Westfield Elementary dedicates Park Programming Center
On Thursday, August 31, Westfield Elementary School dedicated the new Park Programming Center, a space in the school’s library that will be used to teach students coding and programming skills.
The Programming Center is named in honor of Catherine Park, the mother of three CCSD 89 students. Catherine Park, 46, died unexpectedly during a family vacation in Costa Rica in 2016. Her family made a $22,000 donation to provide opportunities for all students to learn more about the field she worked in.
Catherine Park attended Glen Crest Middle School, Glenbard South High School (where she was a National Merit finalist), and Bradley University. At the time of her death, she was working as a Senior Clearing Technology Developer for Getco.
The school has purchased robots and other computer programming tools that will be accessible to students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Catherine’s mother, Anna Byrne, spoke at the dedication ceremony. She said the family is thrilled to know that Catherine’s “creativity, tenacity, attention to detail, and unconventional ideas” will live on in the Center.
Byrne hopes the Center will be a place were rules “are not so much followed as developed, where imagination flies in minds without wings, where failure merely means try again.”
“The real tribute to Catherine’s memory is not a symbol bearing a name that fewer and fewer people will recognize,” Byrne said. “It is a means of self-expression, an outlook for wild inventions simmering in the wildly inventive minds of the students - and a place to have fun. As time passes, and names are forgotten, Catherine’s family will continue to find joy because the Center is here. As students and faculty continue to grow in knowledge and capability, we will find peace.”
Kenneth Park met his future wife on a mission trip to China in 2000. He grew up in South Korea, in a home with no electricity or refrigerator. But, he had a junior high teacher that changed his life. Kenneth believes Westfield will use the technology to challenge students and give them the opportunities that a teacher once gave him.
“The passion that she (Catherine) had, I would like that be to transmitted to young people,” Kenneth Park said. “I hope this program will become contagious in a positive way to other schools.”
To see a video of the dedication ceremony, go here.
To see photos of the dedication ceremony, go to the District's Facebook page.