William G Hibbard Elementary School

I went to this school as well PR-​K to 6^th (Pre-​K was at a plaza elsewhere on kedzie)
Then I went to APMA
Anyway, what I liked was the fact that there was kids from ALL OVER. I am lucky to have met people from so many cultures at a young age. Great school and I still remember how it was before the expansion. I never got to go to recess though :(Stupid new rule

I went to elementary school here, kindergarten thru 6^th grade. I went to APMA — Albany Park Multicultural Academy — in junior high. I took off one star because when I returned to Chicago after living in the Philippines for 5 years (I was born in Chicago, but lived with my grandparents in Manila), they put me in a Spanish-​speaking kindergarten class. Tagalog isn’t Spanish, ok?
This was before their Tagalog ESL program, of course, which they now offer.
I have to hand it to the teachers working there, though, because Chicago Public schools are tough. Many of the students had to take bilingual programs and ESL classes because their parents recently immigrated to Chicago. Their bilingual programs include Arabic Bosnian/​Serbian, Khmer, Spanish, and Vietnamese. And take a look at the different languages served in their ESL program:
Albanian, Bengali, Farsi, French, Gujarati, Illongo, Korean, Lao, Malayalam, Romanian, Tagalog, Turkish and Urdu.
Yes, it’s safe to say that the school is VERY diverse. I had friends whose parents immigrated from Jordan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Mexico, Greece, India, Pakistan to name a few. Some of you may not want your children to go here (you know who you are…), but it’s o.k. I have to give it 4 stars because the teachers deserve it.
This school has been around for over 90 years and they’ve expanded the school an extra 68,000 sq. ft. for new classrooms, a library, computer lab, and science lab. Good for them!