The Evanston/Skokie District 65 School District Wednesday announced the addition of four new administrators, as new superintendent Paul Goren begins to build his headquarters team.
Two of the new members—Assistant Superintendent for Schools John Price and Director of Instruction for STEM Jesch Reyes– were introduced to the public Monday night at a meeting of the Math Matters parents group at the Evanston Public Library.
The other two are Chief Strategy Officer Maria Allison and Coordinator of the Rice Children’s Center John Mitchell.
Most recently, Dr. Allison was a colleague of Goren at the Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, where she led the development of a five-year strategic plan.
Before that, she was director of strategy, research, and analytics for the Chicago Public Schools, where she was responsible for building systems to support strategic planning and continuous improvement across the Chief Instruction Office.
Allison also led initiatives around data use, including the development of a K-12 system of early warning indicators, the annual student, teacher, and parent surveys, and the creation of analytic reports on topics such as student discipline, attendance and truancy, and dropout prevention.
Mitchell, as coordinator of the Rice Children’s Center, will direct overall site operations, services, and staff. The school, located at 1101 Washington St., is a therapeutic day school program that provides emotional support and academic opportunities to children who have been unable to succeed in community school settings due to emotional, learning, and behavioral difficulties.
Mitchell served as dean of students and assistant principal of Oak Lawn Hometown Middle School in District 123. He began his tenure there as a school social worker for five years before moving into administration.
Price, the new assistant superintendent for schools, will be responsible for leadership and oversight of all schools, working directly with principals and teachers to manage the overall delivery of curriculum services and instructional improvement.
Previously, he managed a sector of schools for Chicago Public Schools, where he spearheaded a dramatic increase on all five measures of the Chicago Consortium’s 5Essentials School Climate Survey and showed the second highest kindergarten achievement in Chicago on the early childhood literacy assessment.
Price served as principal of Audubon Elementary School in Chicago for five years, leading a successful effort in closing the achievement gap for African-American, Hispanic, and students with special needs.
Reyes, as director of instruction for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), will collaborate with teachers and administrators to coordinate program development and professional development and will work collaboratively to create a vision and strategy for STEM in District 65.
He served as a member of the curriculum development team for the 4th edition of Everyday Mathematics at the University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education.
Previously, Reyes was director of mathematics and science for Chicago Public Schools, where he led departmental staff to define district instructional expectations and to provide guidance and support services allowing all students to have access to high quality math and science education.
Welcome Shake Up!
I am glad that Dr. Goren is purging the remnants of Hardy Murphy's regime. Please tell me the appointment of Mr. Reyes means that some staffers are also gone (or neutralized).
Sense of Urgency
Dr. Goren is off to a fast start and appears to be leading and managing D65 with a sense of urgency.
The 2014/2015 school year starts Monday August 25th, and after listening to Dr. Goren earlier this week at the library to discuss D65 math curriculum I'm impressed with him and John Price and Jesch Reyes who also attended.
Hopefully Dr. Allison and Mr. Mitchell are equally talented.
I'm optimistic and hopeful that Dr. Goren will re-energize and bring constructive change to D65.
The stakes are high and there's no time to waste.
While I am glad to see that
While I am glad to see that there is now a single Asst. Superintendent instead of two, I am wary of other new administrative positions being created and three people being hired from CPS for top positions unless they were part of a competitive process. I am confused as to why there is a STEM coordinator in addition to math and science coordinators.Who is tending to issues related to literacy? Hopefully Dr. Goren is doing his homework on the current set up before creating a new one. It would be helpful if the district website reflected these changes. This latest reorganization (after many before it) must be confusing and unsettling to the current staff.
Got an ‘itch’—create a position
As has been well document, part of the high cost of college education is that administrations bow to every request of students. Want a fancy dorm, new student union, fancy sports facilities, new majors [with one or two students] that require additional faculty, etc.. Sure [but we won't tell you the increaded cost for tuition, R&B, fees].
Most hidden [though it should be obvious] is a new S.V.P., and VPs and managers, and offices and committees and reports, for every need students [or administrators want to up their budget and pad their resume] bring up. I suspect the K-12 in Evanston suffer from this—create new positions and hope it solves the problem rather than understanding the problem and using current resources properly. Result ? Higher budgets, failures and creating new positions [and hiring consultants] to fix the problems even if the problem was imagined or common sense [inexpensive] solutions were available.