Highlighting the Principal of Burroughs Elementary School for Principal Appreciation Month

Principal Grant Varveris admits that school was never his favorite part of the day growing up. However, he had some impactful educators who encouraged him every step of the way. That focus on mentorship carried on during his career as an educator, eventually leading him to become the principal of Burroughs Elementary School on the Southwest Side, where he’s been since 2021. The culture at Burroughs is what has kept him coming back year after year. 

“The students, community, and staff at Burroughs make staying here easy,” said Principal Varveris. “Even when I make mistakes as a leader, I feel like there’s a culture of learning and continuing to grow together.” 

With the support of a loving school community behind him, he has set some ambitious goals for this school year and beyond. These goals are rooted in this foundational belief: Burroughs is a good school. Each goal is meant to help take the school from good to great, and maintain that greatness consistently in every classroom. 

So how do you get from good to great? Principal Varveris says that it takes lots of practice and “failure in a good way.” As a school leader, he asserts that you cannot be afraid of trying and failing. If you are learning, you are doing something right, even when your work doesn’t pan out the way you expect it to. 

Over the past few years, the entire team at Burroughs has focused on refining its Tier I instruction: the core instruction provided to all students. This hasn’t looked like a major overhaul; instead, the school has made smaller tweaks to ensure that this instruction is as relevant and responsive as possible to each student’s needs. 

“What we are delivering to our students is always based on what we know through their data,” he said. “Everything is targeted to what our kids need to be successful.” 

Principal Varveris views success as making sure students have as many opportunities as possible to develop into successful adults. It’s not enough to simply graduate them and pass them along to ninth grade; instead, he and his staff are looking beyond that toward college and careers as well. 

School leaders wear many hats, and he has learned how to best approach his role. Instead of trying to be an expert on everything, he has found value in giving much of his focus to a few core areas that connect with his overall vision. His advice to other principals is to “set up a system that doesn’t only rely on you.” At Burroughs, this looks like strong collaboration between school leaders, teachers, office staff members, parents, and students. 

 In addition to his strengths as an instructional leader, he has also found that he is skilled at helping students and staff members see that their voices are essential to the process of learning. 

“If you are a student, school can’t just be about something happening to you; it has to be about it happening with you,” he said. “It can be challenging, but making sure people know that they matter is not only important in the classroom; it also ties in with a larger sense of community.” 

His entire story reflects grit and perseverance, qualities that he wants to see instilled in his students as well. It all ties back to the school’s vision, which establishes Burroughs as “a resource in the community empowering students, parents, faculty, and community members to develop their capacity to improve themselves, their community, and their world.” 

“It’s impossible to do everything perfectly, so that is not our expectation for our students,” he said. “Instead, we want them to have a growth mindset, to get back up when they fall and keep trying again and again.”