Home Page of Tom De Craene

Brief Teaching Bio / Portfolio / Dreamweaver lessons
I began my career as a substitute teacher in the public school district in Madison, WI, where I became an AV expert at running film projectors in classes ranging from auto mechanics to physics.

I found my first full-time job in Lake Forest, IL as a math teacher and swimming coach and where I was launched on a career in educational and administrative computing that I was never to escape! After six years at Lake Forest, I left teaching for a few years to work as a programmer for a couple of companies in the Boston area.

Cranbrook Schools is a PK-12 school located on a beautiful 315-acre campus, known as one of the masterpieces of American architecture. Sharing the grounds with the Schools are the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum (1932) and the Cranbrook Institute of Science (1930). Visit the Virtual Tour by clicking on Cranbrook Interactive on the Schools home page and then selecting virtual tour for a closer look at the campus.

Cranbrook Schools with just over 1600 students, has an early childhood center for 3-5 year-olds, a lower school division called Brookside, with 1st though 5th grades, two single-gender middle school divisions grades 6-8, and an upper school division, grades 9-12. Until 1985, the upper school was also a single-gender school consisting of the Kingswood School for girls and the Cranbrook School for boys. The combined schools became Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, although some 9th and 10th grades classes remain single gender. The 770 upper school students have 15 minute passing time between classes to allow time for busing between the two campuses.