Harold Washington Elementary School

Honestly, I’m pretty frustrated with the health environment at Harold Washington. My biggest concern is the cleanliness; I saw in some official notes that they've been dealing with broken equipment like vacuums that actually leak water, and you can definitely tell when you walk through the halls. Between the high chronic absenteeism—which is around 28%—and the fact that we’re sitting at a 30:1 student-to-teacher ratio, the staff is just way too stretched thin to keep a lid on germs. It feels like every time one kid gets a sniffle, it rips through the whole class because they can't manage the hygiene protocols or the ventilation well enough. It's hard to feel good about sending your kid to a building where the basic maintenance seems to be falling apart and the kids are missing so much school.

Honestly, I’ve been pretty happy with how Harold Washington handles things. They really do try to focus on the 'whole child' like they say. Whenever there’s a bug going around the classroom, the teacher is usually pretty quick to shoot out an email or a NoteHome so we can keep an eye out for symptoms. The school is generally clean, though you can tell it’s an older building, but the janitorial staff definitely puts in the work. My only gripe is that the sick-child policy can be a bit strict about when they can come back after a fever, but I guess that’s why my kindergartner didn’t get nearly as sick this year as he did in daycare!