1.    Achieving Excellence: When students are held to high standards, they are high achievers. High standards not only include academics, but high standards of behaviour and interaction with fellow students and teachers as well. 

2.    Ensuring Equity: In my classroom, every student has the opportunity to reach his/her/xe/ze full potential. As a teacher, I strive to provide differentiated instruction and activities/tasks that target multiple learning styles, so that all students have a chance to show what they know and learn in the way that the prefer. 

3.    Promoting Well-Being: By creating an environment where all students are welcome and feel safe expressing themselves, I am promoting wellbeing. 

4.    Enhancing Public Confidence: When students are held to high expectations, have equal opportunity for success, and have a sense of overall wellbeing, public confidence in our school system, teachers, and students grows. 

By following the guiding principles of caring for our students’ overall wellbeing and creating opportunities for students to learn what they are interested in and in the way that suits their learning preferences supports a high quality Senior English program.  

 By Amber Nicholas

It was an amazing place to grow up. Woodbine, Illinois. Surrounded by corn, open fields, and farms. Located on Highway 20, between Stockton and Elizabeth, you’ll almost miss the town if you blink when passing through. There was a gas station, an antique shop, a wood-working shop, and a church when I lived there. There is now a golf course, but the gas station is no longer in service. It is technically a township-a community-in Jo Daviess County. As a child, countless hours passed as I raced through harvested cornfields, played hard in the open, country air, and climbed my special tree in our front yard. “Is that a squirrel up there in the tree?” my beloved elderly neighbour, Mr. Beyers, would tease as I climbed. We were filled with excitement as the Schwan’s frozen food truck drove up to deliver frozen meals and ice cream to our elderly neighbours. We knew that meant that they would be inviting us over for ice cream as usual. Of course, when they were out of ice cream, they had us over for cookies.

In my grown-up city life, my husband goes shopping for fruits and vegetables for our family. In Woodbine, springs and summers were a time to plant and harvest our giant garden. We ate tomatoes and green beans right off the vine. My mom canned food for the winter. Winters were wonderful-filled with clean snow that provided endless fun for children. When walking with my sister and our best friend to piano lessons from the pastor’s wife, we’d sometimes get distracted and end up playing along Woodbine road behind the highway that ran through the community. Our parents never worried about strangers. We knew everyone.

It was a wonderful place to live, to grow up. Though I reminisce about the “good ole’ days,” I also know that that when you live in a place that small, it is difficult to participate in the larger community. There is not any diversity. There are not any multicultural settings where children can interact and get to know people that are different from themselves. While I will always hold it close to my heart, I know that it is just there for my memories.