Greetings!

Please see the following full update on Urban Prep, provided by Dennis Lacewell, Chief Academic Officer.

COAL strongly recommends the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) approve charters for Urban Prep Bronzeville and Englewood Campuses, and we ask our readership to participate in the Wednesday, April 19th ISBE Board Meeting, should their schedules permit.

If you have not already done so, please sign the petition to keep Urban Prep open.

_____________________________________________

Good Evening Urban Prep Stakeholders,

As you know, Urban Prep opened its first school in 2006 as the first charter public high school for boys in the country. Urban Prep remains the only public boys-school in Illinois and the only charter school network founded and operated by Black men. In addition to consistently achieving 100% college acceptance for our graduates (14 consecutive years), Urban Prep has also been incredibly successful in outperforming local and national metrics related to college enrollment, persistence, and completion for Black males. In fact, Urban Prep earned a “Commendable” rating from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). No Charter school in Chicago received a higher rating. Even the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) leadership admits that there is no other school or program like Urban Prep within CPS to help Black boys and young men as well as Urban Prep. One CPS executive even stated that Urban Prep should not close. 

The district accepted the outlandish claim of sexual misconduct from a 29-year old alumnus against Urban Prep’s founder that allegedly occurred thirteen years ago. To date, there have been FOUR investigations into this matter (including two from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services—the state agency responsible for these types of investigations) and only CPS’s own flawed and biased internal investigation indicated there was wrongdoing. In other words, three independent investigative teams found that the allegations of sexual misconduct were unsubstantiated. In fact, the most recent independent investigation (completed this month) found that conclusions drawn in the CPS report were factually wrong and contrary to evidence. Additionally, the person who made the allegations has not only refused to provide a sworn/signed statement asserting the allegations, but he has also stopped cooperating with CPS and indicated that he fabricated the allegations. 

Another stunning disregard for facts is CPS’ claim that Urban Prep has poor operational and financial practices. Since its founding, Urban Prep has had clean audits and, for the past three years, had budget surpluses and cash reserves greater than required. In fact, since 2021, Urban Prep has met or exceeded standards on CPS’s own financial scoring system. How can CPS, in one breath, say that Urban Prep is serving its students better than any other school, and in another, say that its operations are inadequate? The only way any school achieves what Urban Prep has achieved is because of their operations, not despite them.