D219 Names New Assistant Principal at Niles West

Current Niles West High School Dean Antwan Babakhani has been promoted to be the school’s new assistant principal of student services starting July 1, according to a press release. 

Niles Township High School District 219 Board of Education made the appointment during its Tuesday night meeting. Babakhani will succeed Dr. Jason Ness, who will become Niles West’s principal. 

"Antwan is a student-centered educator whose exemplary work as a classroom teacher, assistant principal for curriculum and instruction and dean make him the ideal candidate to lead the Student Services Department in ensuring positive academic and social-emotional outcomes for all of our students at Niles West High School,” Ness said in a statement.  

Babakhani joined Niles West in August 2012.  Before that, he served as Assistant Principal of Curriculum and Instruction at Amundsen High School in the Chicago Public Schools.

In that role, he developed a collaborative discipline model based on the principles of restorative justice. The new approach, which enlisted the support of counselors, deans, teachers and parents, led to a dramatic drop in out-of-school suspensions. He also coordinated a small learning communities grant to engineer a standards-based grading initiative to prepare teachers for 9th and 10th grade benchmarking using the Common Core State Standards.

Babakhani received the prestigious Emerging Leader Award in 2009 from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). The previous year he received the Dan & Pat Jorndt “Joy of Teaching” Award at Amundsen.

He earned his Master's degree in Reading from Concordia University in Chicago and holds a Bachelor of Science in English Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He is in the process of earning a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Concordia University. 

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