So I did it. I gave my notice, packed up my desk, threw away anything securities or banking related and stopped watching CNBC. I was now an employee of the Chicago Board of Education. I was a SENIOR grants management analyst (soon I would learn titles are VERY important in CPS). I was excited as hell! Yes, I took a disgusting pay cut, and yes, just two weeks after starting furlough kicked in, which my new manager failed to tell me about, but it was all good. I was doing good, honest work. I reviewed and managed grants, primarily IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and NCLB ( No Child left behind) grants. It was new and it was interesting to me! I threw myself into the work tirelessly. I also was training for my first triathlon at this time. It was perfect timing. I had hard hours in this position - 8:30am to 4:30pm and believe me when I say chairs were spinning by 4:31pm. It worked well for me with my training and beside the fact I was pretty micro-managed, things were great. The head of our department or "Director" if you will, was Kayleen Irizarry, a fiery Puerto Rican, who besides being a PhD, was a freaking walking education legislation know-it-all. I saw her rattle off shit in meetings that made the most smug Suit go skulking away. She was, and is awesome. I started to become intrigued with her background and how she came to be such a valuable resource to education. Attorney maybe? Lobbyist perhaps? And there it was..she started as a teacher.
I offered to work on some weekends when a colleague had some School Improvement grants coming due. I was struggling a bit with my manager as she and I butted heads. She was previously a teacher, and I am quite certain, was amazing when she was in the classroom. Her adult management style was an "acquired taste". I believe one of our biggest, ongoing arguments was the titling of my emails. Seriously. I was getting antsy and wanted more of a challenge and an opportunity to show the work I was capable of doing with my background. An opportunity came up in OSI (office of school improvement) and I put in for the move. My manager couldn't get rid of me quick enough and I couldn't move fast enough. LOL
Here I started my real education of the education system as we know it, in CPS. My first role was Project manager for Productization. Yes, that is a made up word so don't bother googling it. I was working under the management ( and I use that term loosely) of Gavin Doughty. Brilliant man. Oh and the reason I used the term loosely is because Gavin was always more of a thought partner and colleague than manager. He has empowered every person that worked for him to be great. I learned so much working for and with him! So, in this role I was charged with "productizing" all things OSI...from Teaching and Learning - ie. "Teaching on the Block", Syllabus construction"; to Climate and Culture - ie. "Restorative Justice" , "Hall Sweeps" to the entire Human Capital process. I should add, all this was also also under the direction and brain child of Don Fraynd and Randel Josserand. Two really wicked dudes. Both insanely passionate about education and kids. The best advice I ever got was from these two men who basically said (and I paraphrase) " ...you have to get out in the schools to really understand what's going on. Ingratiate yourself into the school culture." They were so right. So off I went to Marshall High school and humbly asked if I could work at the school a couple days a week. I learned more in my time at Marshall, and Fenger and Harper...than I ever did sitting behind a desk at Central office. Honestly, if CPS really wanted to get rid of the space issues, they would fill schools with different departments in different schools. There is definitely an Ivory Tower Effect when people work "down at the Board". I am sure in the coming years I will have plenty on this topic. Stay tuned.
In the midst of all this, I was trying to figure out what "road" I was going to go down. Did I want to be a Broad Resident? Move into operations and deal with budgeting in schools? As I continued learning I kept coming back to the same conclusion - you need to teach to really understand and be able to lead in education. With that in mind I started to research programs...TFA? CTF? Both amazing programs. but not for me. Inner City Teaching Corp perhaps? Go back full time?? So much to figure out.
Quickly I needed to hire someone to team and was blessed with the most amazing woman, Kelly Weiss. Her work is extraordinary. Anyway, she rolled in and I moved on, in the same department, to become the head of our Human Capital group. We were in the business of turning around schools so by the time the schools got approved, which was LATE February, we had less than 4 months to end of school to hire an entire school staff for the reconstituted schools. Through this process I really got to see the good, bad and ugly of CPS. I saw some amazingly talented people get pushed out, while at the same time, I saw some insanely lazy, un-talented people with confusingly undeniable job security. Last, and this was the one that killed me, there were people with ZERO education experience who were rolling into schools, telling Principals how to operate more efficiently and effectively! Sweet mother of god, was that a joke! It would be like a dentist coming in to look at your broken ankle. She's probably brilliant, but you want her looking in your mouth not your ankle. Right? Maybe it's just me...
So I brought on a small army of people, and we hired up 4 schools in record time. No thanks to the Central office...it's so funny but people in other departments were calling our group in OSI to help with hiring as opposed to downtown. It's a shame really, we could have done something really great in terms of hiring for the entire district and been a leader, like we should be as such a big district. Ironically, other districts are using our process. I get calls often to have web conferences to share the process.
Once the staffing was completed, a small exodus started in our group. That's their story to tell so I will leave it at that. CPS lost an amazing Visionary, Don Fraynd, but he has started a company called Teachermatch and is still doing remarkable things for education. Our other fearless leaders went into Network and District positions to impact change. Our darling Ellen Kennedy went to be an Assistant Principal at Tilden HS. Together with the amazing Principal Maurice Swinney there, they killed it! I had determined by this time I was going to go into a program specifically geared towards preparing individuals for urban education, and found one, appropriately titled: Academy For Urban School Leadership (AUSL). I had a year until my program started however, and Human Capital was being turned over to the district again. (because they did such a fantastic job...probably the e-bulletin. That was a bridge burner) I put my hat in the ring for a Program manager position at one of the Transformation schools and got it. Al Raby High School. This would be my last stop before beginning my "official journey" into education. What I didn't realize was this would really begin my education journey. What an amazing year I had ahead of me....
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