Mary G Peterson Elementary School, known both as Peterson School and Peterson Elementary, is a public elementary school

Elementary school

An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is part of Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools, commonly abbreviated as CPS by local residents and politicians and officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, is a large school district that manages over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago, Illinois...

 and was established in 1926.

As of the 2005-06 school year, the school had an enrollment of 919 students and 53.2 classroom teachers (on an FTE

Full-time equivalent

Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...

 basis), for a student-teacher ratio of 17.3.

History

The school was founded in 1926 in honor of Mary Gage Peterson. The Peterson family owned a lot of land in North Park

North Park, Chicago

North Park is one of 77 well-defined community areas of the City of Chicago. It is bordered by the North Shore Channel on the east, the Chicago River's North Branch and Foster Avenue on the south, Cicero Avenue on the west and Devon Avenue on the...

 where the school is located. Mary Gage Peterson donated the land for the expressed purpose of public education. She was an avid conservationist and wrote Nature Lover's Creed in 1908.

In 2004, Peterson Elementary was one of only three schools in Illinois to receive a 2004 Technology for Teaching grant from Hewlett Packard. That same year, the Illinois Conservation Foundation awarded Peterson Elementary a grant to fund the school's "Classroom in a Garden" project, an effort that focused on an outdoor garden curriculum for approximately 300 first through third grades students.
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This is an inside look of the hallways in Peterson.

Notable faculty

In 2005, Peterson Elementary grades 4/5 teacher and educator Mary E. Carney was a finalist for the Golden Apple Award

Golden Apple Award (education)

The Golden Apple Award is an award given to educators in various school districts in the United States. The name of the award refers to the stereotype of students giving apples to teachers they respect.-Georgia:...

.

Incidents

In July 1988 parents of seven Peterson Elementary children filed a civil rights suit charging that Chicago police

Chicago Police Department

The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago. It is the largest police department in the Midwest and the second largest local law enforcement agency in the...

illegally detained the youngsters on shoplifting charges.