Heart of Meade Park

Oct. 19—DANVILLE — Maybe it's Chris Rice's "dad jokes" or his funny videos he posted to social media last year to stay connected to students while they learned remotely that have endeared the principal to the children at Meade Park Elementary School.

Whether he's receiving a bear hug from a first-grader or giving advice to fourth-grade boys during a Rice's Regulators mentoring group meeting, it's apparent that Rice has made an impression on his students.

Rice's efforts have been recognized by the Illini Region of the Illinois Principals Association which named him Illinois Elementary School Principal of the Year 2020-2021. Rice will be honored during the IPA's 50th annual Education Leaders Fall Conference set for Oct. 24-25, in Peoria.

"I found out last spring," Rice said of the award.

He already has received a plaque, and his award was announced at the Oct. 6 Danville District 118 Board of Education meeting.

"We are super proud of him," District 118 Superintendent Alicia Geddis said earlier this week. "He has truly taken initiative to implement learning strategies to improve teaching and learning for his students.

"I have recognized his growth over the last couple of years, and I believe he will do great things for our district," she said.

Rice comes from a family of educators who are well known in the area.

His dad, Bob Rice, was an assistant principal at Danville High School, a principal at North Ridge Middle School in Danville and at St. Mary's School in Westville, and ended his 43-year career in education as the principal at Schlarman High School.

His sister, Kim Norton, who is currently assistant superintendent of student learning in the Urbana School District, served as principal at Danville High School and at Northeast Elementary Magnet School.

Having been an administrator in District 118 for the last 15 years, Rice has served as principal at Meade Park for six years, three years at North Ridge Middle School and six years at East Park (now known as Mark Denman Elementary School).

Prior to that, Rice taught science for 13 years at Mary Miller Junior High School in Georgetown and sixth-grade science at South View when it was still a Danville middle school.

Rice was coaching high school basketball in 2002 at Georgetown-Ridge Farm High School when he started working on his master's degree.

"I always thought I wanted to be an athletic director, but you don't know what door is going to open and where life is going to take you," he said.

Life led Rice to his true calling as an elementary school administrator.

"I was at middle schools for 13 years, but when I came to the elementary level, I didn't want to leave," he said.

"Every day is something different," he said. "I never wake up and feel like, 'Oh, I don't want to go to work today.' I love my job."

Rice credited his staff for creating an enjoyable environment for him and the 250 to 300 Meade Park students.

"I have the best staff who will roll with whatever crazy idea I come up with," he said. "It's a joy to come here and do what we do every day."

Some of those "crazy ideas" were hatched by Rice during the early days of the pandemic in spring 2020 when the state was shut down and everyone stayed home.

"When we were sitting at home and not going to the store, the toughest part was not being around the kids," he said.

Wondering what he could do to stay connected with his students and their families, Rice decided to reach out to them by creating videos that mimicked news broadcasts that he posted on social media.

"For the first one, I did a video where I interviewed myself and called it Rice TV," he said. "I watch it now and laugh and think, 'What am I doing?'"

Each new video gave Rice the opportunity to fine-tune his production skills and include clips of hilarious comments from his students and a Meade Park Bunch theme song.

Eventually, 60 percent of Meade Park's students returned to school in September 2020 for in-person instruction between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. while remaining in learning pods. Teachers met with remote learners online in the afternoon.

"At the end of each quarter, they had the option to come back (to school)," Rice said. "All the kids returned in-person for this school year."

Being back in school means that Meade Park's fourth-grade students can once again participate in special groups, such as Future Problem Solvers and Rice's Regulators.

The Future Problem Solvers made a nearly six-minute video in January 2020 titled "We Are Danville" in which the students traveled around Danville to highlight all the positives in the city.

"The kids learned about the community, and their video got 50,000 views," Rice said.

Rice's Regulators formed two years ago when Rice realized there was an unusually large number of fourth-grade boys during the 2019-2020 school year.

Rice decided he would mentor all 43 boys and met with them for 30 minutes every Friday morning. He had started a similar mentoring group for fifth-grade boys when he was principal at East Park.

During the meetings, Rice shared a positive message with the boys or gave them an opportunity to be responsible. The boys learned how to maintain a positive attitude and make good decisions.

"The paths you put kids on is what sticks with you," he said.

To ensure he doesn't forget any of the memories being made at school, Rice said he has started keeping a journal.

"Everything that's funny or interesting I've started writing down," he said.

Rice credits his staff and students for making his job as principal so enjoyable.

"I'm fortunate to work with a great staff and have a great group of kids," he said. "It doesn't seem like work."