About Town

Evanston Needs More Shopping Choices For Kids

Columnist Christine Wolf hopes to see more businesses with a focus on Evanston's youngest consumers.

There’s money to be made in Evanston for anyone willing to offer options for kids. Having raised all three of my children here from birth – they’re now 15, 13 and 9 – I guarantee there’s a need for kid-friendly options, particularly for kids’ apparel and indoor activities. According to GreatSchools.org, the greater Evanston, Illinois, area sees kids enrolled in 29 Preschools, 18 Elementary Schools, 11 Middle Schools and 3 High School programs.  Take a look at this list of Evanston-area schools, followed by the kid-friendly private-sector clothing and activity offerings -- then tell me there isn’t room for improvement. Even if we exclude most preschool programs, we STILL have a tremendous population of kids (and their families) searching …

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Parents Fight Arts Cuts in D. 65

As part of a plan to reduce the budget following a failed referendum in March, District 65 has proposed to cut some full-time arts teachers and share more arts teachers among schools. Parents say those cuts would hit low income schools hardest.

A plan to reduce the number of arts teachers in District 65 and share them among schools as a way of saving money doesn’t sit well with some parents, who say that robust arts programming is critical to their kids’ success. At a meeting of the finance committee Monday night, both parents and members of the board asked the administration to  take a second look at proposed cuts. Oakton School mom Geri Smith was among several parents who attended the meeting to protest the district’s plan.  “When you have itinerant teachers, the programs are just not as strong,” Smith told Patch. Want the latest school news from Patch? Sign up for our free newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox every morning. As part of its plan to balance the 2012-13 …

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Dawes School Gets a Makeover

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…

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Richard Schulte

11:36 am on Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Eastsider: Please also accept my apologies for having an intelligent thought and expressing an opinion. And now you know why Evanston is called the People's Republic of Evanston-freedom of thought and expression are forbidden in Evanston. "Diversity is our strength", unless you express an opinion which differs from Evanston's free speech police officer (Comrade) Eastsider. In case you haven't …   more ›