A look inside: Sandburg Middle School

Carl Sandburg Middle School

Address: 855 W. Hawley St., Mundelein

Phone: (847) 949-2707

Web site: www.d75.lake.k12.il.us/sandburg/default.htm

District's name and Web site: Mundelein Elementary District 75, www.d75.lake.k12.il.us

Number of students/grade levels offered: About 710 students in sixth through eighth grades

Number of staff: 65

School mascot: Tiger

When was school built: 1959

Trivia: The school is named after renowned poet and writer Carl Sandburg, who was born in Illinois and lived much of his life in the Chicago area.

Principal: Mark Pilut

• He has been at the school for nine years.

• What is your favorite memory of Sandburg Middle? "It's just generally the kids. If we put them with a task, any kind of charitable task, they always step up. For example, they collected children's books and are donating those books to a library in Africa."

• What's a unique aspect of Sandburg? "Our extracurriculars and the amount of activities we offer to kids outside the school day. We have about 25, including competitive athletics, intramural programs and all of our clubs and activities. We do everything from cheerleading and basketball to a reading-book club. We try to make them broad enough for every child to find a niche."

• What are you most proud of at Sandburg? "The improvement we've made in our academic strides over the past four years. We just made the Illinois Honor Roll, which is a state school board recognition, because we made a 15-point gain in reading and math on the ISAT test since 2004."

• If all school enrollments were determined by choice, what would you say to potential parents to convince them to choose Sandburg for their children? "We can truly meet your child's needs. We truly strive to do that. In a world where not everybody's happy and everybody has issues, we really try to meet the child where they are and try to grow them from there."

• How has technology changed the way students learn over the past five years? "It's raised the bar for staff, because I think we have to make them better discerners of information. And it's raised the bar in reading, because you can access just about anything you want on the Internet. But how do you know it's valid? How do you know it's correct? As educators, our responsibility to the kids is to make them better readers and help them become more independent quicker."

• If you can get one thing accomplished between now and the end of the year at Sandburg, what would it be? "I think it would be to ensure that all of the kids have learned and have had fun doing it."