After nine years as principal at Greenbriar School in Northbrook School District 28, Principal Ginny Hiltz was invited to lead Meadowbrook School as it embarks on a construction project to build a new school building.
District 28 Superintendent Jason Pearson approached Hiltz with the offer to become Meadowbrook principal at about the time voters approved a referendum proposal to issue $94.9 million in bonds to fund renovations of three schools and rebuild Meadowbrook.
“I moved over here this summer,” Hiltz said of her arrival at Meadowbrook. “The opportunity to build a new school is really exciting. I was very interested in being part of it. Dr. Pearson was hoping for some consistency for the Meadowbrook community, and I’m familiar with the community.”
District 28 plans to replace Meadowbrook School at an estimated cost of $56 million. A new two-story building will be constructed behind the existing school, which will remain open during construction, according to the district.
Hiltz, who resides in District 28, lives close enough to walk to Meadowbrook. She is excited about leading Meadowbrook into a larger school with new initiatives, she said.
“I like the ability to give back to the Meadowbrook community,” Hiltz said.
Hiltz said she moved to District 28 because she wanted her son to go to school there.
“Six months later I got a call from the superintendent to apply for the Greenbriar position,” she said. “I was an assistant principal in Arlington Heights. The job popped up and I said, ‘I can’t turn this down.’”
Before coming to District 28, Hiltz spent five years at Arlington Heights District 25, and before that worked for two years at the Galapagos Charter School, a K-8 school in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, where she started as an assistant director of the school and ended as director of the middle school portion, according to previous baiduhai reporting.
She said her most important goals at Meadowbrook are maintaining safety during construction of the new school, implementing new literacy and social-emotional curriculums, building a strong climate and culture, and making sure students and staff feel like they belong.
“A big piece of culture and climate is telling our story,” Hiltz said. “There are truly amazing things happening at Meadowbrook. We need to get the word out.”
Meadowbrook began addressing that issue last spring when students and staff voted on a new mascot name. District 28’s other two elementary schools are known as the Greyhounds and the Bulldogs.
“We were the Meadowbrook Stars and kind of an outlier,” Hiltz said. “They chose Huskies and changed our logo. It brings the kids around the idea.”
Like the other schools, Meadowbrook will utilize “packs,” or groups of students across grade levels who will meet monthly with staff members, she said.
“It has been wildly successful in creating more interaction across grades and with other teachers,” Hiltz said. “We’re trying to build excitement about being here, and we want kids and staff to feel part of the community.”
Meadowbrook produces “really strong” academic results, but Hiltz wants the school to go from great to even better. The new curriculums will be the next step in that process, she said.
The biggest job will be adapting to the 70-year-old school’s new physical structure as it is built, Hiltz said.
“There are just some things not working in the current building,” she said. “We have to make sure the new building meets our needs for many years to come.”
Hiltz plans to conduct monthly staff meetings and distribute a weekly staff newsletter. Teaching teams meet weekly, she said.
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“I pop in and out as needed,” Hiltz said. “I’m in communication all day on the fly. I’m a management-by-walking-around type of person. I find out what people need or if they have something to say about an issue. You get a lot accomplished by doing that.”
District 28 presented a workshop on Artificial Intelligence on how it will impact students and teachers and what educators know about it, she said.
“We’re not afraid of it,” Hiltz said. “We have to think about weaving it in in ways that make sense based on the age of our students. We’re helping kids understand the reliability of information and how to use AI to help you do something with more speed and efficiency and then make sure it’s accurate.”