Humboldt Park high school educates and liberates

Vanessa Claudio, 18, started high school at Roberto Clemente, an overcrowded Chicago public school on the Northwest side. "I always felt like I wasn't supposed to be there," she says. "Everyone kept telling me I'd adjust, but I didn't."

Soon, she was cutting almost all of her classes. Nearly dropping out of school, Claudio was caught just in time.

She applied at a small alternative school just four blocks away, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School (PACH). Now a senior, she's studying for college entrance exams and deciding where to apply.

Like Claudio, PACH's 90 students and 16-member staff have rejected traditional public education. Instead, they have chosen to join a learning community with one philosophy: all people have the right to self-determination; one methodology: self-actualization through critical thinking; and one guiding ethic: live and help to live.

PACH is near the intersection of California and Division Streets in the heart of Humboldt Park's Puerto Rican community. Its namesake, Harvard-educated Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965), was a revolutionary fighter for Puerto Rican independence, and hardly a friend to the American government.

Since it opened in 1972, the school has honored his controversial legacy with its philosophy of self-determination and community activism.

"Our number one goal," says teacher and Assistant Director Matthew Rodriguez, "is liberation. Education is freedom. Freedom is experienced if I can understand the world around me, develop an action plan to do what I need to do, and then transform my environment, make change happen."

The staff dives into the task by encouraging students to serve as a positive force in the city.

"We make education relevant to students" lives," Rodriguez says. "And we see the community as an academic space." He details a seemingly endless list of activities: a community AIDS walk, wrapping gifts for Three Kings Day, making props for Division Street's Halloween festival and on and on.

Michelle Morales is a program manager at Chicago's Alternative Schools Network (ASN), a 35-year-old organization that raises money for its 24 member schools. "What's unique to PACH is how they get students involved in the community. I really haven't seen that at other schools," she says.

ASN schools are not affiliated with Chicago Public Schools (CPS), but are funded through private, state and federal grants " the majority from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Illinois Board of Education. PACH is unique within ASN because it also partners with CPS-affiliated Youth Connection Charter Schools (YCCS) to fund a wider age-range of students.

In Rodriguez's Puerto Rican history class, students spent Thursday talking about their recent papers on the subject " broadly interpreted " of Christopher Columbus.

Justina Ortiz wrote about the modern-day existence of slavery as a consequence of imprisonment, referring to the 13th Amendment with impressive accuracy. "Prisons should focus on education, not on making people work prison jobs," she says.

Julio Bonilla wrote about the batey, a community space where Taino Indians, natives of Puerto Rico, resolved conflict through a game. Today, he explains, Batey Urbano at 2647 W. Division St. serves a similar purpose by providing a space for young people to gather and express themselves.

Jose Rivera, a brawny 18-year-old with blue earrings and a giant smile, wrote his paper on exotification. "Exotification is like when you go to a Mexican restaurant and people are dressed like mariachis and everyone wants a picture with them," he explained. "It's making things Disneyesque."

Rivera, like Vanessa Claudio, found traditional public schools a poor fit. After starting at Clemente, he moved to the South Side and enrolled at a new school. At 17, after an illness and some time in the hospital, he found himself with zero high school credits. He moved back to Humboldt Park, enrolled at PACH and is now on track to graduate and pursue video production in college.

If he follows through, he'll join the 77 percent of last year's PACH graduates who are enrolled in college. By comparison, an April study done by the University of Chicago found that only about one-third of CPS graduates enroll at a four-year college within one year of graduation.

After the students talk about their papers, Rodriguez explains how they came up with their topics: a six-week process of discussions, readings, movies and finally asking questions. The researched answers turned into papers, for some the first they'd ever had to write.

"The reality is, public education is not always challenging to these students," says Rodriguez. "We ask ourselves, "How can we engage students who have not been engaged yet?"" He answers his question by explaining the school's methodology: "Ask why, ask how, ask from whose perspective?"

From the students" perspective, it seems to be working. Sitting in a common area across from a colorful mural of Dr. Albizu Campos, Claudio explains one reason why: "Here, there's give and take. I learn from the teachers, but they learn from me, too."