Northwestern released this amazing video recently (click here)

This is almost a billion dollars can get you…. All within 1.5 miles of 5 different public elementary schools. (Orrington, notorious for flooding; Kingsley, Haven, Willard, Lincolnwood, where the auditorium and the kindergarten hallway flood, the chairs in the hall are falling apart, and staff is working from basement offices with windows that don't open).

Seeing the beauty of this building made me remember when the district paid big bucks to have a group visit every school to decide on what capital improvements had to be done for the safety of our children. You can read that report from Feb 14, 2022, here…. It is 243 pages long! It got into all sorts of things regarding efficiency and safety. It may/may not have been heavily influenced by people working in the district office and board members at the time. I don't know. Long story short, though, the buildings in this town are crumbling. They are not structurally sound or conducive to learning.  

When I look at a plan in the report for one school chosen randomly (Dawes), it is easy to imagine how, say, a wealthy community partner would want to share some of its wealth to lift the tide of all children in town and make the experience of being educated here more desirable for all. It is not a complicated list and is yet another opportunity for Northwestern to do some good.  

(Here's the text from that image: Suggested improvements:

connect the annex to the main building; new ceilings floorings & lighting; library needs modernization; toilet room renovations needed; need a dedicated lunch room; painting needed throughout the building; casework needs to be modernized...)