When Proviso Township High School District 209 first came to Krish Mohip’s attention, instead of turning a blind eye to the struggles being reported by district teachers, the then employee of the Illinois State Board of Education leaned in closer with “very little hesitation.”
Since 2024, he has been the Proviso superintendent, and, as he said, challenge is what he “signed up for.” In fact, some would say that is what he was built for. Maybe that is because he can relate to Proviso’s students on a deeper level.
Right before starting his freshman year at Niles North High School, his sister suddenly died from an autoimmune disease.
“I went into high school two weeks after that in severe depression,” Mohip said. “As you can imagine, my grades were not great.”
By the end of his sophomore year, Mohip found himself barely scraping by grade wise despite his dreams of being part of the Honor Society like the rest of his siblings.
“I had the brain but there was some trauma there,” he said.
His counselor wrote him off, telling him to focus on trades. However, his sister’s counselor took a chance on him, placing him on a “probation” semester in honors classes. From there on, Mohip got mostly straight A’s and was awarded a presidential scholarship to college.
Mohip’s interaction with his sister’s counselor became the pivotal moment in his high school career and inspired his college essay about the importance of having “that one person in a school that can have a connection with a student.”
That was also the experience that began to turn the wheels on how he would “redesign” the approach to education, especially for male students who look like him, if he went into the education field.
“That is really why I got into education, because really I was disappointed in my own education and realizing that we could do it better,” he said.
Mohip graduated with a double major in social sciences and secondary education from Mount Saint Clare College in Clinton, Iowa.
Mohip began as a teacher for Chicago Public Schools but quickly moved into administration with the hopes of being able to put together systems that would lead to children being successful outside and beyond a school setting.
With the burning question “how can I make a difference for the most amount of kids?” Mohip made the jump to a principal role at John A. Walsh Elementary in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.
While Mohip was excited to be part of the school, he said he quickly realized that he was not “prepared” and fully dove into a collaboration with teachers and developed a “laser focus” approach for “best practices in instruction” to ensure lessons were being aligned to state standards. Collaboration has been part of his leadership method from early on.
By his fifth-year, Mohip said the growth rate at Walsh had increased greatly and they had made substantial improvements. This landed Mohip the role of Deputy Chief of Schools for CPS where he was in charge of improving about 40 high schools in Chicago.
“We saw great results,” Mohip said. “All the schools I took on were on the lowest quartile and by the time I left, they were out of that lowest quartile.”
Mohip was recruited by the state of Ohio and was assigned to Youngstown City Schools following the state’s takeover. He said it was very important to his leadership to maintain the stance of “never wanting to lead alone” and not “wanting to lead in isolation.”
Following his time in Ohio, Mohip returned home to Illinois and served as the Illinois State Board of Education Deputy Education Officer and then briefly as interim state superintendent of education. But that job was long enough to remind him he would rather be more hands-on in local school districts.
Mohip also continued to work on his own education as a way of being able to bring a more rounded knowledge to roles in the future, especially when it came to the financial aspects of a school district. Mohip holds a master’s in education from Loyola and an MBA with a focus on data and data visualization from Louisiana State University Shreveport.
Mohip first heard of Proviso and its three high schools while at ISBE during a state board meeting where Proviso teachers attended to express their frustration with the district.
“Some of us just couldn’t believe what we were hearing,” Mohip said. “I remember looking over to my colleague and I said, ‘I wish I could go there, like I would love to go there’ and he thought I was crazy but I wanted to help a district that was struggling.”
Mohip served his first official day at Proviso in December 2024 following an extensive superintendent search by the district.
An early candidate, Mohip was in the final round of the first search conducted by the district that did not result in a hire. Following an interim period, D209 revamped its search and hired Mohip towards the end of 2024.
While being well aware of issues stemming within the district, Mohip said he felt “ready” to take on a role like this due to his background in urban education.
“This is not an eight to five, this is an eight to eight and that is what I signed up for and that is what I am excited for,” he said, adding the work is collaborative with the teachers and staff around him. “This is what I signed up for, and I knew that coming in. This is the work I want to do.”
Coming late in the year, Mohip opted to approach his new role by observing how schools were operating for the first few months, conducting many classroom visits as well as meetings with teachers and students and creating teacher advisory groups.
“You cannot find out what is going on sitting in the fifth floor office,” Mohip said. “You have to get into the schools, you have to get into the hallways. You have to talk to staff, you have to talk to students and you have to talk to teachers.”
Through that involvement, Mohip focused on addressing the leadership, systems and structures at Proviso to help move the district forward.
“Everything is being done with the thought of ‘how do we provide better support so that our staff can appropriately engage with our students,’” Mohip said.
And those moves stem from a collaborative process that Mohip said he holds to a high value.
“There are no leadership moves that I would make without getting voice from stakeholders,” he said, especially teachers as they are the ones in the classrooms.
As Proviso moves forward with new board members following the April 1 election, Mohip said he is excited to work alongside the board to continue to move the district forward.
“I think they are extremely intelligent and passionate,” he said. “I believe they will help reshape this district into a district that anybody can be proud of.”
Still in the mid-stages of his plan, Mohip said they have already accomplished a lot – including the recent approval of Let’sTalk, the creation of structured department chairs and professional development calendars for staff – but there is more to come.
Being “entrenched” during the summer, Mohip said they are working on providing more support to students. Part of that is bringing direct focus to every single student through monthly meetings between deans, counselors and social workers to help identify students who might be struggling and put interventions in place through what he calls “Report for Academic Success.”
“The thought here is the realization that students aren’t failing, sometimes our supporters are failing them,” Mohip said. “[The goal] is trying to find the right intervention so that a child can be successful and that is what this team is going to be tasked to do every month.”
That continued engagement is part of Mohip’s plan for his time at Proviso.
“I am looking forward to engaging with this community and to continue to be present in as much of the fabric of Proviso that I can,” Mohip said.