Spring is a time of renewal in the beautiful forest preserves and lakefronts we are blessed with in our communities. In our schools, it is a time when our staff keep two questions running in their heads as they approach their work: 1. How can we support every student’s success to ensure they have a great culmination to the school year?, and 2. What goals can we identify as the most important priorities for our planning in order to be ready to hit the ground running in August?
Here Community High School District #117, we are excited to tackle the second question by conducting a review and revision of our strategic plan this spring with a large coalition that will include current students, families, and staff. We are also going beyond our current students and staff to reach out to businesses in the community, our partners in higher education, community organizations, alumni, and our counterpart elementary school districts to ensure that this coalition represents diverse interests from throughout the community.
Including a broad representation of members from different life and career paths will be important, as we plan to add to our current mission (“ignite passion and discovery in every student”) by developing a new “Portrait of a D117 Graduate” that will identify the most important competencies our community wants all of our graduates to possess when they leave our schools. This portrait of a graduate will serve as the north star for our continuous improvement work as a district in the years to come.
We are excited to convene this coalition for a series of meetings beginning in early March. If you missed our call for volunteers in February and are interested in still getting included in the group before we begin, please email me as soon as possible at jeff.feucht@chsd117.org and we will include you as our capacity allows.
Jeff Feucht, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Community High School District 117
