100 Day Update

Dear District 64 Community,

I hope this letter finds you well. We have had a great beginning to the 23-24 school year! As I pass my first 100 days in this position, I wanted to share what I’ve been doing, experiencing, and thinking about. I am so impressed with the great work of our staff each day. Our students are truly lucky to have them. Your students have been heartwarming, brilliant, and hilarious. They will go on to do great things and they’re reflections of our strong parental and community network.

This email serves two purposes: to update you on my transition and to update you on our safety meetings/work (I apologize for the length).

• I've been in each school many times thus far, and I'll start being more present in classrooms in the coming weeks. This includes an in-depth look into our facilities with our maintenance teams.
• I've met with many local officials and area leaders to help understand our District's connection to our greater community. Our family had a great time at the Kiwanis pancake breakfast!
• Your PTOs are AMAZING. The back-to-school bashes and other events have been awesome. I’ve been a guest at a few meetings and look forward to visiting with the remaining ones soon.
• I meet regularly with a representative group of parents from each school that acts as a parent transition team. They help me figure out how to craft messages, prioritize initiatives, and provide feedback.
• Internally, I’ve been working with our Cabinet team on our internal controls and communications and codifying our work.
• I’m constantly working on supporting our board members in their work and improving communications with them to help their decision-making.
• We began "Beans, Brew, and Ben," a community coffee series where we talk about what's happening in the schools. The schedule for upcoming ones is here. Thanks to Chris Lilly for the branding idea!
• Parent University is back, and we hope you can join us next week at our first event.
• My entry plan is available on our website (it's a rough estimate of what I can do, so it's not a "hard" plan).
• I’ve attended many Superintendent training experiences, mostly focused on finances, policy, legal matters, and safety protocols.

• My main focus has been and will continue to be on our safety protocols. We have a district safety team that is working to update our School Emergency Operations and Crisis Response Plan and potentially identify some newer training programs for our staff. I will have more to share in the future, and it’s where I’m spending the greatest amount of time. We want our students and staff to be as safe as possible at all times.
• We are having ongoing conversations about the state of our district, how it’s organized, and where we want to leverage our budget to meet needs. Long-term financial projections that include holistic examinations of our programs have begun. Education needs to be constantly updated so our students are set up for future success, and we always balance that with our fiscal commitment to our taxpayers.
• We have a large strategic plan, and our administrative team has made some adjustments to better complete items in the plan (safety protocols) and prioritize our work moving forward. We also want to have better benchmarking across our organization so we can learn how to improve in a more effective manner.
• I’m excited for the student meetings in the future! I can’t wait to hear what they want from school.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve this community as your Superintendent. I am in awe of your commitment to our students and schools. In my own home, my daughter Grace is progressing through Kindergarten, and I think about what you all go through each and every day when your child leaves their house. I drop her off at her before-school program and want her to have a great day at school. I know you all do and want the same for your children.

I will have more updates on my transition throughout the year. I hope this brief overview was helpful.

Take care,

Ben

Our Parent University returns on October 18th!

Join us for this free event with Dr. Justin Patchin, who is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. Dr. Patchin travels the country and talks with students, educators, and parents about how to safely navigate social media and prevent the misuse of technology.

Parents in the community are welcome to come to Dr. Patchin’s presentation on Wednesday, October 18th, at 6:00 pm in the Hendee Rooms (Jefferson School -8200 Greendale Ave Niles, IL 60714).

If you plan on coming, please RSVP here.