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District presents 'Portrait of an Educator' framework to guide hiring and retention
Summary
Indian Prairie CUSD 204 presented a completed first-year Portrait of an Educator framework identifying five core competencies to guide recruitment, hiring and future retention work; the district contracted Battelle for Kids to support the effort and piloted interview questions and rubrics.
Indian Prairie CUSD 204 administrators and teacher representatives presented the Portrait of an Educator framework to the board on April 7, 2025, describing the committee’s work to identify core competencies the district will use in hiring and professional development.
Presenters Carrie Beth Harry, Sharon Ruff (director of human resources) and Katie Popp (IPEA president and teacher) said the work began in September with support from Battelle for Kids, the same organization the district used for its Portrait of a Graduate. The committee met several times and narrowed an initial list of roughly 70 competencies to five core competencies and definitions intended to reflect district values and teaching practice.
The presenters said the five competencies overlap with the Portrait of a Graduate and are meant to inform recruitment, application screening, interview questions and rubrics, professional growth opportunities and retention strategies. The committee piloted interview prompts and rubrics during recent interviews and administrators have used them in practice. Presenters described the work as a multi-year rollout: year one defined competencies; years two and three will expand the framework across additional recruitment classifications and into retention efforts.
Board members asked about evaluation alignment and measurement. Presenters said the district currently evaluates staff using the Danielson framework and that the five competencies appear across the evaluation attributes; the Portrait of an Educator vocabulary is not a replacement for existing evaluation but is intended to align hiring, professional learning and retention work with a consistent, values-driven standard.
Presenters described next steps including expanding use of the interview rubrics, refining metrics and piloting retention-related measures and professional growth aligned to the competencies. Committee members thanked administrators, teachers, students and community members who participated in the development process.
