New HF Admins
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HFHS board appoints two administrators

Quitman Dillard and Jennifer Hester Schalk begin their new positions at H-F High School in the fall semester. (Provided photos)

The District 233 school board hired two new administrators for Homewood-Flossmoor High School.

Jennifer Hester Schalk is the new director of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development. Quitman Dillard is the new assistant principal for the North Building.

Quitman Dillard and Jennifer Hester Schalk begin their new positions at H-F High School in the fall semester. (Provided photos)

Hester Schalk’s appointment was approved July 14. She succeeds Nancy Spaniak who retired June 30 after 16 years on the H-F staff, first as a reading specialist and 12 years in the director’s position. 

Hester Schalk previously worked as a senior associate focusing on curriculum design for the Public Consulting Group in Boston. 

Before that work, she held three administrative positions with Naperville Community School District 203. She was chief academic officer from 2014 to 2019, associate superintendent of learning services from 2012 to 2014, and the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning from 2011 to 2012. 

She started her career in education working at a middle school in Pennsylvania and at a Chicago public school. She moved into administrative work focusing on curriculum and literacy for Chicago Public Schools and District 303 in St. Charles, Illinois.

Hester Schalk received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Elizabeth College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in educational leadership with a concentration in reading, writing and literacy and a doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dillard was appointed at the June 16 meeting. He follows Chris Grays, who served for a year. Grays replaced Jennifer Rudan, an H-F staff  teacher who was assistant principal for two years before being named director of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, a state mandated program.

Dillard comes to H-F after have served as assistant principal at Thornridge High School in Dolton. In that position, he was responsible for discipline, athletics, attendance and buildings and groups. 

He also served as dean of students at Chicago Public Schools’ Fenger Academy and culture and climate coordinator for DeVry University’s Advantage Academy High School. He started his career as a CPS special education teacher.

Dillard received a bachelor’s degree in communications from St. Louis University, a master’s degree in educational leadership from Concordia University and a second master’s in special education from Dominican University. He completed the doctorate degree in educational leadership from Argosy University.

At the special board meeting July 21 the board accepted, with regret, the resignation of teacher David Dore. He is credited with spearheading H-F’s work at inclusion and was the school’s Special Olympics coach for more than a dozen years. 

He started organizing unified teams of special education students and their H-F peers in 2012. H-F has unified teams competing in basketball, soccer and track, and its teams have won state honors.

Under Dore’s push for inclusion, H-F went beyond sports, developing programs that got students involved in other areas of the curriculum and promoting the start of various volunteer programs. 

In 2018, H-F was one of two high schools in Illinois recognized by Special Olympics for its outstanding record and received the National Banner Unified Champion School honor.

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