Rudy Hernandez, District 99 Superintendent of Schools, has laid out five goals to achieve academic and professional growth throughout the school system for the school year. Each goal is focused on taking the district to a new level of achievement, Hernandez said, and are all achievable.
“At the start of the year, I told my staff that we would be taking our district to the top,” Hernandez said. “This is a challenge that I am confident we can tackle.”
The first goal involved engaging with professional learning communities to improve the collaboration between teachers and administrators.
“I want our teachers and administrators to work together on the assessment of monitoring instruction, and develop curriculum to provide additional academic support and enrichment,” he said.
The next goal has been one in the making for a couple of years, having Warren Park School ready to be operational for a full-day kindergarten program by the 2016-2017 school year.
The third goal, according to Hernandez, is to bring a one-to-one program to the district.
“This means that every child will receive a device that they can take home to build on their reading, writing, math, science and other educational skills,” he said in describing the need to enhance instruction and learning for all students.
The penultimate goal is to continue the atriculation with the high school in order to have alignment and establish a solid K-12 curriculum throughout the district, the superintendent stated.
And the last goal is to “continue building after school programs for academic support, social development, and have more engagement with sports and the arts,” he said. “Academic learning centers will be put in place to achieve this goal.”
By continuing the work with Cicero Town President Larry Dominick, District 99 aims to expand the after school offerings as well as bolster the current programs, such as the reading program. Hernandez also pointed to the partnership with the Chicago Fire soccer club to run soccer clinics in all of the district’s schools as a program worth continuing and growing, with the ultimate goal to have a District 99 league.
“We are looking forward to all of the achievements in the District and I am confident that together we will reach our goals,” Hernandez said.
