Submit your stories and highlights to The Golden Bugle at www.cps.edu/thegoldenbugle

THE GOLDEN BUGLE Service Leadership Academies Network Newsletter ● Issue 1 ● December 2014

In this Issue

Cadet Spotlights

Matthew Praznowski

Gregory Holmes

JROTC Updates

LTC (Ret) Scott Kochheiser

City Corp

Military Ball 2014

Department Highlight

The Office of Diverse

Learners Supports & Services

Parent Leadership Update

2014 HBCU College Fair

Special Announcement

Congratulations!

Cadet Spotlight | Gregory Holmes, a senior JROTC Cadet

from Chicago Military Academy – Bronzeville was a featured

speaker at the Pritzker Military Museum and Library Gala on

Saturday night, November 8 at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago.

Holmes spoke about the value of the Pritzker Museum and Li-

brary to his academic growth and enrichment. “The library has

given me life changing experiences such as his conducting an

oral history interview with a World War II veteran who told his

story of fighting in the Pacific Theater of Operations,” said

Holmes. Holmes plans to attend the United States Military

Academy at West Point upon graduation from Chicago Military

Academy in June 2015. Mayor Rahm Emanuel congratulated

Holmes following his speech at the gala.

Cadet Spotlight | Matthew Praznowski, a freshman at Rickover Naval Academy, is

an up and coming bagpipe player from Smyser Elementary. On June 21st, 2014 at the

Chicago Scottish Festival, Matthew placed second at the Midwest Pipe Association’s

solo competition. Recently on November 2nd, Matthew was named Junior Novice Pip-

ing Champion Supreme and promoted to “Grade 4.” You can follow Matthew as he con-

tinues his journey to attain a “Grade 1” level at performances throughout the city on St.

Patrick’s Day and at MWPA competitions throughout the Midwest. We wish him luck

and support as he continues to develop into a leader both in the classroom and outside at

his competitions.

JROTC | We had a good start to the year, with the leader-

ship and drill camps in August. We’ve had initial success in

the national academic and leadership competitions, were very

busy during Veterans Day observances, and now the drill

competition season is upon us. In addition to the events and

competitions we sponsor, current events are providing us

many real-world applications to our curriculum. The recent

elections, social justice issues and demonstrations, immigra-

tion debates, and conflicts around the world have affected us

locally. These issues fall right into our core mission, which is

promoting good citizenship. Hopefully we are helping our

cadets make sense of what is going on and how they can influ-

ence their world in a productive way. Our JROTC curriculums

promote good citizenship by discussing the democratic pro-

cess, conflict resolution, critical thinking and communication;

all knowledge and skills that our young people will need to

find their way through these issues and lead our nation in the

future. In the classroom we also continue to emphasize

improving our instructors teaching skills and relevance to

improving common core literacy skills in our cadets.

We’ve also been busy managing our JROTC personnel.

We’re in the process of hiring new Senior Army Instructors at

Clemente, Lane Tech and Bowen, hiring a new Navy instruc-

tor at Rickover Naval Academy and a new Air Force instruc-

tor at Phillips High School. We’re also replacing our supply

manager Stan Griffin, who left to transfer to the 3rd Brigade

Army Cadet Command headquarters. We finished building

the team at the Marine Leadership Academy at Ames this fall,

so they are fully staffed now.

These are busy and exciting times in Chicago JROTC. As

usual, we have many amazing young people to work with. I

encourage our teachers and administrators to come out and see

them in action.

-LTC (Ret) Scott Kochheiser

Submit your stories and highlights to The Golden Bugle at www.cps.edu/thegoldenbugle

Service Leadership Academies Network Newsletter ● Issue 1 ● December 2014

THE GOLDEN BUGLE

Parent Leadership | As the academies are charged with creating leaders out of our cadets, our parents have too been charged with

working on their own leadership development. Via workshops, conferences, and college tours, parents have been given the opportunity

to develop their personal, academic, and professional skillsets and knowledge. To date 113 parents across the network have attended

events and heard from various Network staff including the Network Chief at the State of the Network Address, high level District

officials including the Chief of Family and Community Engagement, diverse CPS departments such as the Office of College and Career

Success and Diverse Learner Supports and Services, and received specialized workshops from community organizations such as Planned

Parenthood of Illinois. Topics covered during workshops and presentations include have included anger management, student-parent

conflict resolution, attendance and truancy, cutting and self-harm, parental support to cadets transitioning between grades, how to speak

to your student about sex and sexuality, creating a college ready culture in the home, and two parent college tours that visited Loyola

University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and Chicago State University. There are monthly opportunities scheduled

across the Network for parents from the months of January through April. In May, the Network will host its New Parent Leadership

Conference to engage parents of incoming freshmen for the fall of 2015.

CONGRATS! Both Carver Military Academy and Phoenix Military Academy

received recognition for being the two leadership academies to

obtain 100% Title I Compliance within the Network to date.

Phoenix Military Academy, Rickover Naval Academy, Air

Force Academy, and Carver Military Academy were

designated as tier 1 schools with the District according to the

new SQRP rating.

The Service Leadership Academy will be receiving an

attendance grant to work with the academies on improving

attendance and truancy issues.

Over 1,200 Chicago Public Schools students attended the

annual CPS Siemens Historically Black Colleges and

Universities (HBCU) Fair. The college fair allowed CPS

students to interact with 31 Historically Black Colleges &

Universities (HBCU's) and learn about their diverse student

bodies, academic programs and scholarship opportunities. Last

year, over $56.5 million in scholarships were offered by the

HBCU’s that participated in the CPS/Siemens HBCU event!

Student who were encouraged to attend had a weighted g.p.a. of

3.0 or higher and ACT of 17 or higher and were in the top 20%

of their graduating class. This year all six Service Leadership

Academies participated. We are still waiting on reports to be

released on how much monies our cadets received this year by

attending the fair.

Department Highlight | The Office of Diverse Learners Supports and Services mission is to provide high quality and specially

designed instructional supports and services for all diverse learners within their least restrictive environment. The department works to

ensure diverse learners receive meaningful and relevant access to grade level core instruction within their neighborhood school, school of

choice, or the school closest to their residence. The goal is to improve the academic achievement of all diverse learners in the Chicago

Public Schools. The office’s strategic priorities are to (1) develop a shared community vision and commitment to providing quality in-

struction and supports to diverse learners, (2) shift focus toward quality instructional learning supports and specially designed instruction

to increase achievement, (3) reintegrate students with disabilities from decentralized cluster programs into neighborhood schools or the

schools they would attend if not disabled, (4) adopt a regionalized system of network supports and services for diverse learners, (5) exe-

cute revenue enhancement opportunities in targeted areas, (6) strengthen our system of support for parents of diverse learners, and (7)

develop transparency in all operations, procedures and fiscal management.

ODLSS has been working with the Service Leadership Academies to ensure that students have access to the enrollment procedures at

each informational session. ODLSS has also participated in two informational roundtables during the first semester of 2014-2015.

Please contact T-Kay Nagy at 708-692-6500 if you are interested in participating in these strategic planning sessions.

The City Corp Staff hosted the 8th Annual Military Ball on

Friday, November 14th at New Martinique Banquets in Burbank,

Illinois. The City Corp Staff are led by Commander Autumn

Mireles and Deputy Commander Jhosany Cardenas, both from

Curie High School. This year’s ball hosted 143 including cadets

and their dates, several city-wide JROTC instructors, and Ser-

vice Leadership Academy staff. The guest speaker for this year

event was Retired Major General John E. Scully. The alumnus

of University of Notre Dame and DePaul University, retired

from the Unite States Army reserves in September of 1996 at

the rank of Major General, having served as Commanding gen-

eral of the 102nd Army Reserve Command in St. Louis,, Mis-

souri. His message to the cadets included the value of Veteran’s

Day and highlighting of the 100th anniversary of WWI.