The Great Lakes Naval Training Center is planning to invade local schools by dramatically expanding an adopt-a-school program that sends sailors into classrooms.
All of District 187’s eight schools will now work with 15 different units at the naval base as part of the Partners in Excellence program. Lt. Steven Gottlieb, the Navy’s liaison to the schools, said he hopes the program will be in place by the end of February.
What the sailors do will be left up to principals, but it could include tutoring and mentoring students, or performing tasks such as painting stripes in the parking lots or monitoring lunchrooms, said Roycealee J. Wood, the district’s director of academic affairs.
Great Lakes officials have been working with the local schools for several years, and began a more formal Partnership in Excellence program last fall.
