Dear MSLF Community,

We are pleased to tell you that we have succeeded in filling the role of Montessori School of Lake Forest Adolescent Program Director. Since Ann Jordahl left this position in order to lead the school in June, 2013, we have conducted two formal searches and directly approached several individuals, in ongoing efforts to fill this position. We are grateful to Bev Adamczyk who agreed to temporarily direct the Adolescent Program during the 2013-14 school year.

We searched carefully for an individual to fulfill our Adolescent Program’s distinctive criteria, including:

After a 3 year search, MSLF has appointed Stephen Sennott , a teacher and youth mentor who worked at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he served 14 years as Assistant Dean and adjunct professor in the College of Architecture. Steve is already known to many in the MSLF community, most recently as a Chicago tour guide for the Adolescent Program, a former committee volunteer, an alumni parent, and the spouse of Ann Jordahl.

Steve’s application and qualifications indisputably established him as our single strongest candidate for the position. His deep familiarity with Maria Montessori’s collaborative approach to education and community has informed his teaching, advising, and administrative tasks. The Adolescent Program students will be well served, too, by his experience as a mentor for Chicago-area middle school and high school students engaged in the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Saturday Studios and as the director of IIT’s summer high school workshop, “Experiment in Architecture.”

We have worked carefully with MSLF’s Board of Directors and have pursued this opportunity fully aware of the challenge and promise it offers.  Per their guidance, candidate interviews were conducted by a team. The selection process prompted a useful review of procedures, and to maintain the integrity of our employee communications we have added a formal whistleblower policy to the Employee Handbook. In addition, Ann has taken steps to insure that Steve’s formal report and review process will be conducted by another employee than herself.

We are confident that Steve will foster the MSLF Adolescent Program as a teacher, mentor, and program director. To this end, he will seek to develop relationships with the full MSLF community beginning this spring, before he formally joins the MSLF faculty this fall. He will be reaching out to faculty and students and there will be opportunities to meet him during the spring and summer. Please feel free to invite him to events or to contact him with ideas or questions.

We are fully committed to maintaining the Montessori School of Lake Forest as an open learning community, focused on serving the parent-child-teacher triad, on behalf of all of your children. To that end, we seek to hire only the very best in faculty. Please contact either of us with comments, questions, or concerns. As you know, the door is always open.

Best wishes to all of you, and please join us in welcoming Steve to MSLF.

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