New Whitnall High Principal no Stranger to District

Being responsible — directly or not — for a couple hundred teenagers’ education on a daily basis is not necessarily what will challenge Jackie Winter the most this fall.

After all, Winter, the new principal, knows the ins and outs of the district, having been a teacher or administrator at various levels since 1997.

But throw in the , the opening of the high school’s and her duties at home — she’s the mother of two children under 2 years old — and it's a challenge just keeping everything straight these days.

“I keep a lot of lists of what needs to be done,” Winter joked when asked how her transition to her new position was going. “I’m trying to stay a couple days ahead.”

Winter replaced former principal Anthony Brazouski on Aug. 13 after Brazouski was promoted to the role of Chief Academic Officer.

For Winter, it was the next logical step in her 15-year Whitnall career. She started as a special education teacher at Hales Corners Elementary School, and after one year, held the same position at the Middle School until 2006. Since then, she’s been the assistant principal at the high school.

2012 and beyond

Knowing the district’s history has played a role in what has been a smooth transition so far, as has still having Brazouski around.

“I think it would have been difficult for someone from outside to step in and know about everything that was going on,” she said.

“Tony did a really good job of setting up the framework for the teachers to operate in and I think that with (his) curriculum position it gives us an opportunity to spread what we had going at the high school.”

Winter said high school teachers will use their new late starts one Wednesday each month pairing up with colleagues from other departments, finding out what they do in common and how they can work with one another to align what students are being taught and when.

“That’s our next big phase of what we’re trying to do,” she said.

That and keeping in mind what students are preparing for post-high school.

“Whatever their post-secondary options are going to be, are we making sure we’re providing programming that aligns to that?” Winter said. “We made a ton of progress in increasing the number of AP classes that we’re offering … and if they’re not going to a four-year school, are they prepared? Are we meeting what they are looking for?”

Replacing Winter as assistant principal is Rob Kreil, formerly of the Mukwonago School District where he was a teacher and part-time assistant principal.

District's new 'Chief'

As for Brazouski, he is the district’s new curriculum instruction director with some assistant superintendent duties. After three years as the high school’s principal, he is now responsible for creating a unified vision or approach to teaching throughout the district from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

The position of Chief Academic Officer is new; a similar position was eliminated from the district three years ago as the district reduced spending.

"Since then, all the building principals had our own focus and were doing the right thing, but there was no real overarching K-12 continuum that said, 'how does this line up with everything else?'" Brazouski said. "What I always say is, what we have to figure out, is how do we move from being a system of schools to a school system?"

And just how does the district do that? Brazouski said the first focus should be literacy. He’s already working with the principals at both elementary schools on K-5 reading goals, and will then shift his focus to the middle and high schools.

“After that, how do we put all that together?” he said.

Prior to becoming the high school principal, Brazouski was an assistant principal in Waukesha and an English teacher in South Milwaukee.