New Trier Gourmet Cooking Classes Wildly Popular

Students learn cooking and nutrition in the school's state-of-the-art kitchen. A new, third course would allow New Trier High School to offer a three-year culinary experience for students.

There aren’t a lot of teachers at New Trier High School who mince onions during their class, but Jennifer McDonough is not like a lot of teachers. McDonough is one of the four culinary instructors for the two existing food courses at New Trier. These courses have been so popular with students that a third course has been proposed and could be added to the elective offerings. The school board is expected to vote on the proposal at next month’s board meeting. “Our culinary courses are among the most popular,” McDonough said. “It’s a good problem to have.” For six of the eight years McDonough has taught at New Trier, she has been teaching Creative Cuisine, which is offered to freshmen and sophomores at both campuses. An advanced offering …

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Unexpected Increased Enrollment Drives Up New Trier Budget

The school board approved a $102-million budget. The growing student body was attributed to fewer students attending private school and families taking advantage of reduced home prices to move into the district.

The New Trier Township High School District 203 school board unanimously approved a $102-million spending plan for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, up about 4.35 percent from what the district planned to spend last year. The budget totals varied only slightly from the tentative budget approved in July, according to Associate Superintendent Don Goers. The biggest change was caused by an unexpected uptick in the school’s enrollment. Instead of dropping from 4,232 students last year to 4,196 this year, as predicted by the school’s projections, the pre-first-day enrollment stood at 4,277. That led the district to add some class sections and the equivalent of 1.35 full-time teachers at a cost of $135,000. Earlier: New Trier Approves Tentative Budget…

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New Trier Approves Tentative $102 Million Budget

New Trier Township High School District 203 administrators say the district is in “good shape.” In its operating funds, the district is showing a surplus of $1.3 million, plus a contingency of $250,000.

The New Trier Township High School District 203 school board unanimously approved a tentative $102 million spending plan for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, up 4.35 percent from what the district planned to spend last year. Much of the increase is due to a project to install synthetic turf in the stadium and nearby practice fields at the school’s Northfield campus. The projected increase in operating expenses – not counting capital improvements, life safety work and debt payments, among other things – is 2.43 percent, with projected spending of $93.9 million. On the revenue side, the district is projecting collections of $100.5 million, or an increase of 3.98 percent from last year. It is projecting an increase in operating fund revenue of 2.61…

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Chi-an Chang

8:51 pm on Tuesday, July 17, 2012

David, thanks for commenting.   more ›

New Trier Superintendent to Stay Until 2016

New Trier Township High School District 203 has extended Superintendent Linda Yonke's contract by two years.

New Trier Township High School District 203 school board extended the contract of Superintendent Linda Yonke by two years during Tuesday's board meeting. The new deal will keep Yonke in the district until June 2016. “I’m very please we’re offering this contract to Dr. Yonke,” said school board member Peter Fischer. “The district is in a very strong position at this time, and that is directly related to the leadership of Dr. Yonke.” “This is a wonderful place to be an administrator and it makes it easy to stay,” Yonke said. Earlier: New Trier Allows Facilities to be Named After Donors The extension comes at a time when several other New Trier administrators are retiring or approaching retirement, and Yonke’s continued leadership will …

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New Trier Allows Facilities to be Named After Donors

New Trier Township High School District 203 board unanimously approved the policy change.

New Trier Township High School District 203 will now allow facilities to be named after major donors. New Trier school board approved the policy change unanimously at the June 4 meeting. Until now, the district’s naming policy for both its Northfield Campus and Winnetka Campus was that facilities could only be named for employees who had made extraordinary contributions to the district and who had been retired or away from the district for at least five years. Earlier: New Trier Board Considers Naming Policy With the policy change, the board can now consider naming facilities after donors who give at least half the cost of a major project, although the policy does not require the board to accept any naming proposals. The policy, which …

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Patch Profile

Kenilworth Teen Raises Money for Special Olympics

New Trier High School senior Fitz Bowen said coaching the school’s golf team was a source of “constant joy.”

Kenilworth resident Fitz Bowen was a captain of the New Trier High School JV lacrosse team his sophomore year, so he was stunned when he was cut from the varsity team as a junior. “I needed to find something that would get me out of myself, because when you don’t make a sports team that you’re expecting to make, you’re mad at yourself,” Bowen said. “The other game I play is golf and that’s a game of ups and downs as well, so I couldn’t always count on that. I need something I could find constant joy in.” Bowen found that joy volunteering for Special Olympics. He’d done some work with the organization before and decided to pursue it further by volunteering to coach the high school’s special needs students in soccer and track every Tuesday …

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New Trier High School to Experiment with iPads

Officials plan to find the potential of mobile devices for educational purposes.

New Trier Township High School District 203 is seeking proposals from teachers who want to use iPads in their classes next year. New Trier Director of Technology Chris Johnson said that teachers from any department, at all grade levels, will be able to submit proposals for how they would structure a course in which all students would be given access to an iPad preloaded with the necessary software for the duration of the course. The new plan of action arrived in the same week as Apple's launch of iBook 2, a digital textbook series.   Earlier: New Trier students rank high on ACT According to background material provided by Johnson, iPads are already used by some anatomy classes and some students who qualify for English as a second language…

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New Trier to Discuss Naming Rights, Advertising

The possible change in policy reflects harder economic times.

New Trier Township High School District 203 school board members said Monday night that they are amenable to possibly allowing some advertising on school property or allowing facilities to be named after large donors. Both options would mark changes to a district policy that underwent a major revision in 2008 and minor changes in 2010, when the high school’s booster club first raised the idea of a major contribution to help pay for synthetic turf in the football stadium on the school’s Northfield Campus. Earlier: New Trier Approves Plan for Synthetic Turf The existing policy does not allow advertising in school facilities and says that facilities can only be named after former district employees as a recognition of “meritorious service.” …

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