Alternative high school principal to lead Jacobs

A principal credited with turning around an alternative high school has been picked to lead Algonquin's Jacobs High School.

Shelley Nacke, current principal of Oak Ridge School in Carpentersville, will take over for Michael Bregy as Jacobs' leader on July 1, 2010.

Bregy confirmed the move Tuesday morning after a staff meeting at which Nacke was introduced to the Jacobs staff.

The Community Unit District 300 school board earlier this month selected Bregy to serve as the district's next superintendent. He will replace Ken Arndt, who is retiring at the end of the 2010-11 school year.

While Bregy won't start as superintendent for another year, he will serve as associate superintendent starting July 1 to learn the ropes from Arndt, leaving Jacobs without a principal.

When the board picked Bregy, it asked him to come up with a transition plan for Jacobs. Bregy and Arndt felt Nacke's tenure at Oak Ridge has prepared her to lead one of the district's largest schools.

"She has transformed that whole school," Bregy said. "What used to be a place to move students, she increased the academic rigor ... and created a structure so students could move back to their base building."

Under Nacke, every student at Oak Ridge is on a personalized learning plan, allowing the kind of individualized instruction that is critical to student success, Bregy said.

"She does not stop fighting even if it's just one kid," Bregy said.

Nacke said Tuesday it has been her longtime goal to become a principal of a large high school like Jacobs.

"It is a big move. However, I don't feel it's as big as what some people may think," Nacke said Tuesday. "I have worked pretty extensively not just with Jacobs but with Dundee-Crown and Hampshire (high schools). I am very confident ... that I can step in and continue what's being done."

Nacke has her bachelor's and master's degrees from Northern Illinois University. She taught at Cary-Grove High School before joining the Oak Ridge staff in 2001 and becoming the building leader in 2005.

Nacke's move to Jacobs creates a vacancy at Oak Ridge's top job. That position will be filled by Nate Jarot, currently the assistant principal at Lakewood School in Carpentersville.

After graduating from Judson University in 2001, Jarot taught fifth grade at Carpentersville's Perry Elementary School. He then taught at Lakewood, where he created a program designed to instill important values in young men.

Bregy has already started to reorganize the central office he will lead in a year. Bregy plans to make his current associate principal for operations, Sarah Kedroski, his associate superintendent when he picks up the district's reins in 2011.

Next year, Kedroski will work as an administrator in the central office, overseeing professional development and building operations.