, solar, rain collection) with real-time consumption and energy generation available to students via a web-based dashboard
Real-time weather monitoring
Birdhouses with live camera feeds into the classroom
Design continued into construction, and construction of the 12 labs was split into two phases. Phase one took part in the oldest and smallest of the four labs during the summer of 2014, and the remaining eight labs were completed in 2015. This provided an opportunity for the phase two labs to be further improved by soliciting feedback from students and staff that experienced learning in the completed phase one labs.
Rewarding Results
Every square centimeter of space in the science labs and classrooms is available for learning, as defined by our current needs, but the spaces are also available for the learning of tomorrow. The labs won the Learning by Design award for “Outstanding Project” in spring 2016, as well as an “Award of Merit” for the Exhibition of Educational Environments Awards at the Joint Annual Conference of the Illinois Association of School Boards, the Illinois Association of School Administrators, and the Illinois Association of School Business Officials in 2015. In addition, the leadership team for the task force earned a 2014 “Distinguished Service Award of Excellence” from the Illinois Chapter of the National School Public Relations Association. Students, staff, parents, and visiting dignitaries-including the governor of Illinois and Illinois state superintendent of education-have raved about the capabilities of the new labs. One parent working in a STEM field went so far as to say the labs rivaled the capabilities of his work environment.
While we have enjoyed the positive feedback, the challenge we now face is how to measure the return on investment. Our board of education authorized nearly $10 million in support of these projects, and like leaders in other districts, we’re challenged to substantiate the benefit such work yields for the students in our care. We believe the answer to this challenge is to reinvest in the process—by engaging stakeholders in the meaningful study of student outcomes associated with the labs and redesigned instruction and examining again the research on effective STEM instruction.
Brian Bullis, EdD,is the principal at Charles J. Caruso Middle School in Deerfield, IL. John Filippi, EdD, is the principal at Alan B. Shepard Middle School in Deerfield. Michael Lubelfeld, EdD, is the superintendent of schools for Deerfield Public Schools District 109.
Sidebar: Make It Work
Implement a holistic, redesigned STEM program at your school:
Inspire. Motivate teachers, students, and community members to dream big. Lead with data, energy, emotion, and hope. Encourage teams to produce tangible results through dream/do leadership.
Engage. Facilitate stakeholder group planning, review, and implementation recommendations.
Reinvest. Lead analysis of the change process. Encourage stakeholders to benchmark results of change against growth targets, and set goals for continued growth.
truly takes a village and we are so proud of the efforts of the school communities, parents, business members, students, support staff, teachers, administrators and our Board of Education!
I often write about 
How one school district used a holistic approach to produce a dozen award-winning science labs