Mundelein High gets new principal

Mundelein High School's incoming principal is eager to work with the facility's multicultural student body.

"I'm very passionate about minority student achievement," said Lauren Fagel, who was hired by the Mundelein High School board Tuesday night. "We need to focus on what we know is a large gap."

Fagel, now the assistant principal at Deerfield High School, will assume her new post July 7. She'll replace John Ahlgrim, who's leaving to become superintendent of Zion School District 6.

Ahlgrim had been Mundelein High's principal and deputy superintendent.

Fagel, 36, had been at Deerfield High for just one year. She oversaw curriculum, instruction and professional development and also led the world languages, science, social studies, multimedia and library departments.

She started her career in 1995 at Highland Park High as a world and U.S. history teacher. She stayed at Highland Park until 2000, when she took five years off to raise three daughters and work part time as a research coach and teaching assistant at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy.

She rejoined the Highland Park faculty in 2005 and remained there until last year.

Fagel worked with mainstream students and those who spoke English as a second language while at Highland Park. She said she finds the economic and cultural differences within Mundelein's student population a really rich environment.

Also Tuesday, the Mundelein High board introduced James Ongtengco as a new assistant principal. Ongtengco comes to Mundelein from Belvidere High School near Rockford, where he held the same post.