When a friend told La Wanna Wells about a job opening at Niles Township High School District 219, she immediately took interest — even if she says she did not know exactly what the “director of equity” was all about.
“A good friend of mine said there’s a position at Niles and it’s a director of equity position,” Wells recalled. “When he said it, it was like, ‘what is that?'”
What she soon learned, however, is that this job was everything she was about, and more than six months later, she says she feels the same way.
“My exact words when I learned more about this job is that this was made for me,” she said.
She was hired in the position starting in the 2017-2018 school year.
Wells works to create a school experience equitable for all students who attend NTHS Dist. 219. A large part is addressing the achievement gap, which she says has been an issue for all of education for decades, but it really extends to many aspects of school life.
“I feel like I’m the glue, actually,” she said because of how widespread her work extends.
Wells recently met with the Niles North High School principal to talk about achievement and programs offered for students. The district needs to get black students to graduate at the same rate as everyone else so she looks to create new programs, she said.
At Niles West High School, she is focusing on “a sense of belonging for every student,” she said.
“When students feel like they don’t belong, really, they just don’t see his or her culture at the school,” Wells said. Working with district educators, she said the goal is ‘to get equity in all layers of the school.”
Wells said other school districts miss out in not having an equity director or similar position.
“Education is so fluid and so broad,” she said. “Most of the time, equity falls under curriculum and instruction. It’s picking out text, it’s creating syllabi, it’s creating curriculum. Equity needs its own voice.”
Wells is the second permanent director of equity at NTHS Dist. 219 following Corrie Wallace, the former director of the Niles Township Schools’ ELL Parent Center. There was an interim director before Wells.
She credits her parents for instilling in her a sense of justice and compassion. When she was a child, she said, people in need from her church would stay with the family for a short time. Her mother would pack her large school lunches so she could give food to those who didn’t have it.
When Wells first entered college, she said, she thought her career was headed more toward political science.
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She attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
“I remember as a freshman in college, there were a lot of kids in our dorm struggling with their English work,” she said. “I was an English tutor so I started helping people on my floor.”
She worked with a couple of football players not able to play because of their grades and they were able to get back on the field, she said.
“It was just little moments of satisfaction,” she said. “I started to wonder why didn’t they learn this — not because there was something wrong with them — but how did they get into college without knowing it? So I started looking at the inadequacies.”
Wells said she has always had a mindset to ask what is missing. “I don’t like people to hurt,” she said.
Accorging to school district information announcing her hire, Wells came to NTHS Dist. 219 from Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School where she had been an English teacher since 2005.
She served the school as the social-emotional academic intervention leader on the School Improvement Planning Committee and coordinated professional development for teachers and staff on improving the academic achievement of under-performing students, according to her biography.
She also served as the school’s staff development and literacy content coach and conference speaker.
Wells was named “Student Teacher of the Year” at NIU while obtaining her undergraduate degree in English Teacher Certification, according to NTHS Dist. 219.
She was named summa cum laude for her master’s degree in educational administration, and she was inducted into the Alpha Sigma Nu Honor Society for civic leadership and academic distinction in her doctoral studies for the degree of Administration and Supervision at Loyola University. She continues her professional studies there as a third year candidate to become a National Board Certified teacher, she said.
Wells’s new job in the school district requires long days as she travels among the three schools and district office, and meets with administrators, teachers, parents and students.
“I’m a creative person so I like the freedom to create programs I know are going to work,” she said. “I like getting rid of the red tape and having a conversation with all of the stakeholders and getting something done. Here, I can do that.”