Donna Kiel, program director for the Office of Innovative Professional Learning (OIPL) gave COE an update on the accomplishments of OIPL in the past year, including:

 
“The big one: We were awarded $720,000 from the Department of Education to establish the Center for Civics Middle School Leadership in partnership with Barrett,” Kiel said. “We received the award in February, and then we began the work in July. And to date, we have the curriculum ready and are starting a pilot with District 100, which is Berwyn. Teachers, because the grant specifically addresses middle school students in underserved communities.

“The second huge accomplishment of this year was a redesign of our Catholic Future Leader program. That redesign was an expansion and a deepening of the program based upon data gathered from the previous five years of the program. Not only did we target those underserved Catholic schools to support their students receiving leadership training but gave them the experience of the faith integration so they can become the leaders of Catholic organizations in the future. What we did was deepen it to impact the entire school community.”

Expect more exciting news and updates from OIPL throughout the 2026-2027 academic year.