1. Who are we? What’s our story?1
We’ll I don’t really think I’m in the best position to tell you the Washington story because I’ve only been here a little over three year. However, there is a a chapter to the Washington story that I would like to remind you of. Does anyone remember the SIG grant? Well let me share what I remember.
I can remember a number of questions arose around the issue at my May interview. It seems like the State of Illiniois, together with Harrison Peters and the school district, had identified Washington as a prime candidate for the SIG, especially since they knew that Principal Gonzales was planning to retire (see the SIG transformation grant required a “change in leadership”). So, it should come as no surprise that the Washington LSC made clear there wishes (no SIG). In fact, they even wanted to put it into the contract but I was pretty sure that CPS would not allow Washington to modify the standard 4-year principal contract to include language around “no SIG’. So without legal protection we looked for political supports and on Thursday May 31st the Washington Local School Council voted to award me a four-year performance contract and I accepted; the following day, and I signed the contract at Alderman Pope’s 10th Ward Office. 1
Who are we? What’s our story?
Delivering an uncommon educational experience for OUR KIDS

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We turned down a Federal School Improvement Grant (SIG)! Instead we spent the past 3 years transforming ourselves!
The Federal government defines turnaround schools as those meeting two criteria:
“they began as chronic poor-performers with “a high percentage of their students (usually 20 percent or more) failing to meet state standards”
“they showed substantial gains in achievement in a short time (no more than three years).”
Examples of substantial gains include: “reducing by at least 10 percentage points the proportion of students failing to meet state standards” or “showing similarly large gains in other measures of academic performance (such as lowering the dropout rate by 10 percent or more).”
See Herman, R., Dawson, P., Dee, T., Greene, J., Maynard, R., Redding, S., & Darwin, M.
Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools

3. WE “transformed” ourselves3
WE “transformed” ourselves
We are Building a High Expectations Culture Exists at GWHS
We have demonstrated substantial gains the percent of students who graduate in four years (on-time) from 65% to over 80%, while at the same time dramatically increasing the percent of students enrolling in college from 35% to 59%.  
We have demonstrated substantial gains in the number of students enrolled in our AP and IB courses.  AP enrollment has increased from less than 5% to nearly 24% GW students now enrolled in AP courses, and we now have a whopping 32% of students enrolled in our IB program.  Moreover, this year we will extend our early college strategy by offering 2 new dual credit courses in Math and History.  
We have now posted 4 years of increased ACT scores, and we have demonstrated substantial gains in the percent of students meeting College Readiness Standards in English, Math, Reading, and Science. 
Note: It’s worth acknowledging that we have made all of these dramatic improvements while staying true to our neighborhood vision—we serve the same kids we did a few years ago, we’re just doing a better job!

4. How have “transformed” ourselves?
We must continue to invest in high quality teachers via professional development “The most powerful way that school leaders can make a difference to the learning of their students is by promoting and participating in professional development of their teachers” (V. Robinson, 2011).
Increased accountability should be matched by increased commitment to professional development We hold our teachers accountable for student success and our teachers hold our students accountable for their own success; but, we also believe that we are responsible for supporting teachers and students to be successful.
We invest in locally designed solutions that are tailored to our specific students and challenges We believe our teachers are smart and talented so we create time and opportunities for teachers to collaborate and improve our school. There are no quick fixes for inexperience with reading and math—we avoid simple and expensive externally designed curriculums and programs that do not address our students and our challenges
We plan and prepare for success at GWHS We expect that teachers are fully-planned and prepared for their students every day, and we have the same expectations of school leaders who are responsible for leading adult learning. However, in both cases we must support teachers and leaders to plan and prepare for success.
It works, and we can prove it! We now have 3 years of improvements that suggest that our focus on teacher learning and development yields results—we have dramatically improved performance on standardized tests and all other key metrics. 4
How have “transformed” ourselves?
We are Building a High Expectations Culture by investing our resources in teacher learning and development
We invested in high quality teachers via professional development  
We believe that increased accountability should be matched by increased commitment to professional development
We invested in locally designed solutions that are tailored to our specific students and challenges
We planned and prepared for success at GWHS.

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