New Superintendent Ready for 2024-2025 School Year

Dr. Cynthia Levy is the Superintendent of Markham/ Hazel Crest School District 152 1/2. Photoby Citizen.
Dr. Cynthia Levy is the Superintendent of Markham/ Hazel Crest School District 152 1/2. Photoby Citizen.

New Superintendent Ready for 2024-2025 School Year

By Tia Carol Jones

Dr. Cynthia Levy has officially been the Superintendent of the Markham/Hazel Crest School District 152 ½ since July 1st. Even before that, she was engaging staff and faculty in preparation for her tenure and the school year ahead.

Levy has been an educator since 2002 and has worked with elementary and high school students throughout that time. She started her career as a ninth-grade teacher at Christian Fenger Academy High School on the city’s South side in the Roseland community.

Levy said preparing for the new school year has been busy, but exciting. She has been getting the teachers ready and acclimated. She also is hiring staff, which with the teacher’s shortage in Illinois has been a challenge. She is looking for qualified teachers to support the district’s students. She wants to make sure she puts the right people in front of the students.

Prior to being named Superintendent of the District, Levy was the Director of Teaching and Learning. In that role, she worked with every student, from Pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, giving her a global perspective of the school district. She was able to get a sense of what the students need to be successful, what families need and want and was able to problem solve in the moment.

“It helped me understand really what a school district does for students, outside of just being a principal, which is where I started in the district,” she said.

In her role as Director of Teaching and Learning, she was able to see how change affected families and was able to be a positive force in the life of a student. She also worked side-by-side with teachers to select appropriate curriculum for the students. Having teachers contribute to selecting the curriculum for the students gave the teachers agency and they had ownership. It gave her a better understanding of what teachers need and want.

Levy believes that providing students with an engaging learning experience affects student achievement and prepares them for the next grade level, it opens their minds to be able to critically think.

“Preparing students to engage in school is going to be the key to changing their outcomes in the future,” Levy said. “We lay the foundation, as an elementary school, we lay that foundation beyond elementary school, in high school, in college. We create that situation for students to be able to be successful after they leave us.”

On July 30th, the school district began eight days of professional development where the teachers were immersed in the core four curriculum: Math, Science, English and Social Studies, as well as culturally responsive teaching and social emotional learning, giving them tools in the toolkit to work with students that might have deficits in those areas. The goal is to have teachers prepared to welcome students to the classroom on Monday, Aug. 12th.

“My goal for this year is for us to be the one. Be the one that makes a positive difference in the life of a child, be the one that makes a positive difference in the classroom when you’re teaching, making sure that you’re reaching students, even the ones that don’t say they don’t know and you’re being the one to reach out to them even when they won’t come to you for that,” Levy said. She said she wants the faculty to show up for the children.

For more information about the Markham/Hazel Crest School District 152 ½ , visit sd1525.org. For more information about the Village of Markham, visit www.cityofmarkham.org. For more information about the Village of Hazel Crest, visit www.villageofhazelcrest.org.


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