Education & Families News
The Aquinas Literacy Center at 1751 W. 35th St. is enjoying the summer after a successful year of educating adult English learners, the first in its new, expanded home at 35th and Wood streets. The center's recent Student Awards Celebration highlighted the achievement of eleven of its graduating students, as well as feted the volunteer tutors and Aquinas staff and supporters with an evening of food and celebration.
Students Maria Liduvina Patino and Guadalupe Rodriguez received special attention and awards of the Sister Claudia Hinds Scholarship. Both were noted as exceptional pupils with consistent attendance, engagement in supplemental classes and expanded learning through computer instruction. The scholarship program, created to honor the Adrian Dominican Sister who founded the center, will go toward continuing Patino's and Rodriguez' education in English.
Read more: Aquinas Caps Hugely Successful Year with Student Awards Celebration
Recent high school graduate and local resident Amy Wu is on her way into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s prestigious, top-ranked engineering program. Wu, an immigrant from China who moved to the area in 2015, is the first student from Back of the Yards College Prep High School to be directly accepted into the program, as well as the first such student from the Bottom Line organization, which she credits with providing key support for her college ambitions.
“I’m looking forward to college because I know I’ll be able to learn a lot," Wu said, even though her studies continue to keep her far away from her parents, who live 8,000 miles away in Zuhai, China. Wu, who resides with her aunt and uncle on the border of the Brighton Park and McKinley Park neighborhoods, credited the area for being very accommodating to new Chinese immigrants, both because of the existing Chinese and Chinese-American population here and for the opportunity to connect with those of other cultures.
Read more: Local Whiz Kid Sets Sights on Engineering Heights
The Montessori Foundations of Chicago, for years located in a storefront space at Archer Avenue and Leavitt Street, is preparing for big changes in facilities, curriculum and business as it preps for a move this fall to a new home a block away. The abandoned Titan Ornamental Ironworks building at 2239 W. 35th St. will house the new school, which will include an expanded early childhood program, the start of a full-blown elementary school program and a dramatically larger facility with more indoor and new outdoor space.
School founder and Principal Beata Skorusa said she uncovered the opportunity to buy the abandoned property after noticing and researching it, and was able to seal the deal due to an appreciation for the Montessori learning method. When she contacted the long-estranged owner, "he was excited about the idea because his own children went to Montessori schools," she said. "Montessori brought us together."
Read more: Montessori School Moving to New Location, Expanding Curriculum
Fifteen new English literacy tutors completed their training at the Aquinas Literacy Center over the weekend of April 28, getting them ready to assist English language learners through this popular program. The Friday night and Saturday sessions are part of a total of 13 hours of training each tutor undergoes, resulting in their certification to teach English as a Second Language learners.
The training program was the last of the 2017-2018 academic year, with the next session planned for September 2018. This year, Aquinas trained 90 new volunteer tutors.
Read more: Latest Batch of Literacy Tutors Trained and Ready at Aquinas
Students from the Horizon Science Academy have built and are installing solar power for the McKinley Park Play Garden and four other locations, part of the school's Green Power for Green Spaces program for high school juniors and seniors.
A joint program between the school and the El Paseo Community Garden in the Pilsen neighborhood, its goal is to both expose students to practical experience in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields and also connect students to community organizations, said Horizon Principal Cafer Cengiz.
"Their experience not only built on their knowledge of physics, but increased their awareness of community opportunities" and emboldens them to participate in the community, he said.
Read more: Horizon Students Build Solar Panels to Power Play Garden
