With his anticipated retirement a little over a year away, River Forest School District 90 Superintendent Dr. Ed Condon is giving added focus to the district meeting its remaining 2024-25 school year strategic action objectives.
From Condon’s perspective, the fact that the vast majority of individual activities related to seven strategic objectives have been completed or are near completion speaks to his belief that the district’s collaborative approach was effective.
“We develop our goals with administrators, teacher leaders and other key contributors at the table,” Condon said. “This helps us set goals that are well-defined and collectively owned, which strengthens our ability to follow through and deliver meaningful results.”
Objective No. 2 was launching a D90 literacy pilot and curriculum adoption. Within that objective were 10 action steps, eight of which were achieved. That included actual conduct and completion of the literacy pilot; adoption and implementation planning of new core resources for K-8; initial professional learning; and developing a literacy implementation plan to support teachers, which was headed by Dr. Christine Trendel, district director of curriculum and instruction, and a team of instructional specialists.
Trendel said during fall 2024, teachers in lower grades began instruction with the Fundations program to support foundational literacy skills like phonics, decoding, handwriting and spelling. In winter, teachers in all grades began using new curricular resources for language comprehension.
“Students in all grades read a variety of engaging, developmentally appropriate books and developed writing techniques and strategies inspired by examples in literature,” Trendel said. “For example, kindergarteners read stories about baby penguins, hippos and zebras and (wrote) about the similarities and differences between the animals.
“Eighth graders read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and composed essays with thesis statements, evidence, elaboration and transitions.”
The last two objective activities – unit planning for the start of the 2025-26 school year, and full implementation – are in progress.
Objective No. 4 was implementing an equity action plan (EAP) and ensuring its implementation aligned with board equity goals. This objective had four activities, three of which have been achieved, with the fourth – identifying and implementing next steps to refine or expand the current EAP in 2025-26 – in process.
“Last year, a group of staff, administrators and parents worked together to create the equity action plan, which formalized our work by defining our goals across five areas: Systems/structures, teaching/learning, student voice/climate/culture, professional learning and family/community,” Condon said.
An example of action, he added, is providing staff the opportunity to receive training in Responsive Classroom, a program that helps educators creative positive classroom communities that support autonomy, cooperation, empathy and academic success.
This summer, 70 teachers will take part in professional learning sessions in this area at Roosevelt Middle School.
A related objective, No. 7, was investigating and addressing organizational culture and climate issues, which entailed collaboration with faculty to understand concerns, identifying potential solutions and developing plans to address them.
“Post-COVID, it became apparent that our school district had the opportunity to renew relationships and take actions to be more intentional about fostering a climate of trust and belonging,” Condon said.
The Superintendent’s Leadership Council, comprised of a group of faculty leaders from all schools, explored those themes with the intention of ensuring voices across the district informed direction.
“Through this dialog, we identified focus areas including strengthening belongingness and community building, furthering trust between administrators and faculty, enhancing professional development and improving processes to onboard and support new teachers,” Condon said.
Solutions implementation and feedback/evaluation is forthcoming.
Condon added that this summer, he and his administrative team will collaborate with the board of education to envision and define the 2025-26 strategic action objectives. Setting a few clear, specific goals is a practice that leads to noticeable progress year-over-year.
“As one would expect, the goals will largely focus on our priorities of teaching and learning, curriculum refinement, program evaluation, continuing to strengthen the school community and supporting our outstanding faculty and staff in a myriad of ways,” Condon said.
Thus, he believes District 90’s future is bright, for the coming school year and beyond his retirement June 30, 2026.
“For generations, District 90 has been a foundational element of our village and emblematic of all that is great in River Forest,” he said. “The extraordinary commitment and ongoing dedication of district students, faculty, staff, families and community members will continue to be the bedrock of what makes our learning community exceptional.”