New Year, Fresh Start for District 113A: Orzel

—Submitted by Dr. Courtney Orzel, Superintendent of Lemont-Bromberek District 113A

Happy New Year from District 113A,

A new year brings new beginnings and provides an opportunity to reflect back on the past year. This past year, District 113A has had a variety of accomplishments and reasons to be proud. Our students continue to be successful academically and involved in a variety of activities outside of the school day. Each of our schools has an excellent staff and dedicated parents who continue to work in partnership on behalf of our students.

Last year, the District 113A Board of Education reviewed and updated the current strategic plan and then outlined a set of Core Values to guide the district’s decision-making going forward. From that point, the Administration created a Future Vision plan which includes student-centered goals focused on the whole child’s learning experience.

Improving community engagement and communications has been a central focus for the district. As a result, we launched a more user-friendly website for our visitors and we hosted a Community Leader breakfast where over 20 community leaders joined us for a short presentation about our vision and tours of our schools and classrooms. Additionally, Senator Christine Radogno visited all three of our schools as well. In the spring, Illinois State Superintendent Tony Smith will be joining us to see the great things happening in District 113A.

Financially, we have continued to be one of the few districts in the state to maintain financial recognition status during these challenging financial times. We have continued to remain fiscally conservative in our approach and will continue to do so as we navigate through the difficulties of the State’s unstable financial situation.

Continuous improvement is a central component of our work in District 113A. Looking forward, we will be engaging in a district-wide system assessment that will allow us to benchmark ourselves against other high performing districts and against standards in a multitude of areas. In mid-January, an external assessment team will visit the district to determine the district’s strengths and areas of improvements in the major areas of learning, collaboration and results. The team will provide a report that will be reviewed and shared with stakeholders. This assessment will inform the district’s strategic plan and future vision process. We look forward to sharing the results with the staff, parents and community to help guide the continuous improvement process in 2016 and beyond.