Familiar Face Leading New Team in District 68

There are several new faces taking over administrative positions in  this fall.

New Superintendent Cathy Skinner is not one of them.

It will be the eighth year in the district for Skinner, who previously served as the district’s assistant superintendent of personnel for seven years.

“The position really led up to be superintendent,” Skinner said. “I worked with all the facets of the district, from the personnel part, hiring, teachers, evaluating staff, discipline at the schools and working with the principals.”

After Skinner was selected to be the district’s next superintendent, she had a year and a half to become acclimated to the position. She worked closely with former Superintendent Jerry Brendel.

“I appreciated the time, working and watching him,” she said.

“I really filled in for him. I went with him to meetings and built relationships early on with others … I’m really thankful and very fortunate to follow somebody like Jerry Brendel. He was such a good superintendent.”

Skinner officially became superintendent July 1. That’s when the district’s two new principals, two new assistant superintendents and the new associate principal and dean at  also started their new jobs.

Considering the new faces in the district’s administration and her first year as superintendent, Skinner said she does not plan to make many changes this year.

“We’re really putting a new team together,” she said.

“Everyone is learning new roles … When I interviewed with the school board, I said the worst thing you can do is go in and change everything the first year. You need to be in the position and see what’s going on, see it from a different lens.”

Before , Skinner was the director of human resources at School District U-46 in Elgin, where she worked for 23 years. It became a goal of hers in 2002 to become a superintendent, so she went back to school and received her superintendent certificate from Western Illinois University.

She was very picky where she applied.

“I really only applied here,” Skinner said. “I wanted somewhere with a good reputation, somewhere that really did everything for the good of the students.”

Her focus this year will include district finances, supporting the district’s new administrative team and achieving goals from the district’s new strategic plan, she said.

Former Superintendent Jerry Brendel was a guru of finances, Skinner said. He knew “exactly where to take the district” once its last referendum passed in 2003, she said.

“One of my major goals is to keep this district in financial stability,” Skinner said. “He left it that way. I want to keep it that way.”

The district’s five-year strategic planning includes broader goals and more specific objectives under the categories of curriculum and instruction, technology, personnel, communication and finance.

Some highlights: an audit of the district’s communication (both with parents and with the community), a study of the diversity of the district’s teaching staff and a review of the district’s food service program.

Skinner said while she works with the district and school board in achieving these goals, her bottom line will be to focus on students and student learning.

“We can always get better at what we’re doing,” she said.