For Nicholas Senn High School student Deron James, life has not been as steady and smooth as his voice depicts.
Growing up, this 17-year-old young man missed out on having a mother present due to her drug addiction. She would promise to show for events throughout his childhood but was never there.
In a speech at Senn, James described when he was a little boy he would wait for his “mama” until the early hours of the morning. Out of innocence and naiveté he believed his mother would be there when he needed her. But the whereabouts of drug-addicts are often unpredictable, even for their children.
James is not the only teenager in the Rogers Park and North Edgewater neighborhoods to come second to drugs and/or alcohol. Unfortunately, many teens have similar stories within the two neighborhoods.
Despite the bombardment of hardships these young adults seem to endure on a daily basis, they appear numbed to their own circumstances. These teens do not crumble at the sign of hardship. Although they may not receive equal media coverage as their more privileged contemporaries, it seems that they face harsh realities with tougher skin.
Even so, many Edgewater and Rogers Park teens do not let their economic status and social factors hinder their optimistic goals for the future.
“My main focus is to be focused. I think I’m unique,” says Lucious Wright, a senior in high school.
The reality, however, is that Lucious is one of many teens who, despite obstacles such as a daily two-hour commute, starts each morning with enthusiasm.
Survival 101: Rising Above Gang Activity
Gangs are an example of other obstacles teens in the area face. Although Edgewater’s demographics are ever-changing, gangs still exist in the area. The Latin Kings, a Hispanic gang, hold a dominant presence in the area. Edgewater’s youth say that although they don’t fear the gang atmosphere, they understand that routine activities such as walking to and from school require an altered conscience.
Justin Thomas, a junior at St. Gregory the Great High School in North Edgewater, lives near Devon and Greenview. He emphasized that having friends who are in gangs does not make him a member himself.
“Nobody messes with me,” the 16-year-old says.
In fact, many teenagers feel it is necessary to have acquaintances in gangs in order to survive, even if it’s just to walk to the grocery store or a friend’s house.
Some believe that the gentrification in the area has begun to alleviate violent gang activity. The recent changes to Chicago’s Districts 24 and 20, however, also mean that local authorities have begun to place a strong focus on the crime that still pose problems for the neighborhood.
According to a “Juvenile Justice” article collected by the Chicago Police Department, there were between 500 and 999 juvenile arrests in 2005. Gloria Corcoran, of the Rogers Park (District 24) precinct’s Community Policing office, acknowledges that juvenile crime is a prominent issue. She runs the office’s peer jury program, which partly deals with first-time offenders of non-violent crimes.
“Juvenile crime is pervasive,” Steven Cohen, a 20-year Chicago Police Department veteran says. “It’s an uphill battle.”
The article, however, states that from 2000 to 2005 there has been a decrease in juvenile arrests in District 20.
Teens in the area agree that gangs don’t have the stronghold they once did.
“There are not as many gangs as there used to be. The school has changed a lot since I’ve been here,” says Megan Barker, a junior at St. Gregory who lives in the area. She continues, “It used to be really bad but it has changed around.”
Better media coverage could also help loosen the gang tension that adds to the already overwhelming lives of adolescents.
Thomas explained that he wishes the news would report on gangs. He says that in the news, gang activity is kept under the rug. When the media does cover this topic, they are quick to blame inner-city youth as a whole, rather than the gang-member individuals.
Deja Lee is the president of Sullivan High School’s student body. She is the voice of her classmates and expresses their frustrations about their image in the media.
“When something wrong happens, we feel bad because we feel like we lived up to what the media portrays us as,” the student says.
Every now and then, schools in the area have had outbursts of violence and misconduct. But these instances cloud the positive accomplishments of the students and schools as a whole.
“[The media] overlooks us and sees us as a school with gang violence. We almost won the academic decathlon last year,” Lee continued.
Edwin Solis agrees that the media loses focus on the success stories of high school students. Solis is a community representative at Sullivan Local School Council meetings.
“A lot of success comes out of the CPS system,” he said.
It’s Hard to be an American Teen
Many students on the North Side of Chicago come from households where English is not the primary language. At Senn 64.1 percent of the student body speaks one or more of 46 different languages at home. In some situations parents cannot help their
own students with homework because they cannot read English. In other cases, parents are unable to communicate with educators in order to resolve an issue concerning their child.
Colleen Brennan, a north Edgewater resident and parent of an intermediate student in the area says, “Yes, [parents] might have a language problem where they cannot sit down and help them. They don’t have the skills or the ability.”
Brennan is also a 6th-grade tutor. She says that many students at schools such as Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies are at a disadvantage because of the language barrier between parents and educators.
Students sometimes opt to assimilate, even changing the way they pronounce their name to better identify with peers. Pedro Bahena is one of those students. He says he believes that pronouncing his name without the Spanish accent makes him feel more American like his other friends. Teens like Pedro do not want to be stereotyped just because they come from a Hispanic background.
“I hate how just because I’m Hispanic, I’m supposed to make tacos or something.”
“You’ve got to turn to yourself”
External circumstances at school and on the street are not the only obstacles that perturb teens. According to Senn’s principal of almost two years, Richard Norman, when circumstances at home are worse than those on the street, students have an especially difficult time committing to their school work.
Whether they’ve lived in foster care, in single-parent homes, transitioned between countries or fallen in and out of poverty, many students have still managed to succeed in school and extracurricular activities.
“You can’t turn to nobody in here. I can’t even turn to my parents; you’ve got to turn to yourself,” Isaiah Sledge, a junior basketball player at Sullivan High School, says.
At Senn High School, for example, 10 percent of the students are either wards of the state or homeless. In just the past few years this population has increased by three percent according to Principal Norman.
Norman says that students who are wards of the state or who are homeless have to overcome an even greater obstacle than their fellow classmates. Without a home they have no place do their homework, no positive reinforcement from their parents/guardians and no supervision.
According to the Night Ministry’s 2005 study, “Wherever I Can Lay My Head,” nearly 80 percent of youth attribute a “bad relationship with family” or “disagreement with family” as a significant factor of their homelessness.
Additionally, homeless facilities are not equipped to handle the services demanded. Chicago only has one shelter that accepts pregnant and parenting homeless youth under the age of 18.
Sledge’s student body present, Lee, points out that the neighbors in the Sullivan area are not very welcoming of Sullivan students.
Sullivan Local School Council Community Representative Jill Kempson recalls her feelings when she first bought her house in the neighborhood.
“I was bothered by all the kids in my neighborhood after school,” she says. Yet, before complaining, she decided to become familiar with Sullivan. For her, the best way to do this was to get involved with the Local School Council, or LSC.
Kempson has served on the board for the past 12 years. She is among the seemingly few who have attempted to rid themselves of their preconceived notions about CPS students and actually interact with them.
Chicago Public Schools: An Unfair System?
“They [CPS policy-makers] look at students as numbers not people,” Norman says.
By removing the human aspect from their educational decisions, the CPS handicaps its schools from the higher-quality education that the system could potentially offer. According to Norman, the board will initiate and fund educational programs then “drop the ball” and force the school to continue the program with its own funding.
Such demands create major shortages in local schools’ budgets and obligate those like Norman to shave funding from other programs that help needy students. Even a relatively simple demand for a gym uniform becomes too heavy a price for schools to pay.
Norman has even given students his pocket money for bus fare so that they could make it home from school. Norman says that the most frustrating part about being a principal in the CPS system is not having enough money to carry out what he thinks is most beneficial to students.
Norman says sarcastically that the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001” is in reality the “All Children Left Behind Act.” According to him, by 2014 all children will be failing. Senn’s principal sees the legislature’s five percent increase in math scores as unrealistic, and simply impossible.
To boost his school’s scores Norman uses “pre” and “post” tests to gage student learning. In order to find out the reasons that a student is failing or doing better than expected, his school uses assessment tests. Both forms of testing, however, are aimed at helping students achieve.
“The hardest thing to do is to move a student down from a graduating class because you’re reinforcing that they’re failing,” Norman says.
Under his administration, it is preferential to start students at a lower level and then have them work their way upward.
Norman is not alone in his sympathetic way of thinking toward students.
Charlie Short, a service learning coordinator at Club 137, an after-school program at Sullivan High School, feels strongly about CPS students’ needs.
For Short, a job well-done means that “kids can make their own decisions.”
“Teens are really just big kids, and most of them want to be open and excited about life. I don’t want to change that.”
“[Their] dreams don’t need to be crushed,” Short says.
* Study conducted by the Night Ministry, a non-denominational, non-profit, social service organization that interviewed 400 homeless youth in Chicago for its study “Wherever I Can Lay My Head: Homeless Youth on Homelessness.”
