Lincoln School Assistant Principal Beatriz Lappay has been tabbed to replace Kim West as the director of early childhood education in Lyons-Brookfield School District 103.
Lappay is now the third person to hold that job in the last six months. West was hired over the summer to replace the retiring Chris Newell, who started the pre-kindergarten program in District 103 and ran it for more than three decades.
In September, West became the director of student services, a job that came open when Colleen Bergren resigned at the start of the school year to take a position in Indiana.
Lappay was hired over the summer to be the assistant principal at Lincoln School, the largest elementary school in the district. She came to District 103 after working for two years at Cicero School District 99.
During the 2018-19 school year she was an assistant principal at Cicero West Elementary School, a pre-K through fourth grade school. In 2019-20, she was one of eight assistant principals at Unity Junior High.
At its Nov. 24 meeting, the District 103 school board voted 4 to 2 to approve hiring Lappay as the early childhood director. Board members Sharon Anderson and Marge Hubacek voted against hiring Lappay. Shannon Johnson was not at the meeting.
Hubacek said Lappay didn’t have any real experience in early childhood education and has jumped from job to job during her career.
“I’m just a little troubled that this was the best candidate for this position,” Hubacek said.
Lappay earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Northern Illinois University in 2003. She has two master’s degrees, one in special education from Lewis University and another in school leadership that she earned from Concordia University.
She earned an endorsement in English as a Second Language and bilingual education from Illinois State University in 2014. She is now studying for a doctorate in education at National Louis University.
Before coming to Cicero District 99, Lappay worked as long-term substitute special education teacher for a couple months in the spring of 2018 for Hawthorn District 73 in Vernon Hills.
She spent her longest time, nearly three years, working for the Acero Charter School Network in Chicago from August 2015 until January 2018. Lappay also has worked as a special education teacher for school districts in Villa Park, Bolingbrook, Elgin, and at Proviso West and Glenbard North high schools.
With the move into the new position, Lappay also gets a boost in salary. As director of early childhood education Lappay will be paid an annual salary of $95,000. She had been paid $83,000 as assistant principal at Lincoln School.
Superintendent goals approved
In another action at the Nov. 24 meeting, the District 103 school board voted 6-0 to approve six performance goals for Superintendent Kristopher Rivera. Performance goals are required for multiyear school administrator contracts.
The goals for the current school year are for Rivera and his administrative team to complete a district-wide school improvement plan, to develop an instructional support system that supports teachers in their quest to improve student achievement, to develop a handbook for a district wide multi-tiered systems of support process, to work toward enhancing communications by the use of social media and the district website, to work toward enhancing the district’s technological infrastructure and to work toward providing students with continued educational opportunities while the navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rivera will be required to prepare a report the school board at the end of the year indicating his progress toward those goals.
