I want to thank  Dr. Hardy Murphy, District 65 Superintendent and Dr. Eric Witherspoon, District 202 Superintendent for the breakast this morning at Evanston Township Highschool.

 Both Dr. Murphy and Dr  Witherspoon understand that good schools attract people to a community and this is true for Evanston. This breakfast offers realtors the opportunity to learn about the two school districts.

 So with that in mind let me tell you what I learned at this meeting.

District 65 schools gains National recognition:

The Chicago Sun Times listed Willard School among the top 50 Elementary Schools in Chicago.

 The 8th grade Nichols Middle School ranked #1 in a language arts competion with over 225,000 participants and 301 other teams. The 7th grade team finished fourth out of 289 other seventh grade teams.

Three District 65 teachers achieve National Board Certification. Congradulations go out to Sharon Leggett, Chute Middle School, Sally Wiggington,Washington Elementary School, and Demetra Disotuar, King Lab Magnet School.

 Noreen Winningham, a District 65 Middle School Teacher will  be among teachers selected to help write the new Everyday Math Text for the University of Chicago.

Park School was honored by Lt. Governor Pat Quinn for a Cesar Chavez service-learning project for a program where students gave back to the community by helping the Family Focus Food Pantry.

 

I want to welcome Dr Witherspoon as our new supertendent for District 202. I had the opportunity to talk with him after the meeting and I am sure his enthusiasm is sure to rub off onto Evanston Townhip High school. With that in mind let me tell you what I learned about ETHS.

Evanston Township High school District 202 gets National Recognition.

In 2004, The Wall Street Journal named ETHS one of 65 top high schools in the nation. Out of this list only 27 schools were public schools.

In 2004 and 2005, Goldman-Sachs Foundation honored ETHS for having the best International Education Program in the US which includes global-studies and world languages. ETHS world languages include French,Spanish, German,Hebrew, Japanese, Latin,and American Sign Language.

In 2006, ETHS has 16 national merit semifinalists and 157 finalists for Illininois State Scholars which are based on college entrance exam scores.

In November (2006) the college board honored 190 ETHS students for exceptional achievment on their AP exams. ETHS offers 19  different AP courses. Dr Witherspoon said ” One year in ETHS AP classes is equivelant to 1 year at Harvard”.

In addition to scholastics ETHS offers a variety of extracurricular activities.  The girls track team have been State champs the last four consecutive years. Boys Swimming and girls soccer also recently won state championships. The Chess team won three state titles in the last six years. In music ETHS was honored among 40 + schools nationwide to be named Grammy Signature Schools an honor for the school’s music program.