Her official start date is July 1, but District 233’s next superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Norrell, has taken the time to get to know the people of Homewood-Flossmoor High School and the H-F community.
She got her first official piece of H-F swag at a boys volleyball game in April, billed as “Meet the Superintendent Night,” where she had a chance to meet parents and friends of the players.
Over the last several months, Norrell has met with administrators and made several hires to complete her administrative team. She’s met with faculty from each department, some in small groups. She’s met with clerical staff, paraprofessionals, counselors, nurses, school psychologists and social workers, police liaisons and security. She’s even met with the maintenance crew and cafeteria staff, even though they are contract employees.
In meetings with each group, Norrell asked them to give answers to three questions: 1) What do you love about coming to work at H-F; 2) What are the biggest challenges you’d like to see addressed; 3) What is your ‘dream big’ idea for H-F.
The answers were submitted (without names), and Norrell is working on charting the responses so she can address their thoughts at the first staff institute day in August. She said it also lets the participants know “I heard you.”
She will have a superintendent’s office, but staff should expect to see her throughout the building.
“I really believe: 1) You can’t lead what you don’t know. The onus is on you. You have the privilege of making that final decision or recommending that decision to the board. You have to do your due diligence. That is my management style, that I understand to the best of my ability.
“And 2) I believe that you don’t lead from the front, or the top necessarily. You help wherever necessary and roll up your sleeves and get in the trenches,” Norrell said. Her first project is getting faculty to understand how to better assess learning. She is developing an H-F team from representatives with various job titles who will have PLC training (Professional Learning Communities) this summer. They, in turn, will share it with others in the building.
“People (teachers, staff) get very motivated (with PLC) because they feel they’re in power and they make a difference, rather than driving themselves crazy trying to do 5,000 things because at the end of the day they close their door because it’s too much,” she said.
“I sat in those seats when I was in the classroom. That is really the goal to say ‘Hey, there’s other ways that people are getting this done.’ And there’s results so let’s go and hear what they’re doing and let’s bring that back” to H-F.
“It’s training them in the best ways to be most efficient, the best use of their time, not feel so labor intensive. Those are things they’re all going to learn and it’s something they can actually do and be successful at,” Norrell said.
Taking the H-F job is a kind of homecoming for her. She was assistant superintendent at both Rich Township District 227 and Bloom Township District 205 using her expertise in curriculum. She worked through a partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education and the American Institutes for Research, overseeing underperforming school districts.She started her career as a science teacher at Crete-Monee High School and then at Thornridge High School in Dolton.
Messages from friends alerted Norell to the position, encouraging her to apply. Coming to District 233 serving just one school will be a major change for Norrell who’s been superintendent for seven years in East Aurora District 131, a unit district serving 14,600 students pre-kindergarten through high school.
The size doesn’t matter, she said, because “H-F has always been the gem of the Southland” and she is going to work to make certain that reputation continues.
