What do you get for the school that already has everything? If you’re the soon-to-be principal of Cherokee elementary in Lake Forest, the answer is: add to what is already there.
More Top Picks Best Digital Alarm Clocks With Dimmable Display
“They are on this trajectory that doesn’t need someone to come in and fix but to come in and enhance,” said Jeffrey McHugh, who will take over for Kelly Jackson as principal on July 1.
McHugh already has 14 years experience working in a well-supported school district. His entire career so far has been in Arlington Heights District 25, where he taught second grade for eight years, ran the library for four years and then moved to the district level to work on curriculum.
“Arlington Heights is a community where the resources are phenomenal,” McHugh said. “The technology, the families. There were so many options. Where would we put our priorities?”
In Arlington Heights schools, one priority was developing a personalized learning initiative. That was one of the experiences that impressed Superintendent Michael Simeck.
“Historically, there has been a tendency to teach to the middle,” Simeck said. “Increasingly, all our work will focus on every student and growing every student regardless of where they happen to be.”
Personalized learning is accomplished through students taking more responsibility for their own learning. It’s less about a teacher talking from the front of a classroom and more about teachers acting as guides while individual students create their own questions and also develop “habits of mind,” McHugh said.
“What do you do when you fail, when you run up against a problem, where to find information when someone doesn’t tell you,” McHugh said. “They will be very independent learners and critical thinkers.”
McHugh, 38, lives in Lake Zurich. He grew up in Oak Forest, a south suburb of Chicago. Although his mother was a third-grade school teacher, McHugh grew up wanting to be a doctor. It wasn’t until he was working on a bachelor’s degree in English at the University of Illinois that he considered a career working with kids.
“I wanted to be a pediatrician or an elementary school teacher,” McHugh said. “I wasn’t sure if I could make teaching elementary work as a male and with supporting a family. But I decided this is what I wanted to do and I was going to go for it.”
He worked for a couple of years handling group insurance accounts at MetLife while completing a master’s degree at St. Francis in Joliet. He started working in Arlington Heights schools in 2001. He also earned an Education Specialist degree in administration and supervision at National Louis University.
McHugh has written two books for children, one on being safe with technology, the other on giving an oral presentation.