History Teacher Steven Krause and many other teachers are working on making North a democracy school and improving civil learning at North.

A democracy school demonstrates a commitment to civil learning across subject areas, extracurricular activities, and in the schools administration. Democracy schools get access to online resources, grants, field experiences for teachers and students, and physical resources.

“John Brosnahan and I brought the idea back from a conference where we first heard about it”, said Krause.

The evaluation process to become a democracy school is for students, teachers, faculty, and administration to take a survey about the current programs at North. Once the surveys are taken, the McCormick foundation will look at the results and go over them with the democracy school team and North’s principal.

The Plainfield North teachers and administration can make plans for what they would like to change or make better for the future based on the survey results.

Other people working on this process are Shawn Healy, who is charge of program, and Barb Laimins, who is an Illinois Democracy school mentor, and helps out with the evaluation process.

“It is important for students to take the survey to have their voices heard about current practice and future changes”, said Barb Laimins.

Schools that meet the criteria to become a democracy school also promote civil equality, improve the schools climate, and reduce schools dropout rates.

“Your fellow students are very lucky to have such fine teachers guiding you through your high school years”, said Laimins.

Next spring, the teacher’s democracy team will submit an application to the Illinois Civil Mission Coalition to become a democracy school.
“Our overall goal is to constantly improve teaching, learning and the school culture here at North”, said Krause.

There are three phases to becoming a democracy; North is currently in phase two.

Many teachers are involved and hoping to get involvement from different subject areas across the school.