More than 100 years ago a group of Lake Forest parents established an independent elementary school as an alternative to public education. What concerns led those founders of the Alcott School to undertake this venture isn`t certain. But by 1918 another group was interested in a more progressive education than either the public or the Alcott schools offered, prompting them to begin the Lake Forest Day School.
Those two early endeavors merged in 1959 to become the Lake Forest Country Day School, one of the more expensive alternatives to public elementary education in Lake County. Tuition ranges from $5,600 per year for 1st grade to $8,500 for 9th. The school also has several levels of
kindergarten and a preschool, formed in 1986 as a feeder for the upper grades. At the other end of the scale in private schools in the county is the $880 charged by Lake Shore Catholic Academy for children whose parents are parishioners of one of the two Catholic churches that subisidize the school. Even students whose parents are not parishioners pay only $1,640.
Traditionally, Catholic elementary schools were part of a parish, and almost every parish had one. Among the 24 Catholic parishes in Lake County today, there are 17 parish schools. As a consolidated, or area school, Lake Shore Catholic Academy is unique, and what Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago, refers to as the wave of the future. It represents the merger of four North Chicago and south side Waukegan parish schools and today is subsidized by two parishes, themselves the products of a recent consolidation: Queen of Peace and Saints Joseph and Batholomew.
The children are divided among three buildings: two for pre-kindergarten through 4th grades and one upper-grade center for 5th through 8th grades. Religion is a required subject for all 615 students in the academy, even the 25 percent who are non-Catholic. Many students are from low-income families, struggling to finance a private education.
”Families, even non-Catholic families, are doing this,” said Mary Liddy, administrator of Lake Shore Catholic Academy, ”because they recognize the Catholic school as a school that has a good, strong education program, discipline, structure and protection. They want a place where their children can be safe and the environment conducive to learning.”
To further help parents, the academy provides care before and after school from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for an additional charge. ”It is important that these little children do not go home to an empty house,” Liddy said.
Gloria Lewis, a non-Catholic, initially chose the academy for her two younger children because of the all-day kindergarten. Now, comparing their academic achievement with friends` children in public schools, she is satisfied she made the right choice. ”Also, I know they are well supervised and that teachers will call me right away if there is any problem,” she said. Esperanza Tellez of Waukegan sacrifices to send her children to the academy because she thinks the education is superior. Her oldest daughter, now a freshman at Waukegan High School, is proving her right. ”She and two others from her 8th-grade class are all getting A`s. Everything is a review for her,” Tellez said. While the academy was small and safe, Waukegan High is large, and Tellez worries now because of gang problems in Waukegan.
Certainly, Lake Forest public schools are safe and conducive to learning, yet in the face of high property taxes and high tuition, the parents of the more than 400 students at Lake Forest Country Day School are opting to keep them there. ”The teacher-student ratio is better here (about 9 to 1),” said James Marks, headmaster. ”It enables the teacher to work more closely with the youngsters. They do not have to spend their time on discipline and can expect more.”
”More” means learning a foreign language in 6th grade, beginning algebra in 7th grade or having outdoor education on the 40-acre wooded campus. Students take archeological field trips, publish a literary magazine that has won honors in competition with high school publications and spend a trimester annually on each of the fine arts. ”Although there is a wonderful, informal relationship here between faculty and students, our classes are pretty well structured,” Marks said.
Although most of its students move on to four-year high schools after 8th grade, Lake Forest Country Day includes 9th grade. ”We think that is a critical year developmentaly, and those who remain here assume leadership roles, which increase their self-confidence and maturity. In a larger environment, they are often lost in the crowd and have no chance to be leaders for four years,” Marks said.
Lake County parents have a wide range of choices when looking for alternatives to public education. They can choose the preschool-through-6th-grade Montessori Country Day School in Mundelein with its child-centered approach, which allows the student to make many choices in his own education. Or they can go to the opposite pole and choose the highly structured environment of a Christian school, where discipline and dress codes are emphasized. They can find a school such as Shalem Seventh-Day Adventist in Waukegan, with an enrollment as low as nine or one with 800 students like St. Mary School in Buffalo Grove.
Permissiveness in the 1960s caused a proliferation of such schools around the country during the 1970s, said David Ewald, administrator of Waukegan Christian School. The K-12 institution, founded in Waukegan in 1972, is now located in a former public school building in Zion. Christian schools, he added, are interdenominational but basically Protestant. ”We believe the absolutes are: There is a God and he has spoken.”
Many families, particularly fundamentalist Christians, are looking for consistency between what is taught at home and at school, said Jerry Jenkins, chairman of the board of the Waukegan Christian School. ”We think that all of life is God`s and that even math and science should be taught that way. Most of the parents of our (240) children attended public schools themselves but began to see in them a drifting away from traditional values and any mention of God and wanted something different for their children.”
When Sharon and Bob Madsen`s oldest daughter, now a college freshman, came home from kindergarten using words that were not allowed in the home and spent two weeks with her class getting ready for Halloween and only two days for Christmas, they decided to enroll her in the Waukegan Christian School. Their second daughter now is a junior at the school.
The tuition and the 15-mile drive daily from Libertyville have been more than worth it, Sharon Madsen said. ”While everything is not perfect-there are not things like shop and computer classes-because it is a small school, they have been able to participate at all levels. And now that my daughter is in college, she is amazed at how much better prepared she is, particularly in language skills, than her classmates who went to public schools.”
Waukegan Christian is the largest of several Christian schools in Lake County. Each is independent, managed by a board of directors as is Lake Forest Country Day and Montessori Country Day, which was opened in 1980 under the direction of Gary and Tillie Goodwin.
Lutheran schools, such as Faith Evangelical in Antioch, are usually supported and governed by a particular congregation, as is Lake County Baptist School, established by the Lake County Baptist Temple of Waukegan.
Catholic schools, although each has its own school board and can make many autonomous decisions, come under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Chicago, which issues guidelines on curriculum, teachers` salaries and other policy. ”As a state-accredited school, we are responsible to both the archdiocese and the state,” said Liddy, the Lake Shore Catholic Academy administrator.
Jenkins said Waukegan Christian is accredited by the Association of Christian Schools International but follows most of the state curriculum guidelines. ”The question is: Does our charter come from the state or the parents?” Jenkins asked.
The answer was contained in a 1975 report to the Illinois State Board of Education by a committee convened to review guidelines for non-public schools. That report stated that the primary obligation for the education of the child belongs to the parents. The state derives its right to provide education to the extent that it acts for the parents.
”Parents have a lot invested here, and that gives them a greater ownership in their school,” said Waukekan Christian School`s Ewald, echoing sentiments expressed by other administrators interviewed.
To ensure the integrity of non-public schools, the State Board of Education requires them to be registered with the county superintendent`s office and state they are in compliance with requirements regarding attendance, length of term, non-discrimination and fire, health and safety codes. The registration does not mean a school is accredited, though. Fifty-six private schools are registered in Lake County.
Schools also may voluntarily seek state recognition, which means they voluntarily submit to certain guidelines and review procedures.
Critics argue that private schools often succeed because they can be more selective of who they accept. ”Either you have control of a classroom or you don`t,” Liddy said. ”If a child is disruptive, it takes away from everyone. There can be discussing, sharing and cooperative education, but you still must have control.”
”We are not a church nor a rehab center,” Jenkins said, ”and while we will work to help a child who has a problem, we do not have to keep him or her. Neither are we a remediation school, and if students are flunking, we do not keep them.”
Marks claims that good communication between parents and teachers helps to ward off potential problems at the Lake Forest school. ”We also have a school psychologist who will work with a family if there is a problem. We do not abandon children. We will work with the family to place them elsewhere if they don`t fit in here.”
Expulsion from a public school, on the other hand, is a lengthy process, carefully spelled out in the Illinois school code, and even then it usually is effective only for one term.
Dedication on the part of parents and faculty is what makes Waukegan Christian work, Ewald said. All of his teachers have bachelor`s degrees, some have master`s and one has 11 years of experience. Yet the top salary is only $21,000. ”They are committed to the next generation,” Ewald said. ”They consider this a ministry.”
Although parents pay a high price for alternatives, all of the schools contacted claim that the tuition does not cover the cost of educating the child. Differences are made up by grants, endowments, fundraisers, parent volunteers and, in the case of the Catholic schools, parish subsidies. Yet, in many cases, the cost of educating a child in private school is less than in public schools because most Catholic and Christian institutions pay lower salaries. In Waukegan, the average cost per elementary public school child is $4,465, while at the Lake Shore Catholic Academy it is $1,800. In Lake Forest, it costs the public schools almost $6,670, while Country Day does it for about $7,800 at the primary grade level.
