The New Chicago Heights Middle School Opens Amid COVID-19

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — While many schools struggled to plan for the current school year due to Coronavirus, the new Chicago Heights Middle School managed to complete construction and open for their very first school year.

The new District 170 school, is located at 1020 Dixie HWY., Chicago Heights, IL, is a consolidated district made up of 10 different schools. Schools that hold students k-5 are now going to go to transfer to Chicago Heights Middle School for grades six, seven and eight.

A behind the scenes video of the school being built can be viewed below.

Principal William Z. Seidelmann said the school now has around 1,000 students enrolled, and offers a variety of programs.

"We are offering more extracurriculars and clubs than we ever have," Seidelmann said. "We offer a STEM program, Spanish foreign language classes, art, music and more."

The principal said the school offers more programs that weren't recently enrolled in the district, such as wrestling, golf, cross country, band, chorus, e-sports, speech team, math team and more.

The school offers all educational based courses, including those who may have intellectual disabilities, according to Seidelmann.

"We offer [classes for] pretty much all aspects of students... we offer co-teaching and have a couple of self-contained classes as well," Seidelmann said. "Typically students in that program are labeled with intellectual disabilities. We work closely with them to give them the proper attention they may need."

Some images of the school can be seen below:

The principal said it was a challenge to get a new school started amid the pandemic but something they managed to get done.

"I have a great admin team, so there's three assistant principals, an athletic director and myself. We also have an amazing group of teachers... maybe three quarters of the teachers came from the districts feeder schools, teaching at the junior high level," the principal said. "It's not been easy. There have been a lot of sleepless nights but without this team having some flexibility and patience with us, including the community, I don't think it would have been possible."

Assistant Principal, Anthony Sanchez, said the new school will bring hope to other schools in the district and area.

"This school is going to be a symbol of hope in Chicago heights. We offer students a possibility to go a little further than what they maybe have done in the past," Sanchez said. "They have all these doors to help create their future... and we're going to show them how to find those doors."