One of the northwest suburbs’ oldest public schools celebrated its 50th anniversary this weekend.
Joyce Kilmer Elementary School, 655 Golfview Terrace in Buffalo Grove, commemorated its first five decades in education with an open house on Oct. 17. The day before, Raupp Museum coordinator Debbie Fandrei and historian Bill Kiddle came by to give to current students a PowerPoint lesson that explained what the 1960s, and the years that have passed since, were like.
“We were showing pictures of the neighborhood as it was at that time,” Kiddle said. “The kids were going ‘We live in that,’ or ‘My grandma lives in it!'”
As they explained in their presentation, the first school in this area was the Alcott School — now the Buffalo Grove Park District’s Alcott Center — which opened in 1961. The Cook County side of Buffalo Grove was going through tremendous growth, Kiddle said, with several small developers throwing subdivisions together.
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The School Board of Community Consolidated Elementary District 21 opted to put its next building in the empty field behind a new shopping center, which today holds the Garden Fresh grocery store, Continental Restaurant and more, Kiddle said.
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