📖 CHAPTER SIX BEGINS: THE POWER OF PURPOSE! 🎯

There is something special about the day before the first day of school.

Classrooms are ready. Hallways are polished. Bulletin boards are waiting. And across Cicero, students are preparing to walk through the doors for a brand-new school year.

But before they did, District 99 brought together the people who would be there to welcome them.

Today, nearly 1,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, related service providers, administrators and staff members gathered at Unity Junior High School for Cicero District 99's district-wide Institute Day.

The energy was unmistakable. Colleagues reunited after summer break. Friends found one another across the room. There were hugs, laughter, conversations and plenty of smiles. Wearing matching D99 shirts and sitting with their school teams, staff members from across the district came together as one community with one shared purpose.

And that word — purpose — was at the heart of the day.

Superintendent Dr. Aldo Calderin opened the morning by continuing a story that has now been unfolding for six years.

Chapter One was Changing the Narrative.
Chapter Two: Collective Efficacy.
Chapter Three: The Possibilities.
Chapter Four: Impact.
Chapter Five: Aligned Acts of Improvement

And now, as District 99 begins the 2026-2027 school year, the district turns the page to Chapter Six: The Power of Purpose.

The chapters may have different names, but together they tell one story.

Changing a narrative requires believing something better is possible. Possibility grows when people believe they can accomplish more together. Collective belief must become action. Action must create impact. And impact becomes stronger when the work is aligned.

Purpose gives all of that work its meaning.

It reminds us that behind every lesson is a learner. Behind every assessment score is a child. And behind every decision educators make is an opportunity to help a student grow.

The morning also provided time to celebrate.

Examples of student assessment growth from across District 99 were highlighted, giving staff an opportunity to recognize the progress made during the previous school year.

Those numbers represented far more than data points.

They represented students who learned more than they knew before. They represented teachers refining instruction, paraprofessionals supporting learners, related service providers removing barriers and school teams working together to help children succeed.

Then the focus shifted from celebrating growth to asking how District 99 can create even more of it.

A major part of that work is the D99 Planning Process, which asks Professional Learning Teams to begin with a crucial question: What do we want all students to know and be able to do?

From there, teams identify the most important content students should remember, reach consensus around that learning, align questions and tasks, chunk instruction, determine how students will show their thinking, anticipate misconceptions, plan scaffolds and review the lesson with student success in mind. The process represents an important shift.

The question is no longer simply, What am I going to teach?

It becomes, What are students going to think about, understand and remember?

That idea connected directly to the day’s professional learning with Dr. Jim Heal and Meg Lee of Learning Science Partners.

Throughout the day, staff explored the Science of Learning and Effortful Thinking, including concepts such as prior knowledge, cognitive load and the importance of giving students meaningful opportunities to retrieve, organize, connect and express their thinking. District 99’s own materials specifically identify Effortful Thinking as a central focus in helping educators apply learning science to classroom practice.

Staff didn’t simply listen.

They discussed. They collaborated. They worked through examples. They analyzed lessons. They applied the learning alongside colleagues from their own schools.

In many ways, educators were being asked to do exactly what we want students to do:

Think.

And that may have been the perfect way to spend the final day before students returned.

Because tomorrow, the room at Unity will look very different.

Nearly 1,000 adults will spread back across District 99. Tables of colleagues will become classrooms filled with children. Conversations about planning, learning and thinking will become thousands of small decisions made throughout thousands of lessons.

The data will once again become names and faces.

A kindergartner walking into school for the first time. A student learning in two languages. A child finally understanding something that seemed impossible yesterday. A middle schooler discovering they are capable of more than they thought.

That is where purpose becomes powerful. Not in a slogan. Not on a presentation slide. But in the moment an adult helps a child believe, learn, grow and succeed.

So on the day before another school year began, District 99 did more than prepare. We celebrated where we’ve been. We learned together. We sharpened our practice. We reconnected.  And then, together, we turned the page.

Chapter Six begins now. And this year, we are beginning it on purpose!