Powercast Episode 27: Innovating Without Barriers: How One Illinois District Supports Teachers While Serving Refugee Students

Welcome to another episode of Powercast! We're joined by Dr. Brent Raby, Associate Superintendent for Teaching and Learning at West Aurora School District in Illinois, for an inspiring conversation about transforming education through innovative professional learning and comprehensive support systems.In this episode, Dr. Raby reveals how his district improve staff retention by nearly 10%—by moving beyond traditional professional development to create a cohesive ecosystem connecting PowerSchool's teaching and learning solutions, including Schoology, Performance Matters, and emerging AI tools like PowerBuddy. He emphasizes their core philosophy that "classrooms should be full of curiosity, complexity, and the joy of learning" and how they've restructured elementary education by bringing in specialist teachers, allowing classroom teachers to focus deeply on their direct subjects. Dr. Raby also discusses their innovative approach to serving multilingual learners by training the most ESL-certified staff in the state and integrating these students into general education classrooms rather than separate programs.Hear about their journey from accountability to analytics, the challenge of determining what programs truly work, and a vision to become one of Illinois’ highest-performing, highly diverse school districts—proving that barriers don't have to define a district's potential.To learn more about PowerSchool, visit: https://www.powerschool.com/Host: Jeff PelzelGuest: Dr. Brent Raby, Associate Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, West Aurora School District (IL)