We are so excited to finally be in school to celebrate with all of our students and staff our annual Black History Month Celebrations. We love this opportunity to salute, honor and highlight our staff who make a such huge contributions to the success of our school: Tatierra Bivens, AP of High School Benita Johnson, KG-3rd Reading Coach Samantha Martin, 5th grade teacher Jabari Hall, SEL Teacher Kayla Metcalf, Middle School Science Teacher Khayla Banks, 2nd grade teacher Nada Johnson, 2nd grade teacher aide Lori Hill, school nurse Hillary Brewer, school nurse Thank you so much for all that you do for our students! We appreicate you all so much!

Supporting Black Owned Businesses

This month HSA McKinley Park showed their support and catered from Priscilla's Ultimate Soul Food for our staff Professional Development day. We are no strangers to this delicious soul food as we have catered from them in the past. It is always something our staff looks forward too! Priscilla's is located in Hillside, IL and has been featured on numerous shows to include the Chicago's Best Show to feature all of the best restaurants in the city, so if you have not yet had some soul food from Priscilla's do so soon! Our staff requested that we order from them more and we are planning on doing so!

Chapter Chat This month, our parent book club, Chapter Chat chose to read "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi. It was important for our book club to honor and support a Black author this month. Our readers were excited to read this book as it has rave reviews! A special shout out to our staff and parents who continue to keep our book club afloat! It is a small but IMPORTANT group to us as it continues to build up our school community family!

Middle School BHM History Lesson

Mr. Cassat and Ms. Moss collaborated to facilitate a lesson on the Jim Crow Laws for Black History Month for our middle school students. They put together a gallery walk for our students to view and have a group discussion on what was showcased. It was such an important lesson for our students to learn and talk about. We appreciate the creativity of our teachers hosting such an important part of our History and the gallery walk really made an impact on our students.

School Wide Contest In honor of Black History Month, we hosted our annual school wide drawing and spoken word contest! Students had the chance to draw a prominent black figure that inspires them or express their thoughts, opinions, and emotions through a poem or spoken word! Once our students submitted their work, they were entered into a raffle for a chance to win a amazing prize! Winners will be announced soon! *We are still collecting submissions and will send out a video showcasing them all at the end of this week***

BHM Door Decorating Contest

A special shout out to our Middle School Equity Club for hosting our Black History Month Door Decorating contest. This initiative was all part of the School's Staff Equity team as this year we are putting our students into action for Equity Awareness. Our Middle School Equity Club created and promoted this school wide contest and is excited to award the winning doors with great prizes supported by our school principal, Mr. Vedziovski. Thank you to all of the students and staff that particiapted this year! Our doors looked GREAT!

Special Guest Speakers

We wanted to express our greatest appreciation to our guest speakers and performers who made our monthly celebration such a huge success! We hosted guest speakers on a small scale to classroom visits as we are still taking proper covid safety precautions. We also hosted our annual Jesse White Tumblers Assembly for all students. Mr. Victor Croswell, Aiviation Professor Dr. Brian Hill, Professor & Motivational Speaker Sherman "Dilla" Thomas, Tik Tok Chicago Historian Mr. Terrance Pratt, CEO of Culture Loupe Marketing Agency Ms. Tyler Clark, Artist Ms. Sarah Taylor, CEO and founder of Yo Soy Ella Organiztion Jesse White Tumblers

BHM Dress Down Day

HSA Mckinley Park closed out the celebration this month by hosting a school wide dress down day for all of our students on Friday, February 25th. Our celebration has grown throughout the years and we are looking forward to making this month's celebration bigger and better! We are in hopes of better times and can't wait to host our annual BHM Family Dinner to include our whole HSA Family Community! We are thankful for the support we recieved from our Admin Team to make all of these events happen for our students! Until our next celebration... GO HSA HAWKS!