One word keeps coming up as Donna Adamic considers the huge school district she’ll oversee as superintendent next year: improvement.

Cicero Public Schools District 99, which has 17 schools comprised of the 13,500 Cicero kids in kindergarten through eighth grade, has progressed in the past four years.

Currently an assistant superintendent of the district, Adamic is working long, hard hours for further change needed.

Q. What’s a challenge you saw in the district when you joined 10 years ago?    
A. When I had first entered the district, teachers had only text books and no type of instructional guide. But soon after the central office created quarterly expectations--a curriculum guide that gave ideas about what to teach and when. And since then, the guide has improved with various resources for teachers ... and revised so that all the teachers in the district are teaching similar things at the same time so that students who move between buildings can pick up approximately where they left off.

Q. Where have you seen the biggest improvement?
A. Reading. Once reading is in place, everything else follows. A few years ago, we brought in literacy support teachers to help our teachers deliver good reading instruction; and they guide groups of students in reading. With federal and state grants, we’ve been able to hire reading coaches and interventionists, including bilingual reading interventionists. Now we’ve got quite a staff of certified teachers who help teachers at all 17 schools, in different rooms, depending on the needs of a room. With the support of these resource teachers, we’ve been able to improve and progress in reading. We’re revisiting math. In 2006, we looked at state standards to provide guidelines to teachers.

Q. Your data shows a steady improvement in reading and math over the past four years. What was the impetus for improvement?
A. We had to do it. The accountability (of the No Child Left Behind Act) forced us; our funding would be based on it. We were made aware that there needed to be some type of measurement and that we can’t just teach and not look at how well students are performing. Before, state tests were for the district to use as measurements ... you looked at the data results and put them in a file. Now those state tests are being looked at and used to hold us to a standard.

Q. Do you anticipate the seven schools that remain on the academic watch list to be able to work its way off the list, even though the percentage that must meet or exceed state standards has risen to 62 percent?
A. I’m not worried about our main population; many of our schools hit that 62 percentage mark or are close to that and know what it takes. We’re well on our way. But the ugly part are NCLB items that are so controversial--holding disabled students and students who are learning English for the first time to the same standards as the rest of the students.

Q. How is the district addressing challenged subgroups?
A. For the disabled students, we’re looking at everything--their individualized educational plans, their classes. But there’s only so much you can do; they just shouldn’t have to be held to the same standards. For the English language learners, they’re rising above the amount that must meet or exceed expectations. Still, we’re getting torn between NCLB and our bilingual program--which is set up for students to learn reading concepts and foundations in their native language first, and then transfer that to English; otherwise the learning process is slowed down and the transition to English is difficult. Teachers are feeling pressured to possibly compromise the program, since students have to take standardized tests in English. So, we’re looking at  an English-to-Spanish transitional model for all fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at six schools. It’s a pilot to see if we can transition students to English successfully earlier.

Q. Do you speak Spanish? If not, what do you do to connect with the parents and bilingual students and teachers in the predominantly Hispanic district?
A. Un poquito. I have a BA in Spanish and I read Spanish and try my best to understand it being spoken, but I don’t speak it so much. I was always so self-conscious and thought people would laugh if I make a mistake. But as a second language learner of Spanish, I understand what people are faced with when having to speak English as a second language. Sort of what I regret most in life is never becoming truly bilingual. Our bilingual students have an advantage in the world. We provide translation of anything. We always have interpreters available, and if not, we’ll find someone who can understand. Parents feel very comfortable.

Q. What other changes are in the works?
A. In 2007, we revised our science curriculum. For 2008 we’ll look at revising it for social studies as well as language arts in 2009 or by the end of this school year.