School and After School Care in Oak Park, IL

Hi,

Yes, all kindergartens in Oak Park are full day. Hephzibah is phenomenal! You can google them for their telephone number. They run after school, half day and day off programs at all the schools during the school year as well as a summer camp program in the summer. Both of my kids have attended the program for years. They haven't started kindergarten registration yet but if you are interested, call soon. The park district is also offering a program similar to Hephzibah but I don't think it's at all the schools and is more expensive.

About the schools, they are all funded the same from the school district. That being said, different schools in the district have different programs so if you are interested in a specific type of program, you may want to check which school may offer it and look for housing around there. I love my daugthers' school which is the smallest in the district (Hatch). We don't have the looping program or some of the other programs but we do have a fantastic school headed up by the best principal.

The schools are all great, there are no bad schools in Oak Park. There will be a referendum in the spring to raise property taxes or else there will be cuts. This, unfortunately, is not unique to Oak Park but it is being discussed a lot right now. However, I would not choose to live anywhere else!

I believe OP now has full-day kindergarten at all the schools. The elementary district is 97. Hepzibah Children's center runs a good afterschool program, but you need to sign up for it ASAP. They also take students on a sliding scale as well. Usually the programs operate at a couple of the elementary schools.

When we lived there a few years ago, my son attended Irving school in South Oak Park and it was a great school with a terrific principal- but a lot of financial challenges are in the schools individually and in the District, so be aware.

Although Irving was demographically one of the poorest schools in the district, my son got an excellent education while he was there, mostly due to excellent administration, a caring and committed staff and a very active parent group in the PTO. However, finances to get what the school needed were an ongoing struggle.

Each elementary school there has different things to recommend them, but you will find housing is much more affordable in south Oak Park.

We lived in an apartment when we were there, but when the time came to buy, we moved to Countryside because OP property taxes were so outrageously high. There are a lot of great things about living inn OP- but also a lot of difficulties with parking and such. But we did love Irving school!!

As you've already been told, there is full day kindergarten in Oak Park, and Hephzibah runs an after school program. All of the elementary schools are pretty good, though you might want to visit a couple to get a good sense of the differences. Alot depends on what you are looking for. Hatch is the smallest and parents mostly love the principal, Lincoln has a Spanish immersion program, Whittier has alot of multi-age classrooms.

We also had a good experience finding older kids to help with afterschool care. It's a pretty child friendly community, with a nice mix of stay at home and working parents, and lots of nice teens. Some of the schools and libraries used to have afterschool programs also, though I haven't needed this for a while now. Would be worth looking into.