District 300, Dundee-Crown High School taking steps to make the community proud

When Dundee High School was closed in the mid-1980s, there were a lot of hard feelings from the area residents who had to move over to Irving Crown High School in Carpentersville. The perception was that Carpentersville could not offer what was available at Dundee High School, since East and West Dundee were perceived as more upscale.

Those bad feelings are still around today, because Dundee High School was closed in favor of the high school in Carpentersville where there is too much negativity being felt. Recently, however, Carpentersville can be proud of some of the great accomplishments that have been going on at DCHS.

In October 2008, when a 16-year-old boy was attacked by a classmate while he was walking down a staircase, parents got angry and demanded that Dundee-Crown be made safer. Now that a year has passed since this incident, Dundee-Crown High School is showing that it is making those improvements.

Violence like fights, gang activity and insubordination has decreased by about a third. This has been accomplished in part by the hiring of Gary Chester as safety officer. With the diversity at Dundee-Crown being so high, Chester has done his job well by making sure tempers between student groups do not escalate into out of control anger and rage.

School spirit also has increased tremendously, especially with the boys basketball team taking fourth place in last season's state tournament. Not only was this an accomplishment for the team, but it was a great way for students to band together to support their team and participate in some positive activities.

Academics also have shown a great deal of improvement. A freshmen academy was started to help students make the transition to the high school level and pay more attention to their classes and grades. In just one year, the percentage of high school juniors meeting standards in reading and math went from 42 percent in reading to 48 percent and from 39 percent in math to 42 percent.

This is something the students should be very proud of. Dundee-Crown has not been at the top of the list as far as achievement is concerned. The fact that it is making so much progress in just one year is something that the teachers and administrators should be very proud of.

When a school gets a bad reputation, it is so hard to overcome. It takes a lot of hard work to dig itself up and out into a resurrection of sorts. It was refreshing to hear that Dundee-Crown is making progress toward becoming a great school. As the cheerleaders say, "You say super, we say great." Congratulations to Dundee-Crown for making the community proud in more ways than one.

Linda McDaniel-Hale is a Sleepy Hollow resident.