That classic ritual–getting your clothes ready for the first day of school–held no magic for Clayton Haworth.
“I just reach in the closet and everything’s the same,” said the 8th grader at Carpentersville Middle School. “I hate it.”
Clayton is one of the 1,150 students forced to leave their baggy jeans, expensive athletic shoes and oversized T-shirts at home this year.
Carpentersville Middle became the first public school in the northwest suburbs to enforce a strict dress code, aimed at curbing gang influences.
The new dress code is just one of a myriad of changes facing northwest suburban students as they return to school this week.
School officials spent the summer bracing for the upheaval. It meant putting the final touches on a new mega-school in Algonquin and two new grade schools in Carol Stream. It meant working out the bugs in a new scheduling system at Dundee-Crown High School and a massive computer network connecting Elgin schools. It meant coordinating a new reading curriculum at 13 elementary schools in Arlington Heights-based District 59.
In some cases, the changes came as a surprise. Barrington-based District 220 lost its superintendent, and Palatine-based District 211 lost a veteran teacher from its school board.
Of all the districts, the schools in Carpentersville-based District 300 probably face some of the biggest changes.
The students and teachers at Dundee-Crown High School are coping with a new schedule.
This year, students won’t hear the class bell ring every 50 minutes. Instead, they will sit through 90 minutes of algebra, biology and world history.
The school opted for the change because students will have the opportunity to take more classes each year and less time is wasted on reviewing course material.
