I wanted to cry at my son's 8th grade graduation, but not for the reasons you might think.
When my oldest child graduated from middle school last week, several people asked me, “Did you cry?” Actually, I didn’t — although I wanted to, after witnessing the way some people behaved during the 70-minute graduation ceremony —and I’m not talking about the students. First, Superintendent Hardy Murphy made a quick departure following his speech. Believe me...I was watching. We all were. Now, if he was ill, I'll cut him all the slack in the world. But if he was not sick, Dr. Murphy’s exit – stage right – demonstrated a lack of respect. While he surely had several graduation ceremonies to attend on Tuesday evening, the tufted, leather chair he left so blatantly vacant on-stage didn’t “sit” well with me. Later, the audience was asked to …
42.044613
-87.708345
Evanston/Skokie School District 65 - Joseph E. Hill Education Center
1500 McDaniel Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/bad-grad-behavior
261651
/locations/7190732
Evanston-Skokie District's share is part of the state's $21.4 million.
Dawes Elementary School was renovated by the National Education Association Student Program Tuesday after the school was selected for an Outreach to Teach program.
Evanston’s Dawes Elementary School hummed like a beehive Tuesday when near 400 National Education Association (NEA) volunteers spent the day revitalizing the aging building as part of the group’s 15th annual Outreach to Teach day. Over the course of seven hours, workers replaced 50 classroom countertops and 100 cabinet doors, assembled more than 40 pieces of new furniture, installed six plastic raised gardening beds, decorated about 30 bulletin boards, painted two murals in the school’s entryway, sanded down paneling throughout the school, repainted several rooms, and planted more than 75 flowers, plants, and trees scattered around the school’s garden and campus. Dawes was chosen from a small pool of Chicagoland schools to receive the near…
42.025453
-87.699463
Dawes School
440 Dodge Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/dawes-school-gets-a-makeover
261663
/locations/4833521
Lori Keenan
3:06 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012
Christine - couldn't agree more and it was the same chaos at Haven's ceremony. Hardy always does the quick exit after his uninspiring speech, and yes, for his nearly $300k/yr salary, I think he can be bothered to endure the whole ceremony despite conflicts of schedule or parking issues. In fact, I think it's literally the least he can do. It was the same behavior by him and the audience two years… more ›