June 28, 2016
Dear Lake View High School Parents, Students, and Community Members,
My name is Paul Karafiol, and I am excited and deeply honored to serve you as the Interim Principal of Lake View High School beginning on Friday, July 1. When I started teaching in CPS in the summer of 2000, I did my student teaching with math teacher Steve Starr at Lake View’s summer precalculus program. That program was to me a symbol of the best CPS has to offer: a creative, rigorous, and supportive way to increase access to AP Calculus, and therefore, to college and career pathways that might otherwise be closed. That commitment to ensuring that every student has access to challenging, meaningful work and quality instruction is what makes Lake View special—a “HOME” to so many young people.
I’m a lifelong Chicagoan and CPS graduate (Kenwood, 1988). An essential part of who I am was formed by going to a diverse, high-performing neighborhood high school. After college and a brief stint in graduate school, I entered math teaching in 1995. Although I’ve held a variety of administrative roles since then, as technology coordinator, department chair, curriculum coordinator, resident principal, and assistant principal, this past year was my first not teaching any classes (except when I got to step in for absent teachers—which I actually enjoyed). In or out of the classroom, my primary focus is ensuring that every student has access to challenging work in a safe, supportive environment: I’ve been the founding faculty sponsor of the math team, a peer leadership program, the Gay-Straight Alliance, and the Muslim Students’ Association, and taken students on trips everywhere from Beijing, China to Cape Town, South Africa. I live about a mile from where I grew up, with my wife, three children (two in CPS), and our dog.
In the coming weeks I will be getting to know you and the rest of the Lake View community: in meetings, conversations in the hallways, offices, sidewalks, and stairwells, and in the neighborhood in and around the school. As I shared during last week’s LSC Meet and Greet, I am committed to learning about Lake View with and from you, bringing people together to understand and assess the work being doing at Lake View, and engaging staff, students, LSC, families, and the community in developing strategies to improve every student’s experience. I know that this work has already been going on for some time under Principal Grens, so I want to reassure you that I share his commitment to transparency and collaboration. In fact, Mr. Grens and I have already started working together to make this transition as smooth as possible. My goal is not to disrupt the good work that is already being done at Lake View, but to continue and extend it. I want all of us at Lake View to be your partners in education.
The LSC and Lake View High School Partners will be hosting an “open house” opportunity for me to meet you—parents and students—at 5:30 PM on July 7, immediately before the LSC meeting, which starts at 6:30 PM. Please do join us if you can, even if for only a few minutes. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns—or you’d just like to introduce yourself—please send me an email at pjkarafiol@cps.edu. I’d very much appreciate hearing anything that you think I should know about Lake View High School. For students, I’d like to strengthen that offer into a short summer homework “assignment”: please, if you have a few minutes, send me an email telling me about yourself and how you see Lake View, both what you love about it and what you wish could be different.
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I look forward to meeting and hearing from you this summer and fall; thank you for the warm welcome you’ve already given me, and again, for the trust you’re putting in me as Interim Principal. Go Wildcats!
Sincerely,
Paul J. Karafiol
http://lakeviewhs.com/about/documents/ParentCommunityIntroLetterhead062716.pdf
