This CEO Spotlight celebrates a self-starting leader, who leads with optimism and joy – Kathleen Giacona! Kathleen leads so much of our talent and recruiting work, and is a key part of our team. Kathleen continues to rise up, take initiative, and gives so much to our network, our schools, our students and our staff. Kathleen is often the first person that our newest Distinctive Schools teammates speak with when looking to join our family. Kathleen meets and talks with new potential team members every single day, and does an incredible job sharing our mission, vision, and values. Kathleen keeps consistent communication at the forefront of everything she does and believes in strong systems, plans, and action steps to lead us into the future. She supports our recruitment process with disciplined systems, and continues to bring new and exciting ideas to the table around our organizational growth. Thank you, Kathleen! Today the spotlight is on you!
CICS West Belden celebrates TWENTY YEARS of operation this year! CICS West Belden is a neighborhood school that many call home and that is exactly what it is to our students, families and staff. West Belden is a community that exemplifies what a home is; a place that provides safety, learning, relationships, care, mentoring - and all of this is what has led to the success that this school has seen for the past 20 years. We celebrated together with an afternoon of refreshments and awards with our staff and community!
Our partners at @NationalLouis have an amazing year long internship program for future educators! We have participated in this program for over 10 years and it has helped us find and hire many wonderful teachers. Distinctive Schools Network Director of Talent Acquisition, Sami Baugh says "The year-long placement has been so successful because aspiring teachers are able to immerse themselves early on into real-life experiences and our culture. We are grateful for our partnership with NLU and NCE because of the alignment we share in our vision of innovating, trailblazing, and collaboratively leading a public education transformation.” Learn more about the program here: https://nl.edu/national-college-of-education/field-experiences/mat-year-long-internships/
Today is the first day of Pride Month and we’re so proud to celebrate the diversity of our students, families, and staff! Reinforcing the message that supporting equality means a better path forward for our future generations. Happy Pride everyone!
Welcome back, Distinctive Schools! We hope you had a great long weekend – we are happy to have our students and staff here today for a full day of learning!
We hope you are enjoying your long weekend! Our campuses are closed today in observance of Memorial Day, we can't wait to see our students again tomorrow!
Happy National Speech Language Pathologist Day! Thank you for all you do to help our students to communicate – your work provides confidence and effective communication strategies, and we appreciate you! Thank you for the ways you assess, diagnose and treat with love and joy. From all of us at Distinctive Schools – Thank you!
We are proud to have taken part in this SEL Case Study through xSEL Labs! Despite challenges posed by the COVID 19 pandemic and remote learning, assessment data showed that students maintained their SEL skills throughout the year. "SELweb provides quantitative data to guide teams in designing supports for students. It allows teachers at a classroom and small group level to layer additional SEL aligned lessons to strengthen specific SEL competencies," said Sarah Schielke Payne, Regional MTSS Manager
Distinctive Schools Michigan celebrated Special Education teachers in style for Teacher Appreciation Week with a luncheon and gifts! What an awesome event for these incredible educators! We're so grateful for ALL of our teachers and staff!
We are so excited to celebrate School Nurse Day! Our nurses always go above and beyond to care for our students and we could not be more grateful! Nurses- thank you for all the knowledge, skill and compassion you bring to our schools, today we celebrate YOU!
Wishing a wonderful Mother’s Day this weekend to all of our Distinctive moms, moms-to-be, mother figures, grandmothers and those who are simply grateful for their own moms – we thank you for the integral role you play in raising and educating the next generation of leaders, scholars and creatives.
We had an amazing morning in our Chicago office yesterday with professional development for our COACHES! Coaches support deep, impactful teaching and learning across the network, and their continued growth and development strengthens our model. #ALLin #BeDistinctive
Thank you, thank you, thank you! To each and every teacher, for all you do day in and day out – you are vital to our success as individuals and communities, and we cannot say it enough – WE APPRECIATE YOU! #TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
Our teachers see every child for who they are, they craft and personalize every lesson in the way that best reaches students. In their classrooms, every student feels loved, cared for and believed in. #TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
Distinctive Schools teachers are changing the world! In addition to traditional academics, all of our teachers focus on Social Emotional Learning in their classrooms. They focus on the whole child and really see each student for the unique individual they are.
#TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
Our teachers lead by example. They come into the classroom every day with open hearts and minds, encouraging their students to do the same. They are mentoring the next generation of great leaders!#TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
Distinctive teachers are truly extraordinary! They make a difference in the lives of their students, bringing joy into their classrooms and fostering a deep love of learning. They exemplify what it means to be Distinctive. Come along with us all week as we celebrate! #TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
This is a FAVORITE week for Distinctive Schools, as this week we are celebrating the incredible teachers who help our scholars to GROW! Wishing you all a very happy Teacher Appreciation Week! #TeacherAppreciationWeek #BeDistinctive
This CEO Spotlight celebrates Latrel Cunningham, Regional Transportation Coordinator! He has been hard at work developing, building & implementing an entire transportation department in our MI Region. Latrel brings a spirit of joy & optimism and we appreciate ALL he does!
Today is Administrative Professionals Day! We are so happy to celebrate all of our amazing Distinctive Schools Administrative Professionals, thank you for all the hard work and care you put into making sure our campuses run smoothly. We appreciate you!
