Fall Sports In Full Swing, Classes Soon to Follow

These weeks in August are Thomas Callanan’s favorite part of the summer.

“Sports are starting up, kids are here now, cheerleaders are out there, football is out there, teachers are starting to come back and it’s all starting to kick into high gear,” Callanan said. “I’m looking forward to the kids coming back. It’s going to be a good year.”

The new assistant principal of athletics, Michael Menditto, is getting his feet wet before the start of school, and Callanan said he is already making a difference. Amy Wasser, the new district supervisor of guidance, has also joined the staff at Hanover Park High School, along with 10 other new teachers and instructional aides.

Freshmen come in for orientation on Wednesday, Sept. 4, and all students come back to school on Friday, Sept. 6, after Rosh Hashanah. It may seem like an awkward start to the school year to have a full day then break for the weekend, but Callanan thinks it will be a good thing.

“They can come in, get their books, get their classes, meet their teachers, and then Monday everybody comes back and starts fresh,” Callanan said.

Enrollment is very close to what it was last year at about 880 students. With the 218 seniors staying the full day, the school added new courses to the catalogue to accommodate an intellectually curious group. 

“There’s definitely more courses, and the character education and service learning we’ve done over the last few years is definitely going to continue, and hopefully we’ll improve upon it,” Callanan said.

Facility improvements are also a key part of the new school year. “We’re getting new bleachers installed, we budgeted for that. We also have a new sound system going into the theater, which is really in dire need,” Callahan said. “There’s more technology in the classrooms. We’re moving to projectors that make the whiteboards into essentially interactive Smartboards.” 

The school also has new iPad carts coming in for the students, and new Apple laptops for several teachers.

The PTO’s brick campaign for the quad is also underway, and those improvements should be on full display by the time the class of 2014 graduates. 

Callanan also hopes for more significant facilities improvements in the school’s future—specifically, improvements in the athletic fields as a result of the new referendum vote on Sept. 24, only about one week after Back to School Night on Sept. 16.

“Hopefully it’ll be successful this time around, because, and I speak from the heart, it is needed,” Callanan said. “The facilities out there are not good. Our football field right now, if you saw it, you’d see that it’s not good. … The field is a huge need. The track is a huge need, and we need to get it done. Hopefully people will come out to the games on Friday nights and see that we need to get it done.” 

Also on top of Callanan’s wish list: A school year free of any major storms.

“We flood so easily here,” he said. “This school floods very fast. It sits on wetlands and it’s very low-sitting. You’ll see by my office, it’ll turn into a lake.”

Sandbags and the ability to quickly evacuate people and valuable possessions from areas prone to flooding are a big part of planning for big storms, especially since the school can experience flooding from simply a heavy rain. Short of controlling the weather, the only other thing Callanan can do is hope. 

“I think everybody needs a break,” he said. “We need a Halloween this year. Our kids do a haunted house, and it’s a big fundraiser for the senior class. We couldn’t do it last year. Hopefully we’ll get to do that this year.”