Oak Park and River Forest High School has made a conscious effort over the past decade to nurture a crop of “homegrown” teachers. These are young people who came up through OPRF and chose to become teachers. The school has kept its lines of communication open for these early career teachers and worked to bring them home to OPRF.
The theory is that these young teachers already have a sense of the culture and complexities of the school and will adapt and lead successfully, stay longer and bring in more recruits.
That theory, which we’ve long admired, is now wisely being applied to the promotion of Dr. Lee Williams to be the school’s new top equity and student success leader. Here’s a person who came into OPRF in 2008 and has steadily earned respect, made connections through a wide range of posts, often related to equity.
Since the equity post was created just a few years ago, the revolving door has spun with seemingly qualified outside experts. Williams’ promotion is an opportunity to find out just what this job can accomplish if someone stayed for more than a year.
We wish him great success.