A clean sweep. All Berwyn South District 100 schools garner Apple designation

The holiday season is in full swing and there is a lot to celebrate in Berwyn South School District 100. All eight district schools have landed Apple Distinguished Schools designations.

“It’s the first time all eight have been recognized individually, so we’re very excited about that,” said Samantha Shuman, the district’s director of instructional innovation. “In previous years, our district has been recognized or only some schools were awarded this distinction, but this time all eight schools have received the award.”

District 100 includes Emerson, Hiawatha, Irving, Komensky, Pershing and Piper elementary schools and Freedom and Heritage middle schools.

About 3,000 students and 500 staff members make up the district.

The schools earned recognition as Apple Distinguished Schools for 2022-25 for empowering “students and staff to think critically and creatively through innovative instructional practices, equitable learning opportunities and meaningful staff and student engagement,” according to a news release.

“We believe our instructional program should engage students in rigorous and relevant learning experiences while providing opportunities for students to create, explore and demonstrate learning using a variety of tools and strategies,” Superintendent Mary Havis said. “The Apple Distinguished Schools recognition reflects the shared commitment of our staff to provide innovative and engaging learning experiences that encourage personalization of learning, creativity, critical thinking and real-world application.”

Apple Distinguished Schools are described as hubs of innovation, leadership and educational excellence that use Apple products to inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking, according to the news release. They showcase innovative uses of technology in learning, teaching and the school environment and have documented results of academic accomplishment.

During the pandemic, for instance, District 100 was able to draw upon its years of working with educational technology to create a relatively easy transition to remote learning.

“We have the instructional tools that have been supporting our district for a very long time,” Shuman said. “In 2012, we fully invested in MacBooks in our district and everyone was one-to-one with MacBooks.

“Then, in 2016, we invested in additional instructional tools for our students and staff and everyone went one-to-one with iPads. Because we’ve been one-to-one for so long, when the pandemic happened, it wasn’t crippling. In our case, we actually shined because our teachers felt very prepared, they didn’t skip a beat and they went into it with ease.”

As part of the application process for the Apple Distinguished Schools designation, Shuman said each District 100 school was asked to talk about what makes their school unique.

“Last late winter and early spring, our amazing administrative team sat down with our amazing instructional coaches and talked about the power of storytelling,” she said. “How do we tell people what makes District 100 unique? What makes your school unique? How is your school vision tied to the district vision and what you want for your students?”

The district’s vision is to inspire a passion for learning in every child, according to the district’s website.

Shuman said the administrative team was challenged to think about two questions: “How does your school inspire a passion for learning in every child?” and “How does your school commit to innovative teaching and learning practices?”

“It’s not about the device,” she said. “It’s about the outcome and the growth that we want to see in our students with the experiences we’re providing them in the classroom. And we were able to tell our story by tying the vision of the school to the learning that was taking place.”

There are 728 schools in 36 countries that are designated as an Apple Distinguished School, according to Apple’s webpage.

“And we make up eight of them,” Shuman said.