Welcome to the 2025-2026 school year! I cannot begin to express how honored and excited I am to start my 30th year in education in a new role - as Superintendent of New Trier Township High School District 203. 

New Trier is an extraordinary place. Across the country, our school is known for our robust academic  curriculum, unparalleled extracurricular program, caring faculty and staff, supportive community and parents, proud and accomplished alumni, and our commitment to making sure each and every student feels welcome and championed in their individual paths through high school. We take equal pride in our academic excellence and extracurricular achievements and our efforts to make New Trier a place where everyone feels they belong. 

To me, New Trier is home. It is the place where I have spent the last 27 years of my career, teaching Social Studies for 15 years before moving into administration as Northfield Campus Assistant Principal and, for the past 8 years, as Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. It is also the place where I set down roots with my New Trier alumna wife, Karen, and handed a New Trier diploma to my three wonderful daughters in 2018, 2019, and 2021 before watching them thrive in college, taking the lessons they learned at New Trier with them on their journeys to adulthood. 

I begin this new school year with optimism at a pivotal moment for public education. We are facing headwinds that may seem daunting - global unrest, funding challenges, political polarization, even a seemingly fundamental disagreement about the purpose of public schools. Yet I am confident that New Trier will continue to be a lighthouse school, modeling what public education can and should be, guided by our unwavering mission “to commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity.” Our New Trier 2030 strategic plan puts those words into action, and I have an abiding respect for New Trier’s community and culture along with its nearly 125-year history, all of which help me navigate change by balancing tradition with innovation.

Now more than ever, New Trier’s dedication to teaching students how to think critically, consider multiple perspectives, and engage in civil discourse is essential to preparing our students to thrive in a rapidly changing world and workforce. Our Characteristics of a New Trier Graduate define the skills and dispositions we want our students to develop throughout their four years at New Trier. As the headlines focus on AI and its impact on the future, we want to ground our students in those uniquely human skills that will help them be ready, successful, and adaptable no matter what the future holds. 

That is why I am so hopeful about this year and our future. Each day that I walk onto our campuses, I get to work with the best of the best - the best students, the best faculty and staff, the best families, the best administrators, and the best community. We are a uniquely human, relationship-based institution that has been preparing young people to be leaders in their communities, careers, and in the world for over a century, and I am humbled to be part of that history. Go Trevs! 

Sincerely,

Dr. Peter W. Tragos

Superintendent