Lane’s Local School Council (LSC) held a meeting on Jan. 18 to recognize student and teacher leadership efforts.

Council Resolutions

• Honoring the 2017-2018 Posse Foundation Scholars. These included: Trang Nguyen, Dominika Chruszcz, Jordan Hunt, Samuel Rodriguez, Zoey Ellis, Magali Coronado, Jeffrey Huang, Olduz Ilkhchoui, Deryk Gonzalez, Ronni Brent, Nina Vo and Laura Moore.
• Honoring teachers Mr. Payano and Mr. Davey upon being commended by Lurie Children’s Hospital and the Extra Life Foundation for their fundraising efforts. Payano and Davey are members of a group of educators known as the Rotten Apples.

Reports led by Principal Tennison

Principal Tennison began by acknowledging the new year and addressing how much of a busy time it is for current seniors. He noted the continuation of “in-house professional development” within the building.

Tennison said that the CCC has been a big focus this year. He mentioned the college trips that have passed or are coming up. These include: the Ohio region, Minnesota, Champaign, Loyola and Boston for Alpha students.

“We’re trying to figure out better and better ways to identify students that might not go to those schools; [they] would not be able to afford or wouldn’t get the opportunity to visit those schools,” Tennison said.

With finals week in the upcoming week of Jan. 29, therapy dogs will be “coming in for students that are feeling stressed” and students will be able to pet them.

“There’s no one thing that fixes everything but I do believe that continuing to try different things to try to embed that into the culture of trying to recognize that these are stressful times—at least honors the stress,” Tennison said.

The “long-anticipated” girls locker room completion was supposed to have been finished at the end of October, Tennison said. However, different forms of natural disasters “affected the supply chain in different phases of the project.”

“The project itself had problems that we didn’t anticipate,” Tennison said. “We actually have a new problem not with the workmanship, but there seems to have been [a problem] with the rehab of the building itself that has created some sort of perspiration inside that creates puddles of water because of the temperature difference.”

Tennison will be following up on the girls locker room project.

PPLC led by Gerardo Gonzalez

It has been a goal since last November to integrate a different schedule for students a week before AP exams, Gonzalez said. This decision will ultimately rely on the CPS decision about schedule flexibility.

Gonzalez said that since AP exams vary in time, it’s difficult for teachers to administer a more authentic assessment without the aid of a block schedule.

Friends of Lane led by Stacy Sacco

The Annual Appeal is “roughly $25,000 short of goal of $200,000,” Sacco said. Friends of Lane will continue to push donations.

“We encourage everyone to ask their Lane friends and family to participate in Annual Appeal,” Sacco said. “All amounts are welcome.”

Friends of Lane has been receiving regular orders from the online store that was launched this past December.

“Many orders will be shipped out of state,” Sacco said. “We are capturing a market that we hadn’t before.”

Alumni Association led by Michelle Weiner

There has been over $24,000 presented to teachers as grants, Weiner said. The Alumni Association will kick off their scholarship program for students as well within the following weeks. It’ll be easier for students to apply for the scholarships because they will now be available online.

“Last year, alumni scholarships comprised 15 percent of total awards given to the graduating ceremony,” Weiner said. “That was 17 individual scholarships; we have at least 19 already this year.”

New Business led by Principal Tennison

Tennison addressed his concern for needing another counselor at Lane. The motion received approval and the current “caveat” is that if the right person isn’t found, there will be a waiting process. Tennison said that this can be a part of next year’s budget.

“We currently have 10 counselors for [roughly] 4,430 students,” Tennison said. “I believe that we need two more plus a college specialist.”