Professional Development Updates
Education, Innovation, & Service Center
Will County Regional Office of Education
Dr. Lisa Caparelli-Ruff, Regional Superintendent
Education, Innovation, & Service Center
Heather Siegel-Hickman, Ed.D.
Director of Professional Development
hsiegel-hickman@willroe.org * 815.630.3103
Jun 25, 2026 10 - 11:30 * ONLINE 🧑💻🖥️
This session focuses on clarifying exactly where we want students to go and how to sequence learning to get them there.
Jul 20, 2026 10 - 11:30 * ONLINE 🧑💻🖥️
Teacher Clarity: Where Are We and How Do We Move Forward?
This session focuses on clarity of expectations, explanations, and examples in learning experiences.
Latina Leadership Lessons: Fifty Latinas Speak
This asynchronous book study allows educators to read and reflect on leadership, explore its applications in life, community, and work, and apply their insights to their own educational leadership and their work with other leaders. It also provides an opportunity to learn from female leaders with diverse experiences and backgrounds, including racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
Whether you lead a classroom, a team, a department, a school, or a district, this book study offers practical opportunities to strengthen your capacity, reflect on your influence, and consider how leadership shapes school culture, collaboration, and student success.
Click here to register.
This course (AA 3996) is designed to take school leaders on a deep dive into their current MTSS culture and practices. Leaders will learn how to analyze specific data to determine the current health of their MTSS culture. This workshop will strengthen educational leaders' ability to identify gaps within MTSS structures and workflows. Once the current MTSS status is determined, leaders will learn how to plan for and implement processes and protocols that will maintain a consistent, healthy, and thriving MTSS culture. This course encourages leaders to establish and memorialize healthy traditions that will enhance their MTSS culture, empowers and equips them to make data driven decisions that create and or enhance the MTSS culture on their campus(es), and meets the needs of the entire school community.
Click here to register.
Facing Nine Hidden Challenges of the Most Anxious Population
AA 3908
Don't let the title of this book fool you. The lessons in Generation Z Unfiltered apply to all generations, and this academy lets you work at your own pace and on your own time.
Reflect on leadership in the context of Generation Z and develop an action plan to lead at the school or district level for all generations. This Administrator Academy uses a book study approach to frame reflection, discussions, and planning. Participants will:
- Identify and evaluate the effect of generational differences on leadership.
- Apply the model PROVE (Problem, Relationships, Ownership, Visuals, and Experience) to build coaching capacity.
- Create an action plan to address working with all generations as a leader.
Click here to register.
Married... with Children
Dead to Me
How do you know Christina Applegate? Do you know her from Married... with Children, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Bad Moms, or Dead to Me? Those are classics. There were, of course, some less-classic roles as well.
You With the Sad Eyes is Applegate's memoir, sharing who she really is. I won't tell you who that is because it would give away the book, but I will tell you this: she is not Christina Applegate. She tells readers that early in the memoir.
Drawing from journals and memories, Applegate shares her experiences with abuse, body image, resilience, and survival. Her writing is honest, relatable, and encouraging. More than anything, the book reminded me how little we know about other people's lives, even the people we feel like we know because we see so much of them through the media.
I recommend the audiobook of this one as it is read by the author.
"In an Instagram reel posted to her account on Tuesday, May 26, the athlete and content creator pointed out that living life is what it’s all about, not what your body looks like as a result of it" (Cara O'Bleness).
Special Dates to Hold:
- October 26, 2026 - Paraprofessional and Support Staff Learning Day
- February 26, 2027 - Beyond the Core Professional Learning Day (focuses on educators of non-core content areas: Theatre, Art, Music, PE, Health, CTE and more)