New Oswego SD 308 superintendent points to goals, challenges for district

New Oswego School District 308 Superintendent Andalib Khelghati would like to have more teachers start their careers with the district.

At the same time, he says the teachers should represent the district’s diverse population. More than 60 languages are spoken in the district, said Theresa Komitas, the district’s executive director of communications and public relations.

“One of my year one priorities is to develop a plan to draw and attract more educators and also increase the number of educators who represent the students here,” Khelghati said in an interview with the Oswego Ledger. “Currently, statistically we don’t have a very high number of African-American or Latinx educators in the district.”

The district recently received a $400,00 grant to build a teacher residency program “where we can essentially grow our own teachers in the district,” he said.

“You would have your bachelor’s degree and we would provide you with the opportunity to get your master’s degree in teaching,” Khelghati said. “Then you would stay on as a teacher in our district.”

As part of the program, the district is looking to potentially partner with schools in the area such as Aurora University, which offers a Master of Arts in teaching program.

“Teachers would essentially come into our district from day one,” Khelghati said. “We would invest in their learning and vice versa. They would then commit to staying in the district for three to four years. I’m really excited about the opportunity to do that.”

The 49-year-old, who is the district’s first Black school superintendent, started with the district in July. School board members in June voted 6-0 to approve a three-year contract with Khelghati.

He succeeds Superintendent John Sparlin, who retired at the end of June with a year remaining on his contract. Khelghati had served as Evanston/Skokie School District 65′s assistant superintendent of human resources since 2021.

Prior to that, he had served as the district’s assistant superintendent of schools for four years.

“I had been searching to join a district that was really interested in excellence for all kids and a district that had awareness of the societal pressures that were facing America, everything from issues of economic disparity to social justice,” Khelghati said in talking about why he applied for the post. “And a district that was committed to celebrating its diversity.”

Helping the public better understand the district’s finances is another of his goals. He wants to build a budget book for next year that spells out the district’s budget in great detail.

“It will probably be something like anywhere from 200 to 300 pages long that would give the whole community access to all the details around our budget,” he said. “There will be complete transparency.”

Like other school districts across the nation, SD308 is having to deal with a shortage of bus drivers. But things are improving, Komitas said.

“We are seeing an uptick in people interested in joining our bus transportation team,” she said. “We are starting to see more applications. ... We really want to value the people that we have and work to retain them while we work on recruiting additional people.”

Khelghati also said he is committed to ensuring there is high quality instruction in all of the district’s schools. And he wants the district to be able to provide the proper resources to a student who may be struggling and in need of additional help.

“For example, introducing high-dosage tutoring in our schools, so we can have kids experience tutoring during the school day, not just after school,” he said. “But you can’t do that unless you have a really good system to measure how kids are progressing academically…Building the structure for educational excellence is my most pressing item.”