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IASA’s 2023 Illinois Superintendent Of The Year

Caposey ... cont’d.

how can we use the data to make instructional decisions and operational decisions that solve problems and move us forward. Howhaveyou infusedyour districtwith technology? Again, when I arrived 10 years ago, we did not have working email or storage capacity for our teachers. There

the only district in the region whose high school has been recognized six consecutive years by US News and World Report for outstanding academic achievement. Additionally, when we break down schools that have that extended success based on their expenditure per pupil, we are about the lowest funded school in the state that has achieved that success. The second area we care about is getting kids at least one experience with a college level class before they walk across

our stage. The fact that 85 percent of our graduates leave with some successful college credit course is an incredibly important stat to us. Lastly, I believe the best thing we can do is to intervene early when people are struggling. We have a disproportionate emphasis on our K–5 achievement because we believe, if we catch them there, we will have ultimate success. We’re seeing the manifestation of that with dramatic curricular shifts in ELA and math. As the world has talked about learning loss, and all the negative effects of the pandemic, we are

was nothing in terms of a cloud or shared storage drive. We had a lot of work to do. We were able to turn that ship around pretty quickly by partnering with other districts. We did a lot of catch up for about four years and, once we stabilized, we needed to figure out our vision for the future. At that point, we did not have ubiquitous wifi in our buildings let alone ubiquitous wifi in our community. The thought of being 1:1 was contentious and full of debate as to

When the pandemic hit, we were the only district in the region with significant numbers of teachers who were Google certified because we had pushed that direction for a long time.

not in that position. We have sustained and are in a position to grow beyond where we’ve ever been before. That’s a testament to our innovation, our thoughtful and intentional purchasing plans and the hard work of our teachers. What hasyour district done tobetter prepare students for lifeafter graduation? One of the things we found in internal analysis was that we had counselors who were doing incredible work but, as the social emotional needs of kids accelerate, they had much less time to offer guidance with college and career. On top of that, the time they did have typically went toward college preparedness. Fundamentally, we knew that was not

whether it was a sound expenditure. The board supported my recommendation, and we were able to go that direction. When the pandemic hit, and other districts were struggling to figure out what was going on, we were the only district in the region with significant numbers of teachers who were Google certified because we had pushed that direction for a long time. What academic gainshasyour district experiencedunder your leadership? I would say there are three prongs of our academic achievement we’re really proud of. The first is we’re

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