Latest news with #ForrestalElementarySchool
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
North Chicago School District 187 community to see new Forrestal School, renovated HS kitchen at start of school year
Putting the finishing touches on the new Forrestal Elementary School and a thoroughly renovated kitchen at North Chicago Community High School, benefiting students at all grade levels, are highlights of the 2025-2026 school year for North Chicago School District 187. 'They prepare meals for all our students,' Superintendent John Price said, referring to a district educating youngsters from preschool through high school. 'They prepare 6,000 meals a day. There will be a wider variety of meals and higher quality food for all our kids.' Students from kindergarten through high school start classes Monday at District 187's three elementary schools, middle school and high school in North Chicago, continuing their education after summer break. Preschool begins Tuesday. Academically, Price said the introduction of a new English language arts curriculum for older students and a deeper dive into certain subjects for younger children will also be part of the new school year. Members of the Forrestal community know this is the final year they will be dealing with leaky roofs and bottled water as they look to the south, where their new $72 million building is nearing completion. Price said it opens in August of next year. 'It should be finished in February. We'll have a ribbon-cutting in April. We'll open it in August of 2026,' Price said. 'We don't want to move in the middle of the school year,' he added, citing the challenges for students, teachers, and staff. With the U.S. Navy contributing $57 million through the federal Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, the district pays the remaining $15 million. Now educating kindergartners through third graders, next year it will have limited fourth and fifth-grade rooms. Located on property of Naval Station Great Lakes, Price said Forrestal has a large percentage of children from military families. Approximately half the current third graders will have the opportunity to remain at Forrestal for fourth and fifth grade. 'We are doing this for our military families so they don't have to transition schools and then do it again when their family changes duty stations,' Price said. 'It will make it easier for our military families to integrate.' Forrestal Principal Cara Kranz said she is looking forward to both this year and the following term when the new building opens. With only one new staff member, she has a veteran team to teach the children. Everyone looks south and sees what will be their new home. 'It will boost our morale to be in a state-of-the-art building,' Cranz said. 'It will be a great opportunity for the students to experience everything new. The students are performing well now. The new building will make it even better.' Eighth graders at Neal Math and Science Academy as well as all high school students, will have a new curriculum in their English Language Arts class. Price said they will be reading and writing about a wider variety of topics. 'There'll be more nonfiction,' Price said. 'Instead of reading one novel, they'll read short stories and other (nonfiction) pieces. It will be a progressive program, building in scale each year. We're giving them a greater variety to prepare them for the variety they'll find in the workplace.' While the elementary school curriculum is unchanged, Price said the students get a more in-depth look at fewer topics. Kranz said it will increase collaboration between students rather than spending most of the time listening to their teacher. 'The teacher will give them their lesson for 15 minutes,' Kranz said. 'After each lesson, they'll collaborate with each other. They'll be talking about what they learned. This will help our diverse learners and those learning English.'
Chicago Tribune
18-03-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Forrestal Elementary construction viewing has student beaming; ‘This makes it real for them'
On a frigid day in December, Forrestal Elementary School first graders went outside to write their names on a white steel beam which they were told would be part of the new school being built immediately next door, where they will be among the first ones to learn. Fast forward three months and those same students watched wide-eyed as a construction crane lifted the white beam bearing their names, and those of the rest of the school community, into place on the structure. It is the final steel beam on the new building. 'It's exciting,' McKenzie, a first grader in Laura Rosenkrantz's first-grade class, said. 'School will be really cool because we'll be able to see where we wrote our names,' Barb added. Forrestal's first graders had a front-row view outside as the crane lifted the final beam into place as the rest of the student body watched a livestream of the event Tuesday in North Chicago marking a major step toward completion of the building. With the first-grade classrooms positioned on the south end of the existing school building, Principal Cara Kranz said the children there get a firsthand view of the construction workers erecting the building they will enter as third graders in August of 2026. Kranz said when the students signed the beam in December, they did not really understand the purpose of what they were doing. But, seeing their names on the beam as it was lifted into place made it easier to understand. 'It's an exciting day,' Kranz said. 'They saw where it will be in the building. This makes it real for them. The steel really makes a difference when they see the steelworkers up high putting it in.' Built in 1957, the current building is in disrepair, but North Chicago School District 187 Superintendent John Price said the test scores there are the best in the district. He anticipates the new building will help them achieve even more. 'The current building is hot in the summer, cold in the winter and you can't drink the water,' Price said. 'The new building will raise (the test scores) again. It will be a 180-degree change. It will have everything new.' Making the morning special for the students, Kranz said she picked specific music to build their excitement. It started with sounds from the Harry Potter movies, and built to a crescendo with the theme from the movie 'Rocky' when the beam was lifted into the air and then put in place. A joint effort between District 187 and the U.S. Navy — 25% of Forrestal's students are from military families — Price said $57 million of the $72 million project is coming from the federal Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation and $15 million from the district. Though there have been no problems so far with the cost-cutting measures being implemented by the federal Department of Government Effeminacy (DOGE), Price has concerns. 'We do have worries,' he said. 'We have been very fortunate so far with the progress of payments.' Though the entire first-grade class will start the 2026-2027 school year in the new building, Price said a select group of second and third-graders will be there for fourth and fifth grade. There will be some classrooms for them. About 25% will have the choice. First priority will go to military families. 'This will mean less transition for them,' Price said in September. 'They get plenty of transitions when the families change stations.'
