Education
Oswego Community Unit School District 308
Community-based and focused on academics, Oswego Community Unit School District 308 offers hometown values in a growing suburban community.
District 308 has a very proud tradition of providing academic excellence for its students. This educational philosophy serves as the cornerstone of District 308 as it balances its academic rigor with a caring community that celebrates diversity and cultivates values and character.
Currently, District 308 administration oversees 22 schools throughout 68 square miles encompassing Oswego and portions of Aurora, Joliet, Montgomery, Plainfield, and Yorkville. While the district continues to increase in size, so has its desire to provide exemplary educational opportunities nestled within a safe, caring and responsive community. Such community support has provided District 308 with the necessary finances to build and renovate schools to support the increasing growth within the district’s six communities.
District 308’s approximately 15,000 preschool through high school students are served by 1,800 staff members who are dedicated to providing students with a solid foundation for learning so that they may achieve academic success both now and in all future endeavors.
This desire for educational excellence has led to more than 85 percent of the elementary and junior high students meeting or exceeding state standards, placing the district in a position favorable toward reaching its goal of 97 percent by 2012.
District 308 students also have the advantage of new, innovative and expanded programming that is regularly researched and adopted by the district. Hands-on inquiry-based science programs, extensive community partnerships, various character initiatives, an expansion of the World Languages curriculum to include Mandarin and German, a primary-grade Spanish immersion program, cross-grade mentoring programs, and specialized engineering and medical field studies are just a sampling of the exciting educational opportunities available in the district.
In 1837 the first school was established in Oswego. From its humble beginnings in that log cabin, to the rapidly growing suburban school district that it has become, Oswego Community Unit School District 308 has remained a cornerstone of learning for area children.
Waubonsee Community College
Waubonsee Community College is a two-year institution of higher learning, which has provided educational programs and services to more than 250,000 students since its founding in 1966. Through the years, one thing has remained constant —the belief in the power of teaching and learning to change lives.
The college offers programs that meet the educational needs at every stage of life. Transfer programs are available for those students looking to attend a four-year college or university, while career education programs allow students to enter the workforce quickly, putting degrees or certificates to use right away. Residents can also enroll in developmental education courses or programs, including Adult Secondary Education (ASE), Adult Basic Education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL). The noncredit classes offered through the Community Education department are designed to enrich the quality of life of both children and adults; Workforce Development offers noncredit classes for professional development purposes.
Waubonsee works hard to make these high-quality educational programs accessible to every person in the district, offering classes at convenient times at locations close to home. The college has three campuses—Sugar Grove, Aurora and Copley—and also offers courses at 40 extension sites, as well as online. A fourth permanent campus will be constructed in Plano, as part of the school’s 2020 College Master Plan. The plan, which is the college’s blueprint for the future, also calls for a new downtown Aurora campus and has led to the opening of four new facilities on the Sugar Grove Campus, including the Campus Operations Building, the Science Building, the Academic and Professional Center (APC), and the Student Center.
These new facilities will allow Waubonsee to continue providing high-quality educational opportunities to the growing district. But while bricks and mortar create a campus, it is people who create a campus community. At Waubonsee, the staff and faculty members define their successes by the futures they help create for their students. And while enrollment continues to climb, average credit class size remains just 17 students, allowing instructors to give each student individualized attention.
As the college’s district grows and the role of community colleges in higher education expands, Waubonsee Community College will continue to change and adapt to better accomplish the core mission — creating pathways to success for students and the community through quality teaching and learning experiences.
Aurora University
Dedicated to the transformative power of learning, Aurora University creates educational environments where students prepare for lives of leadership, meaning and success. Through its mission statement and core values — integrity, citizenship, continuous learning, and excellence — faculty and staff are inspired to provide quality and life-changing educational experiences for students. The university enrolls approximately 4,000 students each year. Undergraduate students have 40 majors from which to choose, and the university also offers eight master’s degrees in business administration, education and teaching, recreation administration and social work as well as a doctorate in education. For more information, visit www.aurora.edu.
In addition, Oswego is less than thirty minutes from several four-year colleges, including Rasmussen College, DePaul University-Naperville, Illinois Benedictine University, National-Louis University, Lewis University, North Central College, and Northern Illinois University.