When Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter Academy opened it’s doors in 2006, the all-Black, all boys school had one mission — for its students to graduate and succeed in college. Now, for the first graduating class at the high school, it’s mission has been accomplished. All 107 seniors were accepted at 72 colleges across the country, a significant… ➫ accomplishment considering they are from one of the toughest neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago.

“It doesn’t just happen that public urban schools graduate all of their students and get them into college,” said Tim King, the school’s founder.

These are not so-called gifted kids at a private school. The public high school is open to all, choosing students by a lottery. Just four years ago, when King started the school, only 4 percent of the class was reading at grade level.

Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) chief Ron Huberman surprised students at a school assembly in Englewood on March 5th, 2010 to congratulate them. Huberman applauded the seniors for making CPS shine.

“All of you in the senior class have shown that what matters is perseverance, what matters is focus, what matters is having a dream and following that dream,” Huberman said.

TEEN DIARIES salutes these young men and wish them much success as they journey towards becoming future leaders of America.

Tags: African American, Boys, College, High School, Males, Men, Students, Urban Prep Charter Academy

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 9:37 am and is filed under College + Careers, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.