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Principal's Welcome
Welcome to MacArthur Middle School, home of the Marauders!
I have never been more impressed by the drive of our students. Since the pandemic, our students have been defining how they want their experiences to be in middle school. In the past couple of years, they have brought back dances, designed many murals and classroom spaces.
This year, we have a group of students that are leading with their vision and the staff are the ones taking the backseat. They started pitching the idea of a student lounge/collaboration space to student senate. This will be in the common space outside of the little theater. Student Senate loved it and brought their idea to me. I loved it and brought it to my colleagues in the district office.
Since September, they have met with the design company and picked out finishes. But then they got the quote for the project, $12,000. This was about $10,000 more than the $2,000 they had in their fund account after paying the bills for the Veterans Day Breakfast in November.
So they started to form a plan and share their ideas with the community. Last week they presented their plan to the D23 School Board (Meeting Link). Earlier this week, they presented their idea to the Prospect Heights Rotary and also wrote to various business partners of D23. Their efforts have netted another $7,000 and they are still going. They are looking to raise additional funds by running this weekend's wrestling tournament. At the rotary, one of the members asked when they expect to have the space completed and they said, "Likely next year."
The member responded, "But you will all be in high school and won't get to use it."
Their response was pure Marauder, "It is a space that we would have wanted and we know the younger kids will love it too, we will stil come back to see it!"
Not to make light of any of it, but they are also running a fundraiser for St. Baldrick's to generate funds and awareness for children's cancer. Many of them are also in our Unified Program which is organizing our first Polar Plunge to fund awareness and outreach for Special Olympics of Illinois. Information about those projects is found below.
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