When Gladys Crespo graduated from high school in her native Puerto Rico, she planned to become an engineer.
That was her initial path in college as well, but it didn’t last.
“I ended up teaching other students what they needed to do, and that was something that really became my passion,” Crespo says, “and I said, ‘You know, I really like math, and I really like to teach, so let me become a math teacher.’ ”
She achieved that ambition, which led to another: elementary education.
“After I became an elementary teacher, I had a lot of students who had IEPs and who had different special needs, and I was participating in their meetings,” she says, “and I said, ‘I’m making decision for these students, but I do not have a good background in the decisions I’m making,’ so I decided to go back to the university for a degree in special education.”
Once in that third phase of her career, the principal of her school moved in 2013 to work in Illinois – and Crespo followed.
Now 10 years later, she’s about to add another degree to her collection: an M.S.Ed. in Educational Administration from the NIU Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations.
Crespo is one of the first six students from School District U-46 to near completion of the program, part of the college’s PLEDGE (Partnering to Lead and Empower District-Grown Educators) initiative.
Joining 10 students from Rockford Public Schools 205’s second cohort, the future administrators are earning two-year master’s degrees grounded in exceptional curriculum, professional practice, strong mentoring in their local buildings and coaching from the Illinois Principals Association (IPA) – all with tuition paid by their school district.
“We are incredibly proud of the work that our resident administrators have done through our partnership with NIU and IPA, and we have seen tremendous growth in instructional leadership from our resident administrators as well as our host principal,” says Lela Majstorovic, U-46 assistant superintendent of schools. “We are fortunate to be able to support this intensive, job-embedded learning opportunity in order to sustain high-quality leadership in U-46.”
“We have been extremely impressed with the quality of candidates U-46 has recommended for participation in the Rockford/U-46 Principal Preparation Program,” add Jim and Becky Surber, clinical assistant professors and co-coordinators of the principal preparation program. “These high-caliber individuals are exactly what we are looking for in our future educational leaders. Gladys and Jeron are clearly at a point where they are capable of successfully moving into full-time administrative positions.”
During the program, the aspiring administrators completed on-the-job paid internships in their districts to immediately apply the knowledge and skills of their coursework.
For Crespo, resident administrator at U-46’s Creekside Elementary School, the preparation has already led to a new role: a special education administrator.
U-46 classmate Jeron Shelton, resident administrator at Clinton Elementary School, also has secured a promotion for the fall. Shelton will become the principal of McKinley Elementary School.
“I never thought I’d be a principal,” says Shelton, whose career in education began in 2001 as a paraprofessional at Rockford’s Rolling Green Elementary School. “There was an email sent out that this program was available, and my wife forwarded the email to me and said, ‘I think you’d like this.’ ”
Shelton, a seventh-grade English and social studies teacher at the time, had previously worked at U-46 headquarters for six years.
When he returned to the classroom, he discovered a renewed fulfillment in teaching, but also a new perspective.
“When I went back to the classroom, I had done so many administrative duties at the district office that the way I was perceived and the way I interacted with my peers was very different,” he says. “And when I looked at the resident administrator program, I thought, ‘This matches my skill set.’ ”
Taking on that role at Clinton turned into an assistant principal-type experience.
His responsibilities have included managing the school’s professional learning community; providing professional development for, and appraisal of, teachers; and working with teachers on disciplinary issues.
“Slowly but surely, all of those experiences have just set me up to have the confidence to be able to leave the building,” Shelton says. “I feel the classwork has supplemented nicely, and everyone who’s a principal or administrator told me that this is awesome because people who are still in the classroom and getting their administration certificate can’t directly apply what they’re learning.”
His mandatory internship provided a safe place for learning.
“I don’t think you really understand the job unless you do it. There are so many things in the classroom that sound good in theory until you’re implementing them in practice and you have the opportunity to fail on a low-stakes scale,” he says. “I know that, in being a principal, I’m not going to be perfect. Things are going to go wrong. But I was able to kind of work out the kinks in this role with everyone understanding that I was still learning.”
Meanwhile, he’s already integrating himself at McKinley, a dual-language school that will require him to communicate in English and Spanish.
Shelton attended a nighttime event for families and starting to build relationships with the children there; the student newspaper already published a Q-and-A with Shelton, who told his young interviewer that “I’m going to stay here as long as I can because this is a wonderful community.”
“I also brought some cookies when I met my staff,” he says. “It was a recommendation from my IPA mentor, Pamela Schnoek, who has been a big part of my success. I reflect on my work weekly, and it has helped lower my stress level and keep me on track.”
Crespo has enjoyed the program’s cohort structure, allowing her to form a bond with fellow students who were gracious with the native Spanish speaker and constructive in their feedback regarding her strengths and areas for improvement.
She also appreciated the mostly online format that kept to a minimum her required drives to Rockford for face-to-face classes: “It’s a great advantage having a program where you don’t have to go every day to the university,” she says. “We have families. We have work.”
While in class, meanwhile, she has been grateful for authentic conversations that reflect the hands-on nature of the program – something she also credits for giving her a leg up in successfully interviewing for the special education administrator job.
“When we are bringing some examples to class, it’s not something we are reading in the book. It’s, ‘During this week, I have this situation,’ or, ‘How do I manage this situation?’ and ‘Oh, you should this,’ ” Crespo says. “It’s real. It not just the book.”
She also is pleased with her IPA coach, a curriculum tailored by U-46 and NIU “in a way that satisfies the needs of the district and the needs of the students” and the instruction and mentoring delivered by the Surbers.
“Everything starts with a good relationship,” Crespo says, “and they really try their best to make a good relationship with us. They know each of us. They know the needs that we have. They really work hard for us.”
