School concedes online election

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September 1, 2010

Northeast acquires more than 8,000 votes in contest

BY MIKE HELENTHAL Commercial-News The Commercial-News Wed Sep 01, 2010, 11:49 PM CDT

DANVILLE — Voters can still cast a ballot, but the leaders of Northeast Magnet Elementary School concede the school will not win the election.

Since the start of the school year, they’ve urged the community to go online to vote for Northeast as part of a contest where the retail store chain Kohl’s would donate $500,000 to 20 schools with the highest number of ballots cast.

As the Friday deadline approached, Northeast’s sense of hopefulness was replaced by disappointment.

“We put up a good fight,” said teacher and contest organizer Lisa Unzicker, “but our candidate didn’t quite make it. We gave it a really good try.”

She said Northeast had started slipping behind some of the larger schools in the past two weeks after staying even in the first few. Just two weeks in and Northeast was only about 4,000 votes out of the 20th spot, which included schools from across the United States.

And while Northeast has gained more than 8,000 votes in all, the larger schools — most of them private and located in metropolitan areas — are nearing the 70,000-vote mark.

“It’s disappointing,” she said, “because we’ve had people from all over the country vote for us. The community really supported us and we’ve got a lot to be proud of.”

She said the school has taken some comfort in knowing, excluding the private schools, Northeast would have easily placed in the Top 20 and as high as 12th in the nation. As it stands, they are coming in about 60th place.

School leaders were excited about the possibility of receiving a $500,000 gift in a time of tight finances and had planned to use the money to build a gymnasium separate from the cafeteria. As it stands, physical-education programs are affected daily by having to shut the gym down for lunch.

Teachers and students didn’t just wait for votes to come in, they went out into the community in the past month and collected them. Participants with a Facebook account were allowed to cast five votes per school and Northeast was on hand at several community events offering wireless-connected “voting booths.”

Unzicker said other schools within and outside the district had even come to their aid and voted for Northeast, as well as area businesses who passed along a “get-out-the-vote” message to employees.

“Definitely it was worth the work,” she said. “We got to see a lot of people who really care about our school. It’s been a real community effort.”

HOW TO VOTE

Friday is the final day to cast a vote in the Kohl’s Care $500,000 school giveaway contest. The Facebook site can be accessed by visiting the Northeast Elementary Magnet School Web site at http://www.danville.k12.il.us/Schools/NEElem/index.htm

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