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Fresh Faces, Fresh Ideas And Fresh Paint To Greet Students On First Day

By Patty Wetli | September 2, 2016 6:52am
 Chicago Public Schools students return to the classroom Tuesday.
Chicago Public Schools students return to the classroom Tuesday.
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DNAinfo/Patty Wetli

LINCOLN SQUARE — Back-to-school is always an interesting combination of nerves and excitement.

Add curiosity to the mix as Chicago Public Schools students return to the classroom Tuesday, a good number of them wondering what changes have taken place over the summer.

Fresh Faces

Dozens of principals across the city resigned their posts at the end of the 2015-16 school year. Some Local School Councils have already hired replacements while others are starting the school year with an interim leader at the helm.

• Lane Tech College Prep High School, 2501 W. Addison St. Kathryn Anderson resigned in June after less than a year as principal, for a job in suburban Deerfield. By mid-August, the school's LSC had named Brian Tennison, an assistant principal at Taft High School, as her successor.

The ongoing Western-Belmont viaduct replacement project will continue to affect access to the school's Western Avenue entrance.

• Schurz High School, 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave. Kathleen Valente is serving as interim principal while the LSC searches for a replacement for Dan Kramer, who led the school from 2010-2016.

Ald. John Arena (45th) is continuing to pursue a passion project of Kramer's — development of a new athletic field for the school.

• Roosevelt High School, 3436 W. Wilson Ave. No, high-schoolers haven't shrunk. Roosevelt is now enrolling seventh- and eighth-graders, with the addition of students from Marshall Middle School (renamed Roosevelt Middle School).

In the midst of this major transition, principal Pilar Vazquez-Vialva announced her resignation just two weeks before the start of the school year.

• Palmer Elementary, 5051 N. Kenneth Ave. Jennifer Dixon is on board as interim principal after the departure of La Shawn Ray, who moved to Minneapolis.

Over the summer, three of the school's teachers participated in training through Pilot Light, a nonprofit that draws from the city's culinary pros to provide hands-on lessons about food and nutrition. Throughout the year, third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Palmer will study cooking and healthy eating with Pilot Light chefs.

The school is now on Twitter (@palmer_panthers) — check the feed for updates.

• Disney II Magnet, 3815 N. Kedvale Ave. and 3900 N. Lawndale Ave. For the first time since its founding in 2008, Disney II Magnet will start the school year without Bogdana Chkoumbova as principal. Chkoumbova was promoted to network chief in the CPS Central Office.

Katie Speth is serving as interim principal.

New Beginnings

• Amundsen High School, 5110 N. Damen Ave. Amundsen is riding a wave of positive news heading into the 2016-17 school year. Just two years after being taken off probation, the school was named one of the Top 20 high schools in the city by Chicago magazine.

Construction has also begun on a new varsity baseball diamond, courtesy of a Cubs Charities Diamond Project grant.

• Bateman Elementary, 4220 N. Richmond Ave. Bateman's second floor is painted a new shade of purple thanks to a group of volunteers from the Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, Gamma Upsilon Chapter at DePaul University.

• Belding Elementary, 4257 N. Tripp Ave. The school's auditorium seats are several decades past their prime. According to a now not-so-secret list of CPS capital projects, Belding appears poised to have its wish for new seats come true.

• Bell Elementary, 3730 N. Oakley Ave. Bell is preparing to celebrate its centennial this year. The school is encouraging alumni to sign up for updates on plans for any festivities (click here). 

• Peterson Elementary, 5510 N. Christiana Ave. Peterson's motto, "Where the world comes to learn," normally applies to its students, who speak 40 different languages and hail from around the world. This year, the school is welcoming Arabic teacher Ahmed Abd El Aziz from Egypt. El Aziz arrives at Peterson courtesy of the State Department's Teachers of Critical Language Program.

• Waters Elementary, 4540 N. Campbell Ave. The school has added a designated "maker space" to its educational offerings. As part of this new curriculum, Waters will take part in October's Global Cardboard Challenge, which encourages people to reuse cardboard in imaginative ways.

• Von Steuben High School, 5039 N. Kimball Ave. Von Steuben's history dates to the 1930s, but it is only just now fielding its first varsity football team. Go Panthers!

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