The Golden Apple Foundation, a leader in advancing the teaching profession in Illinois for 27 years, selected two teachers from District 203 to receive this prestigious honor this year. Kathy Burns, second-grade teacher at Highlands, and Pam Kelly, first grade teacher from Naper, were surprised this week when representative of Golden Apple arrived at their classrooms to present the award. Only 10 recipients of the Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching are chosen each year. The honorees, all Pre-Kindergarten – 3rd  grade teachers, were selected from a pool of 560 nominees from throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. See the full article for details.

At the Monday, May 7, Board of Education meeting, the Board approved a resolution designating that the Tentative Proposed Budget for 2012-13 be placed on display for public review.

The proposed budget will be available at the Administration Building (203 West Hillside Road), at Nichols and Naper branches of the public library and via the district web site. Following 30 days of review, adoption of the budget requires at least one Public Hearing. The date for the hearing will be Monday, June 18 at 7:00 pm at the administration building.

TENTATIVE PROPOSED BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS
TENTATIVE BUDGET 2012-2013

FOR ADDITIONAL BUDGET SUMMARY INFORMATION, CLICK ON THE HEADLINE.

At the Monday, May 7, meeting of the Board of Education, it was announced that Bob Ross will assume the position of Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education for the District. Ross has extensive experience in District 203 where he has served as principal of Washington Junior High School since 2006. In addition, he has served as co-chair of the core team for the School-Family-Community Partnership, and represented the District in contract negotiations and on interview teams. Prior to coming to the District, Ross held the positions of elementary school principal and assistant elementary principal in Elmwood Park. In addition, he taught social studies for seven years for CCSD 93 in Bloomingdale. He holds a master’s in educational administration from Northern Illinois University, a bachelor’s in teaching from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Type 75 (Secondary Education) and Type 09 (Administration) certification. Ross and his wife, Shari, live in Naperville and have three children attending District 203 schools. The position of Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education became available with the appointment of Dan Bridges to the position of Interim Superintendent for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Recent newspaper articles have highlighted the financial impact end-of-career teacher pay raises can have on school districts. The newspapers reported that Naperville CUSD 203 has paid $146,649 in pension “penalties” into the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) over the last two years for salary increases that exceeded the 6 percent cap. In fact, Districts are not charged “penalties” or “fines”, but are required to compensate the State of Illinois for amounts in excess of established limits to cover the added future pension cost to the system.  Some of the information presented through the media may have left readers with more questions than answers.  We hope to address some of those questions.

Click here for more information, including a video of Chief Financial Officer Dave Zager's explanation at the Board of Education meeting on May 7, 2012.

Be sure to read the new letter from Chief Information Officer Roger Brunelle for an update on key technology initiatives and activities across District 203.

The Network Operations Group (NOG) is responsible for the security, reliability, scalability and redundancy of the District’s computer network. The group configures, supports, maintains, repairs and reports all aspects of the District’s network. Some of the key applications and equipment supported by the Network Operations Group include: switches and routers, wireless access points and controllers, virus and spam filters, virtual and physical servers, storage area networks (SANs) and core applications including Active Directory, Exchange, Office Communication Server (OCS), and the library automation system (Alexandria). See the full article to meet NOG staff members and learn about what they do.