Welcome to Booker T. Washington Elementary School Champaign, Illinois
About Our School Contact Information School Highlights Great BTW Links BTW PTA Who is BTW?	Mission Statement We are committed to producing responsible students who have acquired a strong foundation in the basic skills and an awareness of and appreciation for their creative abilities. Our goal is to help each student achieve to the best of his/her abilities and to begin to develop skills needed for independent functioning in a changing world. We are committed to providing an environment for student and staff in which there is freedom to pursue new and innovative ways to teaching and learning individually and as team members. Our mission will be pursued within the context of our continuing to provide a strong, broad-based educational program.

Above: The Annual BTW Ice Cream Social

About our School ...

Booker T. Washington Elementary School is located in Northeast Champaign at 606 E. Grove Street. The first classes were held in September, 1951 and the school was dedicated November 18, 1951. At that time, the school had four classrooms, a kindergarten room, a clinic room, a storeroom and 96 students. In 1956, six new classrooms, an auditorium and a kitchen were added. The last addition, or north wing, was completed in 1959.

Booker T. Washington was established as a magnet school when the Champaign Community District IV approved the first desegregation plan in 1968. A magnet school is a school with a program designed to draw students from the total district to that attendance center for a particular academic program. Washington has presented a variety of programs in its 30 years of existence as a magnet school.  It remains today a dynamic, multicultural school. One of our fastest growing programs is our English as a Second Language (ESL). We serve a large Hispanic population as well as students from Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other countries. The staff and families are very proud of our small family community.

Humanities Based Education for Academic Excellence is a program weighing heavily upon the acquisition of basic skills and built on a strong support team of home, school and community.  It is designed to meet the individual needs of all students, thus allowing each student to strive for academic excellence.   The center or core of this program is building a positive self concept.