When Daniela Boer was asked where she wanted to intern as a principal-candidate while in NIU’s M.S.Ed. in Educational Administration program, she had no hesitation.
Boer, then a bilingual teacher at the nearby Rockford Environmental Science Academy, saw great things taking place at Lathrop.
Just as important? Boer also saw a mirror.
“I chose Lathrop because I knew Lathrop is two-thirds bilingual,” says Boer, a native of Brazil and a 2022 graduate of the first cohort of the NIU Principal Residency Program who also treasures the school’s racial diversity.
“That’s what I am: I am diversity – and that’s who I want to represent. I want to show everyone that we accept everybody and who we are,” she adds. “That’s why I love Lathrop, and that’s why I want to build this school into more diversity by hiring more diversity and keeping and retaining diversity so students can see they’re represented.”
Now as the second-year principal of Lathrop, her conviction in the school’s rich fabric of cultures runs deep.
Her daughter, 10-year-old Ameerah, is a fifth-grader there.
“Ameerah is half African American, so we represent diversity very well, but she’s not zoned to be here,” Boer says. “I worked with the Central Office and the school board, and we opened the possibility of administrators to bring their children to the schools where they’re at. That’s how much I believe in Lathrop.”
Mother and daughter respect their principal- and student-roles within the school and know how not to cross the relational line, Boer says: “As a parent, I love the fact that she’s here with me – I do – and next year I’m going to have a hard time when she goes to middle school.”
Yet Boer’s work at Lathrop will go on.
Chosen as one of the first 20 NIU Principal Residency Program trailblazers expected to improve academic and social-emotional learning outcomes in every school led by a partnership-prepared principal, she’s already getting results.
One year after her arrival, the school’s report card jumped by about 34 points – and she assigns part of the credit to her coursework in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations.
Principals are more than leaders of curriculum, she quickly learned.
“When we started taking classes, and I saw law being involved, and RTI and MTSS being involved, and supervision, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s not what I thought,’ ” Boer says.
“And then I liked it,” she adds. “I was the administration part: how you were a leader of a building; how you act; how you involve everybody; how you provoke that collective advocacy among everybody in education; how you impact the other adults to impact the classroom.”
She remembers a sudden panic.
“For a moment, I felt that I had to leave the students behind – but then comes the thought, ‘No, you’re going to impact the adults who impact your students,’ ” she says.
“There was a lot of emotion at the beginning. I thought at first that I was not going to make it because I understand that I have to put in twice the work versus my peers due to my English when I read and write. I knew that when they were working two hours, I had to work four,” she adds. “Then I pushed myself. I said, ‘I have to think about my bilingual students. They have no representation, and I have to represent them. I’m determined to do that, and I will keep going.’ ”
MEANWHILE, THE 36-SEMESTER-HOUR program’s blend of contemporary and relevant classroom coursework with on-the-job observation and training showed Boer the ropes.
Interning at Lathrop as assistant principal during that time provided a close-up look at leadership and differences in philosophy.
Boer watched how to build strong working relationships with students, parents and staff. She noticed how everyone looks to the principal, who in return must model positive and productive operations. She saw how the research she studied in class makes sense in a real setting – and how to connect theory to practice.
“Today, I must say that a lot that I know, and that I have in building this school, have to do with what I learned,” she says. “Last year, I applied many of the materials that I learned about school improvement to our school because I do believe that, if it was researched and written by experts, they know better than I do. We’re working toward even more now, and we’re seeing results.”
Changes include the addition of two global programming classrooms for students with autism.
“I want to turn around the school. I want our achievement gap to close as much as possible. I know it’s a process – it’s a long process – but I feel that with the support of my supervisor, Blake Hand, and my instructional coach, Kristine Lobato, we can do it. We can do it,” Boer says.
“I’m enjoying the process, and I am a perfectionist, so I have to be reminded that it’s a long process. It’s not going to happen tomorrow,” she adds, “but I am motivated to put plans together and into action. I am an action person, and so it’s just aligning all the SIP goals – school improvement plans – and applying them and monitoring them.”
Boer has parented with the Boone-Winnebago Regional Office of Education for help with monitoring the progress “to help me be better, to help the staff be better and to help my instructional coach be better,” she says, “and then we can move this school forward.”
MOVING FORWARD is integral to her character.
She first came to the Rockford area in 1998 as an exchange student at Harlem High School in neighboring Machesney Park. Doing so changed her life.
“I loved the culture and everything about the United States,” she says, “and when I went back home to Brazil, I decided to pursue a career in education because I saw a revolving door to come back to the United States, especially through bilingual education.”
Counselors at Harlem didn’t realize that her native tongue was Portuguese, fortunately, so she found herself placed in a Spanish class, learning that language in addition to English.
After graduating from college in Brazil, she moved to Mexico to acquire a better grasp of conversational Spanish and its slang. Then, during a casual 2005 visit with members of her Harlem High School host family from seven years earlier, they suggested she apply for a teaching job in town.
Good idea: She joined the Rockford Public Schools, which sponsored her, in 2007.
“My passion is language. I love learning languages and different cultures, and I feel that I have to pass that on. I have to pass that knowledge on to others,” she says. “I also love diversity. I love understanding and digging deeper into diverse people, so I thought teaching would be the best fit for that.”
Teaching mostly en Español, her class assignments encompassed English and Spanish language arts, social studies, math and even physics.
More than a decade later, when the phone rang in April 2020 regarding the Principal Residency Program – the opportunity to earn a master’s degree with tuition paid by RPS 205 and the possibility of professional advancement – she braced for the worst.
Part of her doubt stemmed from a colleague who’d warned her that the district was unlikely to pick a candidate who spoke English as a second language and with an accent. An undeterred Boer went to her interview with confidence “because someone will be chosen. Why not me?”
Despite that, “I thought that I actually was receiving the call not to be in the program, so when I heard, ‘Congratulations! You’re a part of it,’ I could not believe it for a second,” Boer says.
“I said, ‘Oh my goodness! I am in. And now what? Now what? I have two years that I have to invest in time. I have two years to learn.’ When that happened, it was a big surprise, and it is still a surprise to me today.”
It’s a surprise for which she is grateful.
“When I went to the interview, I think I aligned with our district office. They have a passion for students. I could see it in their eyes,” she says, “and I have the same passion: children coming first. We connect.”
She discovered that same bond with the NIU College of Education and faculty who were “my rock stars when I needed them most.”
“I am very thankful to Dr. Tiffany Puckett; many times, my daughter had to come with me to class because I’m a single parent and I have no support in this country. My family is still living in Brazil,” Boer says. “When I graduated, I told my daughter, ‘Well, you deserve half of this.’ ”
Puckett was not alone in creating a welcoming place for Boer.
“What was key was the support from the professors. They understood who I was. They made me feel I belonged there, and that’s important. When you are an English learner, you want to feel you belong, and my professors were masters in that. They were there for me,” she says. “NIU is amazing, and I do want to go back into the doctoral program because I felt like I belong.”
Just as importantly, Boer appreciates her ability to pay forward what NIU and the trust of the Rockford Public Schools administration gave to her.
It’s making her dreams possible and, in turn, the dreams of the young children in her care.
“Four bilingual students already came to me and said that, when they grow up, they’re going to become a principal,” she says of her newly found role as a representational role model.
“When they see themselves, they’re motivated. They feel they belong. Even my minority students – my African Americans – when they see I have an accent, they feel mostly comfortable in talking to me,” she adds. “They can see that they can become better. They can.”
