Joseph Stockton Elementary School

To be honest, I’m pretty frustrated with how things are going at Stockton. The building is super old and you can really tell—the ventilation is basically non-existent and the classrooms always feel stuffy, which is probably why every cold that enters the school hits my kid's class like a freight train. The chronic absenteeism here is a huge red flag; literally a third of the kids are missing school regularly, and it feels like the school has just given up on trying to manage it or keep parents in the loop about illness outbreaks. Communication is a mess and I never know if a bug is going around until my kid is already home with a fever. It’s hard to focus on 'wellness' when basic attendance and cleanliness feel like an afterthought.

Honestly, Stockton is a bit of a mixed bag. The school itself is in a beautiful old building in Uptown, but like a lot of CPS schools, you can feel how aged the infrastructure is. I've sometimes worried about the ventilation in the older classrooms during flu season, and it seems like once one kid gets a stomach bug, the whole grade is out. I haven't heard much about proactive wellness programs lately, though they do seem to try with the limited staff they have. Communication about health safety is okay, but it definitely feels like they are spread pretty thin. It’s an average Chicago school experience—nothing terrible, but definitely not a 'wellness retreat' for the kids either.