Being better neighbors

Steve Combs, president of the Enos Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, is a retired teacher and lives just a stone’s throw away from McClernand Elementary School, but he admits that in his drive to turn the neighborhood around he’s completely neglected the school. It was only after his organization this past fall unveiled a new master redevelopment plan for the blighted neighborhood that he realized a neighborhood rebirth is largely dependent on McClernand’s success.

Combs wants to increase the number of families that own homes in the area and that will take pride in their property. In recent decades, many single-family homes have been converted into multi-family residences, which now make up about 38 percent of Enos Park’s housing stock. Combs says that, in order to keep home-owning families in neighborhoods like Enos Park, the school systems have to provide what those families want – a great education.

“Somehow, some way, our efforts to improve the housing stock have to be complemented by whatever we can do to help improve the educational environment in our neighborhood and the city proper. That’s what’s driving us to be a partner with and a better neighbor to McClernand,” Combs says.

Combs isn’t sure yet what that will entail, but Gill is already hoping to partner with the association during its annual neighborhood walk of historic houses. Opening the school during such events is just another way to connect to the community and build pride in the school.

“We’re the heart of the community,” Gill says about McClernand School. “People can choose to go to a charter school, they can choose to go to a school that might have a different theme or need, and neighborhood schools are just one piece of that pie. I think that this school is a great neighborhood school and that’s what we want to be.”

Contact Rachel Wells at [email protected].