Fifth cohort of the West Central Illinois School Leadership Initiative completes training

QUINCY — The West Central Illinois School Leadership Initiative recently completed its fifth leadership training cohort. Wayne Krus, a teacher at Baldwin School in the Quincy School District, was among the graduates.

School administrators and teachers from districts and schools in a 10-county region in west-central Illinois have been involved in this leadership training for 18 months and refined their leadership skills in a cohort of 30-plus participants. Participants also completed an action learning project that will further impact their work at their districts and schools.

The cohort met in Mount Sterling at Hagel 1891 for most of their 24 days of leadership training.

The graduation celebration occurred on Thursday, Dec. 8, at the end of their final day of training.

The West Central Illinois School Leadership Initiative is a collaborative effort with national faculty and local certified facilitators from the National Center on Education and the Economy facilitating the sessions and using the National Institute of School Leadership curriculum.

The Regional Office of Education No. 1 is the local training partner. The initiative is sponsored by the Tracy Family Foundation. Grant support for the initiative was provided by Knapheide Manufacturing.

The initiative has now trained more than 150 educators, both public and private, in five completed cohorts. The sixth cohort is slated to complete its training in May, and after that, nearly 200 regional school leaders will be trained in the NISL Educator Development Program. The goal of this initiative is to assist in creating a world-class educational system in west-central Illinois.