WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy hit suburban Palatine and Cicero and Chicago’s South Side on Tuesday “back to school” tours plugging in-person learning, COVID-19 vaccines and high-achieving local schools.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot will join them at different stops.
•In Palatine, Cardona and Pritzker will be at Walter R. Sundling Junior High School with Community Consolidated School District 15 Supt. Laurie Heinz and Sundling Junior High School Principal Jason Dietz.
Cardona will announce that Sundling is one of the “National Blue Ribbon Schools.”
In Chicago, schools winning the blue ribbon designation are Disney II Magnet High School; Prosser Career Academy High School; and Walter Payton College Preparatory High School.
The suburban schools are, besides Sundling, in Clarendon Hills, Prospect Elementary School; Highland Park, Braeside Elementary School; Hinsdale, Hinsdale Central High School; Lake Forest, Lake Forest High School; Lake Villa, Prince Of Peace School; Mundelein, Carmel Catholic High School; Northbrook, Maple School; Oak Brook, Butler Junior High School; Park Ridge, Lincoln Middle School; and Westmont, Westmont High School.
• In Cicero, Murthy, Pritzker and Cardona will tour the ACCESS Hawthorne Family Health Center vaccination clinic.
• The last stop is at Chicago State University on the South Side for a campus tour and what the Education Department said will be a “roundtable discussion on the future of predominantly Black institutions and equity in education.”
Cardona and Murthy will be joined by Lightfoot; Board of Trustees Chair Andrea Zopp; Chicago State University President Zaldwaynaka Scott; interim Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Leslie Roundtree; Dean of College of Pharmacy Matt Fete; and Dean of College of Education Carolyn Theard-Griggs.
In April, Cardona became the first Biden administration Cabinet member to visit Illinois. He joined first lady Jill Biden, a community college professor, in Dixon to discuss education at the Sauk Valley Community College.
