Editorial | December 2008

Children of Peace School is a gem of a Roman Catholic grade school, located in an area of the Near West Side where other Catholic grade schools have long ago closed down. Not only does Children of Peace fulfill a need for mainstream students whose parents want them to have a Catholic or private school education, but it is a vital facility for deaf and hard-of-hearing children, as Children of Peace has a unique program to serve them.

The school, located within the Illinois Medical District (IMD), currently lacks a library, lunch room, and safe student drop-off point. Currently, children are dropped off at the very busy intersection of Taylor and Wolcott Streets in the heart of the Medical District. The school’s administrators have created a plan to build these necessary facilities, and will raise money privately to finance it. The plan is scaled back from a 2005 proposal that would have increased the size of the school dramatically; now, as then, administrators merely want to build on land the school already owns.

It needs the IMD’s permission to do so, and another IMD hearing on the subject will be held next February. We urge the IMD to quickly approve Children of Peace’s plans. Children of Peace not only serves a vital educational need in the community; with its program for the deaf, it serves a vital medical need for the deaf and hard-of-hearing as well. As the only Catholic grade school in the area, it keeps residents who use the area’s medical facilities in the community, and it enrolls the children of employees of the area’s medical facilities as well. As such, it is a worthy and integral part of the nation’s largest medical district.

Approval of Children of Peace’s plans will help the children, the community, and the IMD itself, and will not require use of any IMD land. The proposal is a winner all around, and we hope that quick approval on Feb. 24 will allow construction to begin post haste on one of the more worthy projects proposed for this community in quite a while.