Bill McLean

Lake Forest Country Day School’s Head of Lower School-elect, Rachel Diaz, sits in a room near the school’s library and can’t stop smiling. She’s sharing how well her 3-year-old son, River, communicates. “He’s at that age,” Diaz says, “when everything to him makes him say either, ‘Wow!’ or, ‘That’s so cool!’ I love hearing his

Diederich Park in the village of Golf (pop. 514) does not feature a sign that reads PAIGE ENGELS DRIBBLED BASKETBALLS HERE, but it should. Engels, a Golf resident who prefers aiming shots at rims with nets to clubbing shots at greens with flagsticks, honed her three-point shot at Diederich Park and helped the girls’ basketball

During his years as a student at New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Aaron Weiner performed in ensembles, played the piano and the clarinet, sang in two choirs, and was a member of the orchestra band. He also listened often—to his close friends’ problems. “They felt comfortable coming to me and talking with me,”

Noam Kulbak’s diving career started with a backward fall into a pool. His father, Shlomo Kulbak, had encouraged Noam—a grade-school student at the time—to take the Nestea Plunge. Go ahead, son, don’t just get your feet wet. Drench your entire frame. “I was terrified,” Noam Kulbak recalls. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 10 at

Kyle Jones was disappointed. It was autumn 2019, and North Shore Country Day’s (NSCD) boys’ soccer coach had just guided his Raiders to a fourth-place finish in the Class A state tournament. He should have been thrilled, since a boys’ soccer team at the Winnetka school had never before reached a state semifinal. But he