Manley Career Academy High School
.....................................................................Umoja works to provide students with holistic programs that foster their positive social, academic and leadership development, actively engaging students in their current education path while helping them develop a vision for continued education and career success beyond high school. Umoja’s comprehensive array of program services include:
- COLLEGE & CAREER DEVELOPEMENT
Umoja’s premise for college and career development programming is a simple one: successful people continue to increase their knowledge and skill set, not just beyond high school but throughout their adult lives. Umoja’s young people know that college and career are two sides of the same coin. In order to succeed in the career world, they must pursue college and/or technical training. Only by making the world bigger can students begin to conceive of themselves as able to move beyond their current frame of reference. More than 60% of the recent classes of Manley graduates are attending colleges and universities across the country with the class of 2009 securing more than $1 million in scholarship awards.
Through its College and Career Programs, Umoja helps students understand that higher education is an important and attainable part of a successful future. To accomplish this task, Umoja provides ongoing workshops on the college selection, application, admission and financial aid processes in addition to group and individual counseling for all seniors. Seminars are provided to help parents understand the important role college will play in their children’s future and provide information that will help them navigate the higher education system. Umoja also offers a variety of college tours for students beginning in their freshman year of high school and involving close to 100 young people each year. Students visit schools as close by as downtown Chicago and as far away as Alabama and Florida. Opportunities for parents to attend college trips all over the Chicago area are also emphasized. Umoja frequently involves our graduates in panels and seminars where they speak to current students about their experiences at college and in the work world. For our recent high school graduates, Umoja offers a Summer College Class to help students successfully transition to college by developing the requisite skills needed for completing entry-level college work. Students learn to take effective class notes, develop good test-taking skills, engage in analytical college-level discussions, identify and express their own purpose for continuing their education beyond high school, and learn to recognize the types of characteristics that distinguish a successful college student from one who struggles, while cultivating these positive characteristics within themselves.
Umoja offers a variety of opportunities for young people to explore the world of careers, including guest speakers, job shadowing opportunities, and internships. Umoja’s T3 (Training to Transition) event is a perfect example of how Umoja brings together college and career exposure so that students can develop realistic and holistic goals for their future. T3 involves a half-day of activities where students hear from business partners about their own educational and career journey through round table discussions and then meet one on one with business people for informational interviews and feedback on their resumes. Umoja works closely with more than 100 business and community partners each year to offer meaningful exposure to and preparation for the world of careers. One of Umoja’s most exciting career development initiatives has involved the full gut rehab of two homes in the North Lawndale community. More than 100 students completed community input surveys, designed plans with architects, and completed the mechanical and carpentry work. In addition to helping students to develop a full range of skills from the built environment, Umoja used this opportunity to promote local affordable housing. Both homes were sold to Manley families at below market rates.
With the establishment of the Umoja Alumni Association in 2006, Umoja has continued to support alumni after high school graduation. Programs facilitated through the Alumni Association focus on linking current college students with the resources needed to support their retention in higher education and/or to support them in developing job readiness skills and securing employment.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT & SERVICE LEARNING
Umoja’s leadership development & service learning programming works through the core belief that leadership development must begin with self-development. Students must understand and assume responsibility for their own actions, goals, and struggles as they move toward community building efforts and serving as leaders in their school, home, and neighborhoods. Umoja’s model for leadership programming includes: self-development, the development of a peer community where students learn to understand power and share it, and finally, the development of an understanding of community issues and the means to address them.
Community Builders (CB) is the cornerstone of Umoja’s programming, combining leadership development, college and career planning, academic preparation and civic involvement. This intensive six-week summer internship program provides students with a meaningful employment experience and helps them understand the strong correlation between career and academic success. 2009 marked the ninth consecutive year that Umoja facilitated its CB program for students in the North Lawndale community; the project focused on Food Deserts and the availability of nutritious, fresh foods in the North Lawndale community. CB interns spent six weeks, completing research and conducting interviews to gain an understanding of food justice issues and collaborated with Free Spirit Media on the production of a short documentary that summarized their findings. To learn more about CB's Food Desert project, please visit the CB blog.
• HOLISTIC STUDENT DEVELOPMENT
Student development is a process rather than a program. It is a personalized and comprehensive way to prepare young people to meet the challenges of adolescence and positively move toward adulthood. This means supporting students socially, morally, emotionally, physically and cognitively, and it means creating meaningful links between academics and social and personal growth, community and school leadership, and post- secondary preparation. Over the last several years, Umoja has worked through the advisory program at Manley to create activities and curriculum that build this kind of experience for young people. Now, working in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools student development initiative for all high schools, Umoja has worked to build a structural, ideological, and curricular framework to support Manley and other schools in the process of student development. While there are variations within each program, Manley provides a great example of what student development looks like:One time per month the Manley community takes a full half-day to focus as a school community on the social, leadership, college and career themes that comprise student development. Rather than attending regular classes, Manley students take part in a series of discussions, seminars, and activities. Umoja coordinates these student development efforts through intensive planning with teachers, school administration and students. Over the summer, Umoja staff works with a core group of teachers to develop themes that support academic development while addressing the central issues that young people need to be both challenged and supported in their development as students, adolescents, and citizens. With the input of the teacher planning committee, Umoja creates supplementary activities and curriculum for each month’s student development day. Through regular monthly professional development sessions with teachers throughout the year and careful review of student and teacher evaluations, Umoja supports the school community in creating a successful student development framework that extends far beyond half days and positively impacts the school culture.
