We Love Illinois Schools

We sit down with Víctor Gómez, Illinois’ 2025 Teacher of the Year, to unpack what bilingual STEM education looks like when it’s treated as rigorous, affirming, and truly equitable 

Víctor shares his monarch butterfly story from Michoacán, Mexico, where migration, memory, and identity meet, and how that metaphor helps communities reframe bilingualism as something to celebrate. He also connects the monarch phenomenon back to the classroom with STEM instruction, showing how a cultural narrative can lead into physics concepts like forces, acceleration, speed, and distance.

We get practical about policy and practice too: the difference between bilingual educators and ESL support, what “truly bilingual” science means at Leyden High School, and how translanguaging lets multilingual learners use their full linguistic repertoire. Víctor explains how cognates and home-language knowledge can bridge into English without sacrificing academic content, and why sink-or-swim English-only approaches can cost students both opportunity and identity. 

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

As ISBE’s team tours the state collecting feedback on the second draft of our Illinois Comprehensive Numeracy Plan, we wanted to share this fun conversation with math education expert, John SanGiovanni, who has authored more than 20 best-selling books on the topic. He sees math — and numeracy — in daily activities that everybody does, and says we all do more math than we give ourselves credit for. Learn more about our plan at www.isbe.net/NumeracyPlan.

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

“Some of us come into teaching because we always loved school. Some of us come into teaching because we didn't love school, and we want to change something about it.” 

That’s a glimpse into Dr. Rachael Mahmood’s journey. With a Russian Jewish mother and an Indian Hindu dad, Rachael never felt like she fit in when she was a child attending school. That experience fueled her desire to become an educator, and now, Dr. Mahmood is wrapping up her term as our 2024 Illinois State Teacher of the Year. In this episode, you’ll hear how she came to view her heritage as a way to be a “connector,” and how educators can make all students feel like they fit.
 
“We can do it differently,” Dr. Mahmood says. “We can do it better than the experience that we've had.”

Our theme music is by José Rivera. Incidental music is “Rain On Lake Erie” from Purple Planet Music.

BEACON is the state’s new online portal designed to help Illinois families connect to behavioral health resources. Available for use by state agency staff, healthcare providers, schools and families, it streamlines the process of finding and accessing relevant services to help ensure that every child in Illinois can receive the support they need. This portal can match families with the programs that provide the help they’re eligible to receive. Our guest, Dr. Dana Weiner, helped create the portal and explains how it works. 

You can explore BEACON at beacon.illinois.gov.

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

Focused on our mission to prepare all students for success in college and careers, it’s easy to overlook the fact that some instruction on caregiving would be useful.

Katharine Bensinger took on a request from a student club and ended up with some prestigious partners in the creation of ParentABLE, an evidence-based curriculum that has been piloted with hundreds of students statewide. The parenting education program is free for districts to opt into, and ParenTeach offers six Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) through TeachIllinois.org for educators who implement ParentABLE.

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

Ryan Wamser and Matt Weld from Regional Office of Education 40 are leaders in the world of school Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL. Together, they staff the Area 5 SEL Hub in Southwestern Illinois – one of seven regional hubs that offer professional development to local teachers and school administrators on trauma-informed practices and all things SEL.

By far the most popular workshop they offer is “Leadership Lessons from the Lasso Way.” The duo uses the hit Apple TV comedy Ted Lasso as inspiration to discuss what it means to lead a team -- or a classroom -- while prioritizing the mental health of both the team and the leaders. They spoke with guest host Lindsay Record, who leads ISBE’s public relations efforts focused on Illinois pandemic recovery efforts. To get connected with your SEL Hubs, visit https://isbe.net/selhubs.
Our theme music is by José Rivera.

Briana Morales is our 2023 Illinois State Teacher of the Year. She’s a high school English teacher at Gordon Bush Alternative Center – the alternative school for East St. Louis School District 189. To learn more about our Teacher of the Year program, visit our website. To nominate someone for 2024 Teacher of the year, go to this page. To request Briana for a speaking engagement, express interest here. To be inspired to connect with students, click play.

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

The National Teacher of the Year finalist and Oregon High School teacher known as Ms. Rad talks about why she advocates for having special education students in her Spanish class, how she overcame her fear of public speaking, the role llamas played in improving her teaching technique,  what she does in her spare time, and so much more.  

Our theme music is by José Rivera.

Lindsay Record, the communications lead for our Learning Renewal team, hosts this episode. Her featured guests are Mashana Smith, Ph.D, director of REACH at the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, and Marla Graham, principal of the Lovington Grade School in Arthur CUSD 305. They share experiences and strategies to address trauma so that students can feel safe and ready to learn.

REACH stands for Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing. It's a statewide initiative, offering schools the tools they need to help educators support the social and emotional well-being of both students and staff. You can learn more about it and the services REACH provides at isbe.net/REACH.

Theme music by José Rivera

Steven Herkert is director of ROE services at Regional Office of Education 8. He is also a principal mentor with the Illinois Principals Association, and a passionate advocate for the 5Essentials Culture and Climate Survey. In this episode, he talks about mistakes he made as a principal, what he got right, and how principals can use data to make their schools better.

Our theme music is by José Rivera.