Mount Prospect District 57 picks new superintendent

Mount Prospect Elementary District 57 has selected a local assistant superintendent to take its top administrative spot next school year.

Peggy Kaufmann, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54, will begin the next part of her career on July 1 as the new superintendent, when Bruce Brown steps down. Brown has headed the district for the last seven years.

When the board began its search for Brown's replacement, it didn't have an agenda about what it wanted in a candidate, but it appears it's following a pattern, Brown said.

Both Brown and Kaufmann came to the position with very similar job titles, which focus on curriculum instruction, he said.

Before taking up his position as superintendent, Brown was the assistant superintendent for student learning at Glenview District 37.

"It's a different title, but it's the same job," Brown said.

While there is no burning issue for the district, Kaufmann will face the same challenge, which is to make a high-performing district do even better, Brown said.

Kaufmann said she's up to the top job, as her career has taken her to a position where she feels ready to take on greater responsibility.

She said she's always wanted to become a superintendent and just last year she began her search for the next step in her professional development.

She'll enter the district with an open mind, she said.

"I am not coming in with some goal or preconceived idea," Kaufmann said. "I want to assess what the district needs and make things happen."

She received her master's degree from Northeastern Illinois University in reading education and a doctorate from Loyola University in Chicago.

She's taught in south suburban Blue Island and was a principal at Anne Fox Elementary School in Hanover Park.