The Fund: How did you end up pursuing a career in education?

Principal Garza-Hammerlund: I am a native Chicagoan and a 海角直播 high school graduate. While in college, I realized I wanted to become a teacher. I was lucky enough to obtain a job at the elementary school located in the neighborhood where I grew up.

The Fund: What neighborhood did you grow up in?

Principal Garza-Hammerlund: The Ashburn neighborhood on the Southwest Side near Bogan High School. I began working at Dawes Elementary, which is right behind it, and taught sixth grade language arts and science. While there, my love of middle school began, and I’ve just always felt really passionate about helping kids see their potential and be their best selves. I’ve always wanted to help the kids who need help most 鈥� the kids who saw the least in themselves.

I earned my first master鈥檚 in instructional technology, I was genuinely interested in bringing technology and a constructivist learning model into the classroom. This was one of the things I most enjoyed about teaching science; I like helping students build their own learning.

After 10 years in the classroom, I shifted to teaching library and technology skills. I also coached alongside teachers around technology integration and content areas like math and science. I taught and coached at Sandoval Elementary on the Southwest Side for eight years.

A close colleague I worked with at Sandoval joined Albany Park Multicultural Academy as the assistant principal. I was lucky enough to then join her at Albany Park as an instructional coach. Soon after, I became assistant principal and eventually principal. Albany Park is a long way from the South Side, but it鈥檚 so amazing to craft what we do around our niche of students.

The Fund: What has been your experience with The Fund?

Principal Garza-Hammerlund: The previous principal, Hiliana Le贸n, connected me with The Fund. She participated in the Cahn Fellows Program through Columbia University in 2018. I was her ally in the program. When she left, the first thing I did as a new principal was join a Professional Learning Community. That really helped me connect with other principals around a like-minded topic. I saw ways that we could work together, problem-solve, and focus on seeing the results of whatever it was we were working on, be it student achievement or teacher professional development. It became an important component for my own growth. I was always reflecting, what does my school need? What does my staff need?

The Fund: Can you share about your experience with The Fund鈥檚 Design Challenge?

Principal Garza-Hammerlund: The Design Challenge certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was during a time we were coming through a year of practicing survival skills more often than thriving ones. I was really nervous about doing it. I said to myself, 鈥淭his was a place where you could grow.鈥� I was very proud that I pushed myself to revisit and scrutinize the work that we had done, and look at areas where we could strengthen data collection. Also thinking, we should also strengthen the questions we ask ourselves about that data, and question assumptions about our school community, our students, the staff 鈥� and assumptions I was making about myself.

That was an eye-opening experience for me. I learned to question these assumptions we were making and really peel back the layers. I encouraged and supported the team to accomplish the same. This helped us look beyond our assumptions to make better decisions for improved student learning.

Albany Park鈥檚 2022 Design Challenge entry presented a program in which English language learners and newcomer students were given more autonomy in the classroom and in their learning experience. The program blended students鈥� needs with students鈥� choices to create a more effective, inclusive, collaborative school environment. Learn more about their Design Challenge project in our report Equity-Focused Innovation in Chicago鈥檚 Public Schools.

The Fund: Tell us about yourself and how you got into education as a career.

Principal Kimbrough: I started as the new principal of Jahn School of Fine Arts on July 1, 2022. [It was] my 18th year in education. Education, to me 鈥� I think it was something I always knew I wanted and somewhere I needed to be. Initially, I joined the United States Environmental Protection Agency here in Chicago. I worked mainly in the Office of Public Affairs, where I did community and media relations. About eight years into my career, I realized I wanted to do something different. So I started thinking about it, and I decided to get my substitute certificate. I decided to, at least, take a stab at being a substitute teacher. On my first day, I knew it was what I wanted to do. So from there, it was a matter of figuring out how I could get into teaching. I had no education degree and no experience whatsoever. Eventually, I found an alternative teaching program and got accepted into it. That’s how it all started.

The Fund: How did you find the Jahn School of Fine Arts?

Principal Kimbrough: Jahn actually found me, to be honest with you. I was quite comfortable in my assistant principal position, but I knew at some point I wanted to move into a principalship. Working with The Fund, I had done Leadership Bridge, and that helped me figure out where I was going. I even worked on a Professional Learning Community for assistant principals. I was comfortable at Skinner North [Classical School]; I was happy I was doing work that I thought spoke to the needs of the community. I was doing work around equity, which really is a big driver for me. Then, a member of the Jahn Local School Council reached out. I guess they saw the things that we were doing at Skinner North. I applied, did a number of interviews, participated in a public forum with the finalists, and eventually was offered the role of principal, in which I now sit.

The Fund: Tell us about your time at Skinner North and your transition to Jahn.

Principal Kimbrough: Skinner North, interestingly enough, is one of the few selective enrollment elementary schools in Chicago. Our students come from all over the city and have to test into the school. Something I appreciated during my time there was my work around distributive leadership, really learning that the work of leading a school can’t necessarily be done by the administrators alone. It takes a lot of calling on and pulling on members of your staff to actually help do that work. And interestingly, that has carried over into the work that I’m doing at Jahn.

The first thing that I wholeheartedly did with my staff was reach out and say, 鈥淗ey, I am new, but this work is not going to be done by administration alone. I need you guys to step up.鈥� And overwhelmingly, the staff have definitely risen to the occasion, doing everything from helping figure out what professional development week is going to look like, to revitalizing our instructional-leadership team, to leading interviews for open positions within the school. They have really jumped out there and taken the lead on what needs to happen to move the school forward beyond the actual leadership of the school leader. So that has been something that I could wholeheartedly say has been brought over to Jahn, as well as a lot of work around equity I did at Skinner North.

The Fund: Can you tell us a little bit about your time in Leadership Bridge?

Principal Kimbrough: I think the Leadership Bridge program really did so much for me. And the good part about it is that it provided me, first and foremost, with a continuous opportunity to be a part of a triad to grow as a leader. That triad consisted of my principal at the time and my leadership coach from the University of Illinois Chicago. So while I had some opportunities to do that on my own, Leadership Bridge gave us the chance to come together more often as a team and really build upon the principles and ideals that we learned during our meetings. We could take what we learned from those sessions and actually apply it. It really assisted me in laying the groundwork for thinking about what my next moves were as a leader.

About Leadership Bridge

Leadership Bridge supports the leadership development and career growth of assistant principals (APs) so that they are ready to assume principalship in the next one to two years. It aims to ensure that 海角直播has a robust, high-quality, and diverse pipeline of school leaders. Through on-the-job professional development and individualized coaching sessions from school leadership experts at , the , and , APs work in close collaboration with their principals to prepare for their future roles and to develop succession plans for their schools.

Since the inception of the program in 2019, The 海角直播 has supported more than 60 AP and principal pairs to develop clear succession plans for their schools, and has seen more than 20 APs successfully become principals in 海角直播schools.