Wheaton school makes exit strategy for duck, ducklings

For many years, a mother duck has been visiting Hawthorne Elementary School in Wheaton.

Each spring this duck would build a nest outside the school's library in an open courtyard.

Six years ago, during a remodeling addition to the school, the courtyard was enclosed.

Apparently, the mother duck didn't read the blueprints and has continued to build her nest in the now-enclosed courtyard.

When the baby ducks hatched and were ready to leave the nest with their mother, there was no way for them to get out of the courtyard because the baby ducks couldn't fly yet.

So staff and students at Hawthorne watched and waited.

One day the mother began pecking on the glass courtyard window in the library. It was time for her family to leave, and it appeared the mother duck was asking someone to let them out.

So that's just what the children and staff at Hawthorne did.

They turned down the lights in the library, cleared a path from the courtyard through the school hallways, and opened the front door of the school.

As if the mother duck had it planned all along, she led her ducklings out through the halls and to the sidewalk in front of the school.

This spring was no exception. For the sixth year, the process repeated itself. Although the staff thinks this year's mother is new -- maybe one of a previous year's brood -- she laid her eggs, hatched them, nurtured them to the waddling stage, and then knocked on the library window to alert staff that it was time for them to leave.

Not only have the children and staff of Hawthorne learned from this experience, apparently so have the ducks.

Hawthorne Elementary is a full-service school.