DATE: Apr. 4 , 2008
Bentley hosts Senior Breakfast:
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Senior members of the New Lenox School District 122 community had an opportunity to see how their tax dollars are being spent during a special breakfast Friday, April 4, at Bentley School.
“We’ve created such an incredible educational environment here,” said Principal Michelle Hall, who welcomed over 100 seniors to the grade 4-6 school on Friday. “We are incredibly proud of the things we have to offer here.”
Twice a year, the district invites local senior citizens to a school to see how their tax dollars are being spent.
On Friday, they visited Bentley where the school’s Red Ribbon Club helped greet everyone at the door and serve scrambled eggs and coffee in the school lunchroom. The district’s junior high school orchestra, under the direction of strings teacher Jennifer Venutolo, provided a little musical entertainment.
“It’s important for you to see one of our older buildings,” Superintendent Michael Sass told the group. “While it needs a little more nurturing (than our newer schools), it’s still a wonderful school.... It’s not the facility that makes a school, it’s the people that are in it.”
Hall explained the school’s appearance has changed in the last several years as it added interior walls around the school library and classrooms.
Thirty-four years ago when the school first opened, educators were experimenting with an open floor plan concept that allowed them to combine classrooms and teach as a team. It wasn’t long before they returned to a more traditional teaching method of one teacher per classroom.
The open floor plan proved difficult for the teachers and their students as there were too many distractions around them. The district added interior walls four years ago.
“We’ve undergone a lot of changes in the way we look,” said Hall, who took seniors on an optional tour of the school afterward.
The next senior breakfast will be in the fall after the start of the 2008-09 school year.