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Pritzker, LaSalle II Students See New Faces, Huge Playground on First Day

By Alisa Hauser | September 2, 2014 3:14pm
 Students returned to school on Tuesday.
Back to School 2014 in Wicker Park
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WICKER PARK —  A new playground completed just in time for the first day of school and plenty of new faces amid an enrollment surge were among the highlights during an emotional day at two Wicker Park schools Tuesday.

Holding up a roll of toilet paper as students filed past, Joenile Albert-Reese, principal of Wicker Park's A.N. Pritzker School at 2009 W. Schiller St. shouted, "I've got tissues!"

Some students took Albert-Reese up on the offer while others gave the principal a hug.

This year, Pritzker has 724 students, up from 664 the previous year and the most Albert-Reese said she can recall since joining the elementary school staff in 2005.

"We are almost at capacity — they say we can fit 800, but I don't know where!" Albert-Reese said.

For Pritzker parent Christen Caillouet, dropping off her son, eighth-grader Skylar, was difficult.

"It's wild ... very surreal. This is my last kid, " said Caillouet, who has three other adult children.

Caillouet, 43, has lived in Wicker Park and Bucktown since 1989. Skylar, 13, calls her "O.H." for "Original Hipster."

Both a neighborhood school that attracts local students and a regional gifted academy that brings in children from all over the city, Pritzker School students are among the most diverse in the city.

Lincoln Park resident Eoin Vaughan, who tested into Pritzker's gifted kindergarten class, was hanging out with his mother, Kristan Vaughan, on the playground.

"It is spelled the Irish way," a very articulate Eoin Vaughan said of his name before spelling it for a reporter.

For returning Pritzker student and Wicker Park resident Nyimah Mitchell, Tuesday fell on her seventh birthday.

Decked out in pink with a sparkly crown, Nyimah, who is entering first grade, was nevertheless a little "nervous," her mom, Shakidah Mitchell, said.

At LaSalle II Magnet School, 1148 N. Honore St. in Wicker Park, the biggest draw on the first day was a new playground and outdoor classroom.

With equipment inspired by the four languages taught at LaSalle II Magnet School, work on the new playground started after school ended in June and was completed just in time for the first day of school Tuesday.

Parent Mark Behee called the playground, which includes new basketball courts and a vegetable garden, "spectacular" and "a huge improvement."

Behee said he and his second grade son are "still trying to figure out all of the equipment on the playground."

"There so many things they can play on, the last one had a lot more kids hanging around the one or two cool things, but this playground has so much more and is stimulating for big and small kids," Behee said.

But despite the excitement of the first day back, not everyone was ready for the classroom after a summer break.

Pritzker fifth-grade student Caden Shapiro, a member of the rock band Cowboy Jesus and the Sugar Bums, which performed during Green Music Fest, admitted he was "not really that happy" about returning to school.

Shapiro, who was walking into school with his parents and two younger siblings, said he had a good summer that "went by too fast."

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