During the Board of Education Meeting on March 24th, CEO Pedro Martinez honored students who have taken college courses while still in high school
During the Chicago Board of Education Meeting held on March 24, 2023, CEO Pedro Martinez put the spotlight on Chicago public high school students. As part of the honoring excellence segment at the beginning of the meeting, Martinez mentioned having attended a celebration the day before in honor of CPS high school students who, in addition to their high school curriculum, completed college classes at City Colleges of Chicago and Chicago Universities.
The CEO discussed the hardships of students completing their freshman and sophomore years being educated remotely because of the pandemic, and how that didn't dampen their desire to pursue their goals or stop them from striving to achieve. He added that thanks to the partnerships CPS have with the City Colleges of Chicago and Universities in the area more than 5,000 students this past year earned college credits while still completing high school. This didn't include students in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes, just those in dual credit-dual enrollment courses. This represented an increase of 20 percent from the previous year.
Over 600 students earned 15 college credits or more and over 50 completed an associates degree while in high school. The class of 2023 completed more than 39,000 college credit hours. Martinez pointed out this would result in significant college savings for these families.
According to Martinez, "Our vision in our district is that our students not only are college and career ready. They're actually in college, they're in careers through internships, through job shadowing, and through actually taking college courses. What I also love about this initiative is that it represents our students. There are no gaps when you look at race, there are no gaps when we see income. It represents our students. This is why we want to celebrate that."
Martinez finished his remarks by thanking the City of Chicago Colleges and Universities for providing the opportunity for students to get an impressive head start on their "journey towards success" after high school.
You can watch the entire Board of Education Meeting here:
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