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Curriculum and Instruction
Mr. J. Crosen
Assistant Superintendent of Schools & Equity
(708) 210-2881 x2106
Jamie Crosen currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Equity. Before this post, he was the Principal of Elgin High School, concluding his seventh full year in the unified district of Elgin U-46, the second-largest district in Illinois. He served as the Principal at Larkin High School from 2017 to 2020.
With an education career spanning over 18 years, Jamie has held various roles, including teacher, department chair, curriculum coordinator, Assistant Principal, and Principal. Before joining U-46, he contributed significantly to the Chicago Public Schools system as an Assistant Principal at Roberto Clemente High School, a Curriculum Coordinator at Tilden High School, and a teacher at Bowen High School.
Jamie’s passion for serving students from all backgrounds is the driving force behind his work. He has consistently focused on improving educational outcomes for marginalized students, working with teams that have successfully enhanced school standings based on district and state accountability metrics.
Jamie is pursuing his Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy at Northern Illinois University (NIU). His dedication to fostering inclusive and dynamic learning environments is evident in his daily efforts to support and uplift his students. Through his leadership, Elgin High School and Larkin High School have made significant strides in academic performance, community engagement, and student development.
Jamie’s extensive experience and unwavering commitment to education continue to inspire positive changes within his school and the broader district.
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The Curriculum and Instruction Department is committed to producing lifelong learners who are college-bound, career-ready, and able to compete in a global society. We are committed to ensuring that all learners’ social, emotional, and cognitive needs are met so that all students can reach their full potential. We understand that instruction and learning must happen on a growth model continuum, where data analytics, planning, learning, and evidence of learning operate in a feedback loop to personalize learning. We continue to work to ensure that our schools and classrooms provide enriching, rigorous, and holistic learning experiences while maintaining high expectations for our students, staff, parents and community members.
The Curriculum & Instruction Department encourages and embraces creativity, diversity, and individuality in instructional practices and learning. We continue to be committed to ensuring that our students are challenged to learn, grow and excel in a rigorous and challenging environment where they can compete and dominate in the larger global community. We educate to create minds of inquiry and application. Our goal is to teach our students not only to be able to process information but to discern it so that they can make decisions critical to their future and make meaningful contributions to society.
In our ever-changing and unpredictable world, our students need to master knowing what to do when they do not immediately know what to do. Doing this effectively involves the development of agency and executive function skills. For students to develop these skills, they must be empowered, proactive agents—or co-authors—of their learning journey. We must actively engage students in authentic learning experiences, and teach our students resilience, tenacity, perseverance, and to embrace a growth mindset.
The following creed was created in order to accomplish our mission and vision as educators. These guiding principles were established as a reflection of the values of our school district. They will guide us daily as we interact with our learners, peers, staff, and community members.
The Curriculum and Instruction Department will –
- Act with integrity and ensure that the needs of our students are our first priority.
- Ensure that our classrooms and schools are safe and healthy environments that meet the needs of all students socially, emotionally, and cognitively.
- Ensure that our classrooms are challenging learning environments where hard work is expected, students are working on rigorous activities, and perseverance and grit are modeled and acknowledged.
- Provide equitable, rich, and meaningful experiences and opportunities for all students in a culturally relevant environment to help them to reach their full potential.
- Build relationships with all students and parents, and maintain those relationships through honesty, open communication, respect, and professionalism.
- Exemplify high expectations for all learners by providing extra time and support to struggling students, challenging our high-achieving students, and making learning targets and goals clear to help each student reach their full potential.
- Work collaboratively to revise and inform our instruction based on data, and communicate regularly and consistently with each other to share ideas/best practices.
- Utilize job-embedded professional development to increase student achievement, refine existing instructional strategies, and introduce new instructional strategies.
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