Waving goodbye to summer break: Students return to some suburban high schools

Posted August 10, 2026 12:11 pm

Eric Peterson

Inflatable waving pirates welcome students as they arrive Monday morning for the first day of the new school year at Palatine High School in Palatine. The school’s team nickname is the Pirates. (John Starks/Daily Herald)

With its first 150 years behind it, Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 began Year 151 Monday as it welcomed students back for classes at its five high schools.

The fresh start of a new year played out at Palatine High School, the district’s original school, along with Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Fremd and Conant high schools.

The marching band leads students into the first day of the new school year at Palatine High School in Palatine Monday morning. (John Starks/Daily Herald)

District 211 is among the first school systems in the suburbs to start the new year. Its two feeder districts — Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 and Palatine Township Elementary District 15 — don’t start until Monday and Wednesday next week, respectively.

Arlington Heights-headquartered Northwest Suburban High School District 214 welcomes back students Wednesday, while Barrington Area Unit District 220 will start Tuesday, Aug. 18.

The 49-year-old building at 1111 N. Rohlwing Road that Palatine High School students returned to Monday isn’t the original, of course.

Students parade into the first day of the new school year Monday at Palatine High School in Palatine. (John Starks/Daily Herald)

The high school was established in one room of the then-Wood Street School. It was among the first four high schools in the Chicago suburbs and the first northwest of the city, according to district records. The first class graduated in 1877.

Palatine High School was a charter member of District 211 when it was created in 1914.

Palatine High’s second building opened on Wood Street in 1928. It is now Palatine’s village hall and the Palatine Park District’s Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center — named after the first principal, Charles S. Cutting.

Palatine High School staff members bump fists with students as they arrive Monday morning for the first day of the new school year. (John Starks/Daily Herald)

A pair of expansions during the 1950s tried to keep up with skyrocketing enrollment. But in 1961, Fremd High School opened in Palatine to serve freshmen and sophomores exclusively for a few years while upperclassmen attended the older school.

Palatine High School officially outgrew the Wood Street building with the 1977 opening of the current campus. A second gym was added 20 years later, with a new mathematics and foreign languages wing following in 2003.

District 211’s Conant High School in eastern Hoffman Estates opened in 1964, followed by Schaumburg High School in 1970 and Hoffman Estates High School in 1973.