Page 6 - IASA Annual Report FY 2013

4
Executive Director’s Note
The demand for our professional development grows each year, and, in the summer of 2012, IASA
opened field offices in Schaumburg and Marion and hired three Field Services Directors to make IASA
services more readily available throughout the state.
In August of 2012, 23 superintendents graduated as part of the inaugural class of the IASA School for
Advanced Leadership (ISAL), a rigorous two-year cohort that was the result of many years of planning.
Given all of the challenges facing superintendents and public education in Illinois, we thought it was
important to provide a unique opportunity through rigorous curriculum, training and experiences
for those men and women who were willing to push themselves beyond what is expected of a
superintendent. We were looking for “Trail Blazers” – people who would go where others had never
gone. What we ended up with is a dedicated group of educators who are specially trained to lead their
school districts and to help create a vision for public education in our state.
As in most every other sector of our state and country, our partnerships and sponsored programs
are feeling the pinch of the downward economy and that is being reflected in our own budgetary
considerations going forward, but our commitment to provide services is a top priority.
The IASA Board of Directors has continued to provide steady leadership, guidance and support to
the Association. I want to express my deepest appreciation to them for their role in our governance
structure. Going forward, the core of our work will continue to focus on Leadership Development,
Governmental Relations and Communications.
It’s hard for me to believe that I am finishing my seventh year as the Executive Director. Public
education has undergone and continues to undergo so much change. One thing that has not changed
is my commitment to stand beside and represent the school superintendents who are responsible for
developing our state’s most precious resource, the children of Illinois.
Yours for better schools,
Brent Clark
Brent Clark, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Illinois Association of School Administrators