Glenbrook North High School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Glenbrook North High School |
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| Motto: We educate for living. | |
| Established | 1953 |
| Type | Public secondary |
| Principal | Dr. Michael D. Riggle |
| Students | 2,094 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Location | 2300 Shermer Rd. Northbrook, Illinois USA |
| Campus | Suburban, 72 acres |
| Colors | Green, Gold |
| Mascot | Spartans |
| Yearbook | Laconian |
| Newspaper | The Torch |
| Website | gbn.glenbrook.k12.il.us |
Glenbrook North High School, or GBN, is a public four-year high school located in Northbrook, Illinois, a North Shore suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Northfield Township High School District 225, which also includes Glenbrook South High School.
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[edit] History
The school celebrated its 50th anniversary during the 2003-2004 academic year. The school was built to serve the residents of towns of Northbrook and Glenview. Since there was not a local high school at the time, students often had to pay to attend classes in other areas. In 1962, due to overcrowding, its sister school Glenbrook South High School was built.
In 1978 GBN teacher Richard Lindwall was arrested for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder of a Chicagoland area police officer's son. In 2001 Robert Kurson, a GBN alum, published an article in Esquire about Lindwall.[1]
In 1985, motion picture director and writer John Hughes, a 1968 graduate of Glenbrook North High School, used the campus for location shooting of the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. For instance, in one iconic scene, Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, picks up his girlfriend Sloane Peterson, played by Mia Sara in front of the Glenbrook North High School performing arts building. A number of GBN students were used as extras in the school scenes.
John Hughes' 1985 film The Breakfast Club featured a group of kids from "Shermer, Illinois" 60062 (per the closing scene of the film). Shermerville was the original name of the town of Northbrook, where GBN is located, and 60062 is the zip code. The movie features the clash between what were known in the late 1970s as the 'sporto' versus 'burnout' cultures at GBN. Some think the movie was filmed inside the school, but it was filmed at Maine North High School, which was also used for the interior scenes of Ferris Bueller. The stars of the movie, however, did attend classes at GBN for a short time, in order to get a flavor of high school life. As child actors, they had little exposure to public school.
In 1997 President Bill Clinton traveled to Glenbrook North High School and spoke on the importance of an internationally competitive American educational system. At the time Glenbrook North High School students were participating in an international mathematics and science study sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. President Clinton also made reference to the students, who achieved very high scores in the study, in his 1997 State of the Union speech.
During the summer of 2001, Glenbrook North High School made a brief appearance in the news. In a July 6 letter to parents of Glenbrook North High School students from school officials, it was announced a Glenbrook North High School teacher would undergo sexual reassignment surgery. The female teacher at the time had been teaching at the school for seven years. The letter stated the teacher would be returning as a male in the fall. Realizing the controversy of the issue, school officials deemed the matter to be a personal one and vowed not to allow it to interfere with classroom activities. School administrators as well as parents and students maintained an atmosphere of respect that allowed the teacher to return to work with few difficulties.
[edit] Hazing incident
In May 2003, Glenbrook North High School found itself in one of the biggest challenges it has ever faced. An off-campus, non-school sanctioned event that turned into a major hazing incident garnered international attention.
The event was the annual "powder-puff" girls' football game between a group of juniors and seniors. First begun as a fundraiser in 1977, the on-campus game was discontinued in 1980 because it was getting too rowdy. The annual game then went underground. School officials were usually able to break it up when they found out the date and time it was to be played.
The senior students who organized the 2003 game were able to keep the time and location secret, such a secret that some participants did not know when it would be held until about half an hour before it began. The invited junior female students paid $35 to participate. The fee covered the cost of an athletic jersey to wear and beer provided by some of the parents of senior students. The game took place on Sunday, May 4, 2003, in Chipilly Woods, A.K.A. Grant & Lee, part of the Cook County Forest Preserve District, at about 11:30 a.m. There was no playing of football. The hazing began as soon as the junior girls arrived. About 20 junior class participants were sat in the middle of a clearing while they were covered in paint, urine, feces, and animal guts. Some were shot with paintball guns, others were kicked and beaten. After it was over, at least five of the participants had injuries requiring medical attention, including one receiving stitches to her head.
A couple of students videotaped the incident with camcorders. Some of the students then sold their videotapes to Anna Davlantes, a reporter at television station WMAQ (NBC) in Chicago, for prices ranging from $60 to $200. Davlantes broke the story the next day, and it began to receive international media attention.
How to respond became a problem for school officials. At first, school officials stated there was little they could do except prohibit the students responsible from attending school functions. Glenbrook North High School Principal Dr. Michael Riggle stated while the school condemned the incident, the students could not be suspended or expelled because it did not involve a school-sanctioned activity and it did not occur on school property. After further consultation, school officials found differently in accordance with Illinois state law and school district policy.
Thirty-one students – twenty-eight females and three males – were suspended from school for 10 days. They were later expelled. Some of the expelled students and their parents filed a federal lawsuit because they would then be unable to graduate from school. The plaintiffs and the school district reached an agreement where the expelled students would have their diplomas mailed to them provided they dropped the lawsuits and did not make any book or movie deals about the incident. The juniors who participated were suspended but it was lifted when they agreed to counseling and also to not make any book or movie deals. Local law enforcement authorities investigated the hazing incident and filed charges against 15 students for assault and battery. Two mothers were charged with providing alcohol for the event. All were convicted and the sentences received were light, ranging from probation to community service.
A community-wide task force was established after the hazing incident. The task force consisted of 31 community leaders. The final report of the task force was released on November 7, 2003. The report stressed the needs for recognizing and preventing hazing incidents.
[edit] Debate
The Executive Secretary to the National Forensic League Named Glenbrook North the Nation's top debate school of the 20th Century. Since the first national debate tournament in 1931, Glenbrook North has won the Debate Championship four times: 1974 (Steven Davis, coach), 1986 (Jeffrey Wortman, coach)and 1997 and 1999 (Ted Belch, coach). Glenbrook North finished second in 1996 (Ted Belch, coach) and 1980 (Pam Schultz-Takona, coach).
Using the number of national final round appearances as a standard, Glenbrook North has made the stage three times in four years (1996-1999). Only two schools won back to back national titles. Glenbrook North came close, losing the finals in 1996, but winning in 1997.
Only one person has both won the nationals in debate and later coached the national debate championship team. Jeffrey Wortman won in 1981 at Glenbrook South and coached the winner in 1986 at Glenbrook North.
In 2004, a historic moment in the historic site of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Glenbrook North became the first school in debate history to win the Triple Crown—three national tournaments in a single year. Glenbrook North won the Tournament of Champions in April 2004, the National Catholic Forensic League National Championship in May 2004 and the granddaddy of them all, the National Forensic League on June 18, 2004. Unprecedented but not unexpected. Glenbrook North went to the NFL with the confidence of two national championships, two top teams, and the winningest coach in debate history, Ted Belch. The team of Mike Rosecrans and Jake Ziering was the first team ever to win the TOC and the NCFL and was favored to win the NFL, yet Matt Nadell and Adam Stern also held a national reputation and had edged out their teammates in two previous tournaments. Coach Belch was retiring from GBN and would end his career at the NFL. As the tournament unfolded, both GBN teams were undefeated almost to the end. By the final round Rosecrans and Ziering had been knocked out by a single ballot—so it was Nadell and Stern vs. The College Prepatory School of Oakland, California for the championship. The two teams verbally duked it out for nearly 90 minutes in front of a crowd of over a thousand. Eleven judges cast their ballots, eight to GBN and only three to the opponent, declaring Nadell and Stern as the NFL champions to a cheering, standing ovation crowd. Rosecrans and Ziering placed 3rd in the nation, Ziering won the Top Speaker Award, and Rosecrans was the fifth speaker out of nearly 400 policy debaters.
[edit] Academics
Glenbrook North has been named one of the best academic high schools in the Chicago area. The following statistics are found in the 2006 "Best Schools" edition of North Shore Magazine:
- Average Composite ACT Score: 24.7
- Graduating Class of 2005 Average Composite ACT Score: 25.3
- Graduation Rate: 98.3%
- Average class size: 19.0
- Glenbrook North has made Adequate Yearly Progress on the Prairie State Achievement Examination, a state test part of the No Child Left Behind Act.[1] The average score on the Prairie State Exam is 86.6.
- Operating Expense Per Pupil: $14,931
- Average Teacher Salary (2000-2001): $77,862
- Average Teaching Experience: 16.5 Years
- Teachers with M.A.+: 79.9%
- Pupil-Teacher Ratio: 15.9:1
- Student Attendance Rate: 92%
- Dropout Rate: 0.4%
[edit] Athletics
Glenbrook North competes in the Central Suburban League and Illinois High School Association. Its mascot is the Spartans.
In 2005 and 2006, the Boys Varsity Basketball team was nationally ranked and reached the Illinois State Quarterfinals three out of four years between 2003-2006. This included placing third in 2003 and winning the IHSA AA State Championship in 2005. The team, coached by Dave Weber, brother of University of Illinois head coach Bruce Weber, was led by All-American shooting guard Jon Scheyer who accepted a basketball scholarship to Duke University in 2005. The school has also won the state football and baseball championships in 1974, the state men's soccer championship in 1983, as well as the state championship in baseball in 1966. Glenbrook North also won the state title in 1993 for men's volleyball and finished second in the state in 2003. In addition, the school won the team tennis state championship in 2006.
[edit] Activities
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[edit] Notable Alumni
- Don Ohlmeyer (1962), Television Producer and Former President of NBC
- Doug Rader (1962), Former Major League Third-Baseman and 1970-1974 Gold Glove Award Winner
- John Hughes (1968), Filmmaker
- Leah Poulos Mueller (1969), Speed Skating Silver Medalist at the 1976 Winter Olympics and 1980 Winter Olympics
- Anne Henning (1973), Speed Skating Gold Medalist at the 1972 Winter Olympics
- Scott Sanderson (1974), Former Major League Pitcher and All-Star
- Jayne Brooke (1979), Actress [2]
- Michael T. Weiss (1980), Actor[3]
- Chris Collins (1992), Assistant Coach for Duke University Men's Basketball
- Benjamin Agosto (2000, did not graduate), Ice Dancing Silver Medalist at 2006 Winter Olympics
- Jon Scheyer (2006), Current Duke basketball player
[edit] Notable Faculty
- Vladimir Pyshnenko, current Boys Swimming Assistant Coach, Gold Medalist at the 1992 Olympics and Silver Medalist at the 1996 Olympics
- Brian James (1989-1995), Former Boys Varsity Basketball Head Coach, Current Assistant Coach for the Milwaukee Bucks
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official Website
- Northfield Township High School District 225
- Microsoft Terraserver satellite image of school campus
| Central Suburban League |
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| North Division: Highland Park • Deerfield • Glenbrook North • Maine East • Maine West • Niles North
South Division: New Trier • Evanston • Waukegan • Maine South • Niles West • Glenbrook South |
