Story

During the early 1990s the Lyons District 103 School Board began exploring the possibility of opening up a middle school to meet the social, emotional and academic needs of the middle level student. The Board of Education selected Dr. Michael Stritch to begin planning the transition to a middle school during the 1999-2000 school year. During the planning year, team leaders were selected, and grade level teams were formed. Faculty underwent intense training on middle level education for over a year, but more importantly they began to lay the foundation of the current GWMS policies and procedures. Lyons District 103 students helped select the name of the school, the mascot and the school colors and George Washington Middle School opened its doors for the 2000-2001 school year. Construction was not fully completed, and the 8th-grade students were housed in the current 6th-grade classrooms and the 6th-grade students had used mobile classrooms for the entire school year. At its completion, George Washington became one of the best equipped and designed middle school facilities in the area. Just after its inception GWMS faced adversity with funding cuts resulting in the cancellation of many exploratory classes and extracurricular activities and increased subject area teaching responsibilities for its faculty members. District 103 and GWMS faculties and many community members rallied in support of a referendum in 2003 to bring back the enriching aspects of a quality education all of our students deserve. Since 2003, GWMS has never looked back and offers a high-quality education, with rich exploratory and extra-curricular activities and phenomenal facilities to meet the needs of each and every student. Recently, there were updates to the student cafeteria, Art room and the addition of four new classrooms to accommodate the growing number of students in Lyons District 103.

 

In 2018, Mr. Jones and the math faculty aligned classes with Morton and LT High School, allowing our 8th grade students to access the curriculum they will have as freshman in high school, giving our students a head start on high school. With new curriculum in science, social studies, our students are prepared to succeed in high school. In 2019, we added two more ESL staff members as well as a special education teacher to meet our growing needs. All of our athletic uniforms have been updated or will be, and our clubs continue to increase, both in size and participation.

 

Since the year 2000, Faculty and Students have been dedicated to GW and passing on Patriot Pride!

 

Principals
2000-2005 Dr. Michael Stritch
2005-2008 Bob Hildreth
2008-2011 Mike Kent
2011-2014 Johnny Billingsley
2014-2016 Paul W. Bleuher
2016- 2018: Chris Cybulski

2018 to Present: Don Jones