At the Oct. 17 board meeting, Superintendent Hank Thiele presented the 2022 Exhibition of Educational Environments that District 99 received for the North and South high school Master Facility plan projects in conjunction with Wight & Company. This award, presented by Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) and entitled to District 99, was the high level of the Award of Distinction, by weighing the design, safety and environmentally conscious decisions.

“It is very rare for a project of this size to receive this award because it’s such a high bar to receive the Award of Distinction,” Thiele said.

District 99 tried setting themselves apart from other school districts by being strategic in how they applied for the award.

“Most school districts will piecemeal out the different parts of the project. Most school districts like us would do the commons as one application and then the auditorium as one, and through all the pieces of the project, hoping that one of those would meet the bar. You get one shot for the projects, so it’s kind of bold in the approach of going after the highest award for the entire project,” Thiele said.

Aside from the award, the faculty discussed the WiFi issues the school has had within the past week. DGS had their first Jazz camp held over the summer and the trash clean-up crew at the homecoming football game vs. Willowbrook were recognized for their efforts.

Kaitlyn Vincent, a DGS Student Board Member, addressed the issues behind the WiFi.

“I know that this last week we had a shutdown for a few days to try and fix the issue. We appreciate the effort in going in to fix it. Sometimes it’s a little aggravating for teachers and students when chromebooks aren’t working,” Vincent said.

Thiele explained the process of fixing and maintaining the school internet.

“We got a whole team of experts in. We brought in a whole bunch of consultants…it seems to have been corrected,” Thiele said.

Jazz member senior Annie White and sophomore Becca Snouffer shared their experiences with District 99’s first Jazz Camp over the summer.

“It was both North and South students… We’ve had jazz concerts in the same spaces, but we’ve never got to work side by side with them,” Snouffer said.

White explained what a typical day in the camp would be like.

“We learned the history and culture of jazz. We started out each day by grooving together. It was just really great to know the stepping stones in jazz pieces and how jazz came to be,” White said.

Seniors Lindsay Born and Nick Koch spoke about their experience cleaning up after the biggest football game of the year: DGS vs. Willowbrook. They were 2 of 11 student leaders.

“Some of us in this room, I know I’m guilty of it myself, are leaving something somewhere not thinking about it. What we decided is we were going to help our CMG staff clean up after the game so they didn’t have as much stuff to worry about,” Koch said.

“It just started off as some people seeing trash and picking it up. As the games went on more people decided to stay back,” Born said

Born talked about the future of cleaning up at games.

“We’re going to continue to do this; even after football season. When all of us do it, it’s really not that big of a deal compared to having only a few staff help out,” Born said.