North Palos School District 117 is pleased to announce Spencer Brown as a new assistant principal at Conrady Junior High School. Mr. Brown, 32, joined the administrative team of Principal Adrienne Muniz and Assistant Principal Dorita McCabe on July 1.
The board agreed to create a second assistant principal position to help with special education, and professional learning communities (PLCs) with an emphasis on evaluations within the roughly 1,200-student Hickory Hills’ junior high school.
Mr. Brown spent the last seven years as an assistant principal in Rockford and Country Club Hills. He said he worked to develop school-wide systems that helped create a “better school climate.”
He said he’s excited about joining the team at Conrady where “everyone has been so amazing and accepting.” “Everyone here is so inspiring and talented,” he said. “I’m so fortunate to be part of this group.”
Spencer said his strengths include the ability to “listen to people and help them achieve their greatest potential.”
Mr. Brown and his wife Kristen recently celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary. The couple have two children: Cadence, 3 and Warren, 1. They reside in Warrenville.
Spencer grew up in Three Oaks, Michigan, a small town of less than 1,000 people. In fact, his high school graduating class had 64 students.
He then attended Hope College, a private liberal arts school in Holland, Michigan, where he began studying business and law but by his sophomore year had switched to education.
Mr. Brown said he took an Upward Bound tutoring position, a federally funded program for students who were the first in their families to attend college, and was hooked on teaching.
He said he realized around that time that ”decisions I make will determine my outcome in life and I wanted a career where I could teach that to others.”
Spencer said switching majors to education was the “second best decision” he made while at Hope College. The “best decision” was meeting and marrying his wife Kristen.
Kristen is a special education teacher in Indian Prairie School District 204 in Naperville. Kristen’s parents were both teachers in Consolidated School District 203 which also is in Naperville.
Spencer and his wife have two cats: Mookie and Montana, named after one of his favorite baseball players, Mookie Betts, and the other after one of the couple’s favorite destinations, Glacier National Park in Montana.
Mr. Brown enjoys fly-fishing, gardening and canning, cooking, and back-packing.
He said he is “excited about his newest opportunity” and is looking forward to helping make a difference in students’ lives. “I hope I can mean as much to Conrady and its students and staff as the role of assistant principal means to me.”