Hope Chicago Celebrates Parent Scholars

Hope Chicago is a two-generation program that provides college access to students at five Chicago high schools and their parents. Recently, Hope Chicago celebrated its Parent Scholars during an event. PHOTO PROVIDED BY HOPE CHICAGO.
Hope Chicago is a two-generation program that provides college access to students at five Chicago high schools and their parents. Recently, Hope Chicago celebrated its Parent Scholars during an event. PHOTO PROVIDED BY HOPE CHICAGO.

Hope Chicago Celebrates Parent Scholars

By Tia Carol Jones

In 2022, Hope Chicago launched its two-generation program that provides opportunities for students, along with their parents. The hope is the program will help rebuild Chicago, family by family, block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood.

Hope Chicago has partnered with five high schools in five neighborhoods in the city: Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen; Morgan Park High School in Morgan Park; Noble Johnson in Englewood; Farragut High School in Little Village; and Al Raby in East Garfield Park. The program enables 4,000 families in these five schools to have the opportunity to go to college debt-free.

Recently, Hope Chicago hosted a celebration for its first cohort of Parent Scholars who have taken advantage of the opportunity to attend two-year and four-year colleges, as well as workforce programs. Holiday Hope Day was a day to celebrate the parents for making the decision to pursue their post-secondary education and being in the process of taking the first step.

Michele Howard, Chief Program Officer at Hope Chicago, said as of this month, Hope Chicago has the most significant amount of student scholars and parent scholars in the program, pursuing post- secondary education together.

 There are currently about 54 parent scholars in post-secondary pathways and 38 parent scholars in pathway prep, which means they are being prepared to take advantage of one of the pathways.

What makes the Hope Chicago Parent Scholar program successful is the community-based partners, Instituto del Progresso Latino and the Chicago Urban League. Those partners are focused on doing the work of the communities, they have really supported the families and anchored that work for the Black and Latinx families.

The community that Hope Chicago is building is fostering and supporting the students and the pathways for the parents to be able to take advantage of higher education. Another key partner is the City Colleges of Chicago.

“I think it’s incredibly important and I think it’s really critical because, just in our first group of parents, we have about 95% of our Hope Parent Scholars who are in a two- or four-year pathway. That really speaks to how important that it is to not only give people options, but to really support them through that process,” Howard said.

She added, while there is a lot of support in place for high school students who are matriculating to two or four year educational institutions, there aren’t many supports in place if those students make a mistake or has to make a decision because they have to shift their dreams and goals.

“What we’re trying to do at Hope Chicago is say, listen, no 18-year-old can really do this by themselves. No parent can do this by themselves. We really are trying to establish a village effect that we know is important to establish infrastructure for adult education at scale,” Howard said.

The goal for Hope Chicago is to hold the hand of the student and the parent and give them the opportunity to be a more informed family around post-secondary and workforce options. Howard believes that changing the trajectory of the City of Chicago and the families in the city can be done as a collective unit, and Hope Chicago is in place to support the collective unit.

Much of the work Hope Chicago is doing is talking the families through what the steps are for them to take advantage of the college and workforce pathways they have access to because of the program. It is one thing for the parents and students to have access to college and the opportunities, how to navigate in the spaces is another. Hope Chicago is working with the partners to help the families navigate what they need, to understand to take advantage of those opportunities.

Howard said there are more than 1,000 parents registered to receive more information about Hope Chicago’s parent scholar program. She added that seeing parent scholars who started the process makes it real for other parents who are interested in the program. They believe it is real and can take advantage of the opportunity.

For more information about Hope Chicago, visit www.hopechicago.org.

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