Urban Prep Academy, a high school that sits among dilapidated buildings in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, is sending every student in its graduating class to college.
For a typical kid growing up in the projects of inner-city Chicago, dealing with gangs and drugs and violence, the idea of graduating high school, going to college and planning a career is unusual, says 18-year-old Deontae Moore.
He just found out he got accepted to Northwestern University, something he never dreamed could happen when he was a kid in a rough neighborhood on the city’s Southside.
“People I grew up with, they have babies already. They’re not in high school because they dropped out,” Moore says.
He says his mother refused to let him become one of the statistics. Moore is one of over 100 teens graduating from Urban Prep Academy, one of the windy city’s newest charter schools. The publically-funded charter school mainly caters to African American males.
One of the reasons the school is popular among parents is its focus on steering students toward higher education.
Senior Rayvaughn Hines, who got accepted to Morehouse College, says once he starts earning money, he wants to give back to the community.
“I will try to build a nice youth center to keep the kids off the streets,” he says.
Click here to see students at Urban Prep lined up for their morning message. (The gold ties were given to the students who did exceptionally well in their studies at the academy)