On May 29th and 30th, 2008, the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Board of Higher Education hosted a Working Together to Prepare Illinois School Leaders Conference held in Bloomington, Illinois. A major purpose of the conference was informational, to collectively bring everyone up to speed on the content of the Task Force recommendations and to get the conversation started with the higher education community beyond the higher education members of the Task Force. During the conference, experiences from Iowa and Alabama were shared on what other states have done relative to principal preparation. School and university partnerships from ISU/Springfield, CPS Principal Preparation & Development, UIC/Chicago, ROE# 40 and WIU/and surrounding districts were referenced either through presentations or in the course of discussions to demonstrate additional types of experiences that might be considered with this work. Materials from the conference can be found at: http://www.ibhe.org
On August 6-7, 2008, ISBE and IBHE convened Part II of the Working Together to Prepare Illinois School Leaders Conference in Bloomington, Illinois. The conference reconnected May attendees to continue working together to expand the dialogue on the issues surrounding the Illinois School Leader Task Force recommendations. Materials from the August conference can be found at http://www.ibhe.org.
In moving the recommendations of the Illinois School Leader Task Force forward, ISBE and IBHE convened five Working Together To Prepare Illinois School Leaders Redesign Teams:
On February 20th, 2009, ISBE and IBHE brought back together participants in past working together conferences to release the recommendations developed by the five redesign teams. Materials from the conference include:
On November 23rd, 2009, ISBE and IBHE brought back together participants to discuss the next steps in planning principal preparation and teacher instructional leader programs as well as the review of the professional teaching standards.
On March 31, 2010, ISBE and IBHE met with participants to talk about changes in principal preparation and teacher education, this time inviting representatives from the community colleges.