FEBRUARY 12, 2025

The student voice has never been more important in shaping learning environments. To that end, our office always looks forward to the annual Youth Voices Forum on Mental Health in partnership with the Kane County Health Department. Last Friday, our Alternative Programs staff welcomed nearly 80 students, counselors, social workers, and representatives from Kane County offices for a day of student-led conversations on social emotional well-being.

Helping facilitate this event has been a tremendous honor and has shined a light on multiple improvement needs in our services that we have worked to address. It has pushed us to increase our counseling services through channels such as our Alternative Learning Opportunities Programs and Regional Safe Schools Programs. We have also provided more professional development opportunities to help educators foster difficult conversations with their students.

Data from the forum will be compiled to produce a report later this year that will be shared with county board members, school board members, school district staff, and others. The report is intended to shed light on the largest themes and issues impacting the mental health of Kane County students.

These efforts would not be possible without students courageously sharing their stories and advocating for their needs. We commend them for joining us to guide these discussions, particularly those who have taken part over multiple years.

Patricia Dal Santo, Regional Superintendent

Work with Kane County ROE youth outreach

If you or someone you know has interest in the type of work being done at the Youth Voices Forum for Mental Health and with students across Kane County, the ROE is adding to our Youth Outreach team.

This role will will work within our Alternative Programs to meet with school representatives, students, and families regarding attendance issues, conduct school conferences and meetings regarding potential dropouts, develop and monitor individual service plans for students on active caseload, and other duties.

The impact on school communities is what makes the annual Kane County Educator of the Year Awards special, not just on banquet night, but all year. We continue to see assemblies, surprises, and showings of admirations as our schools reveal their intended nominees for this year's awards.

We are eager to continue the celebration with you at our banquet on Friday, May 2, 2025!

Nominations for the 49th Kane County Educator of the Year Awards will be accepted through Friday, March 7. Coming off a record number of nominees in 2024, this year's banquet will be cinema themed as we pay homage to the hard work and dedication of educational staff from across the county.

Click below to find our nomination form, guidelines, and judging rubric as well as a step-by-step video guide to the nomination process.

Kane County administrators honored by Illinois Principals Association

The annual Horace Mann/IPA Awards for Excellence program has honored two of Kane County's own for their outstanding accomplishments as school leaders. Congratulations to Dr. Suzanne Johnson of District U-46 for being named the Superintendent of the Year and Brian Faulkner of Kaneland Harter Middle School the Middle School Principal of the Year for the Kishwaukee Region!

We value all that you do for our students, staff, and communities.

Analyzing data is an essential tool in assessing and empowering those we teach. However, the classroom experience goes well beyond data points, and these numbers can often miss telling the entire story.

In this course, participants will identify and examine priority data sources from their setting (i.e. behavioral, academic, and demographic data) and learn strategies to engage their teams in identifying possible trends and blindspots that indicate inequitable practices.

You will be exposed to activities and strategies to help you foster a more equitable lens as your examine complex data, while also helping your teams have difficult conversations to address concerning patterns of disproportionality that is born out of the data. The Equity Journey Continuum from ISBE will also be part of this course as we help you leverage additional data to tell your district's equity story.

Cost: $175

PD Hours: 4.5

Admin. Academy Credit: 6

Traveling abroad or simply working on learning a new language? Translation apps are effective tools when looking to decipher other languages in conversations or in the physical world around us. Advances in technology, from how your camera can recognize text to real-time translations through AirPods, have made this process even more sophisticated.

Phil Morris walks you through some capabilities in the latest Tuesday Tech Tip! Looking for previous tips (like the one referenced in this video)? Click here to browse the full playlist.

All Administrator Academies and Evaluator Trainings through the Kane County ROE are scheduled out through September 2025. Click to see dates and pricing.

The Illinois Online Academy has also expanded its catalog of fully online courses.

These are examples of offerings that can be completed online within 60 days. 

Understanding & Implementing Common Core Standards

PD Credit: 45

Cost: $200

Teaching Secondary Math Conceptually

PD Credit: 45

Cost: $200

See our full list of courses and asynchronous academies here.

Would you like your district to become a destination for computer science education? The Kane County ROE now offers a trained SCRIPT Facilitator to guide your team through an alignment program to create an equitable computer science curriculum that is accessible for all students.



SCRIPT stands for Strategic CSforAll Resource & Implementation Planning Tool, and the program targets six specific areas:

• Teacher capacity and development
• Curriculum/Materials Selection and Refinement
• Leadership
• Partners
• Technology Infrastructure
• Community

Through this SCRIPT Program, we can help you establish a rigorous,

inclusive, and sustainable framework and a common understanding of computer science. Contact Faye Licari, Instructional Coach at the Kane County ROE, at flicari@kaneroe.org to learn more about this free opportunity.

Check out the latest episodes of our weekly classroom strategy series, Branching Out, for quick tips from our Professional Learning team!

Setting Daily Affirmations

Setting daily goals can help students be mindful of what they want to learn or accomplish, which can be useful for days where they may seem to be running on autopilot.

Elsa Glover shares a simple strategy to help students be intentional about what they want to focus on each day.

Random Acts of Kindness

Kindness never goes out of style, and we could all use more of it!

Faye Licari prepares you for February's Random Acts of Kindness Week in this Branching Out. There are processes you can implement now to share joy and boost morale for your students, colleagues, and yourself!

New episodes of Branching Out are released every Thursday across our social media platforms and our website. You can also browse our full catalog below. With over 100 episodes and counting, there's a video for every educator looking to branch out!

Have a question? Want to connect?

hello@kaneroe.org l kaneroe.org