A press release from Crystal Lake High School District 155:
Nine D155 Students Earn National Merit Semifinalist Recognition
The National Merit® Scholarship Program named nine District 155 students as 2018 National Merit® Semifinalists.
- Samantha Catlett – Cary-Grove
- Jacob Epp – Crystal Lake Central
- Lauren Felleson – Cary-Grove
- Anna Freiman- Crystal Lake South
- Julie Freund – Crystal Lake South
- Audrey Godsell – Crystal Lake South
- Emily Havard – Cary-Grove
- Hyo Sup Kim – Crystal Lake South
- Madeline Korte – Crystal Lake Central
From left to right: Cary-Grove students Rebecca Saffert, vice principal; Emily Havard; Lauren Felleson; Samantha Catlett and Principal Neil Lesinski.
Samantha Catlett plays the flute in the marching band at Cary-Grove High School. After high school, she would like to study filmmaking and pursue a career in filmmaking or script writing.
Jacob Epp is a senior at Crystal Lake Central and has been involved in concert band, symphonic band, marching band, jazz band, Mathletes, WYSE Physics, and academic tutoring for students. He is interested in majoring in engineering physics at a four-year college. One of his greatest accomplishments in high school was placing third in state at in the WYSE physics category. Jacob also volunteers in his community with the soup kitchen and rings the bell for the Salvation Army.
Lauren Felleson is part of the math team and National Honor Society at Cary-Grove High School. She plays the flute and piccolo and sits first chair in Wind Symphony and Morning Wind Ensemble. Lauren plans to major in math or physics; she’s considering several careers including a theoretical mathematician or a molecular, atomic, astro, or nuclear physicist. In 2016, she qualified for the Illinois Music Education Association All-State Conference.
Julie Freund is part of student council and National Honor Society at Crystal Lake South. Outside of school, she is a member of the robotics team Fruit Salad. The team advanced to the first World Championship in St. Louis last year. Julie is a US Patent Holder for an invention created through robotics, the Simple Auto Flood Evacuation Kit. Next year, she plans to major in business at a four-year university. She is also involved in Girl Scouts and English horseback riding, and volunteers at Mainstay Therapeutic Riding Center.
Audrey Godsell plays varsity tennis at Crystal Lake South and participates in several activities including math team, scholastic bowl, science olympiad, WYSE, National Honor Society, and band. She’s also part of the Fruit Salad robotics team and Girl Scouts. Audrey will pursue a four-year bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering with a minor in math. Additional recognitions include FIRST robotics Dean’s List finalist, a US patent holder, and All-State musician on flute.
Emily Havard is a senior at Cary-Grove High School. She is part of the swim team, science olympiad and National Honor Society. She plans to study geological sciences in college, and pursue a career in geological research.
Hyo Sup Kim is a senior at Crystal Lake South and serves as a member of National Honor Society, volunteering for about 96 hours last year. He also plays in band and is part of the math and scholastic bowl teams. Hyo Sup Kim plans to pursue a career in humanitarian relief. He believes that a lot of work could be done to help people who do not have access to the same resources people here take for granted every day.
Madeline Korte is an avid runner and she’s currently training for the Milwaukee marathon. She’s a senior at Central and plays the flute in the school band, pit orchestra, and marching band. She’s also involved in National Honor Society, and is a music mentor. She is a future educator and plans to study elementary education at a four-year college. Madeline volunteers for the Crystal Lake Library reading program. Her biggest accomplishment was her research project in AP Language and Composition which focused on education and cultural influences on education.
About 1.6 million juniors from 22,000 high schools nationwide took the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screening. The Semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and are the highest scoring students in each state.
In February, students will receive notification for Finalist designation. Beginning in April, National Merit Scholarship winners will be awarded.
The CHSD 155 Board still does not have board agenda packets for board meetings.
Lousy unacceptable transparency.
A board agenda packet has all the documents to be discussed or considered for approval at the meeting in one large Adobe pdf document.
That large pdf should be searchable (use find feature) and allow copy from the pdf and paste to another document.
The board puts a lot of these documents in the minutes.
However, the minutes are not searchable.
And one has to wait until the minutes are approved and posted, which occurs after the board meeting, to read the minutes, and at that point, the measure being considered may have already been approved.
It should be obvious to a taxpayer to request that the documents now posted in the minutes, be posted in a board agenda packet, be made searchable, and posted prior to the board meeting.
How are the board members presented documents prior to board meetings?
Do they receive an agenda packet prior to the meeting?
Do they receive hard copies at the board meeting?
Do they receive various emails?
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The CHSD 155 line item is the largest on a property taxpayers bill, along with the elementary school district.
Without a board packet prior to the board meeting, the taxpayers are at a big disadvantage.
Rest assured there is no effective taxpayer watchdog in CHSD 155 because they don’t even have board agenda packets that are searchable and allow copy from the packet and paste to another packet.
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CHSD 155 as of April 18, 2017 livestreams board meetings and archives them on YouTube.