Chicago City Wire

School administrator Troy Boyd stands proud of the work he and others have performed on the Urban Prep West campus.

“We were specifically founded to provide opportunities and support in reaching a demographic that was struggling so mightily,” Boyd, the senior director of institutional advancement, told Chicago City Wire. 

Boyd says reaching this demographic was one of the top reasons founder Tim King was motivated to open the school 13 years ago. “We feel blessed to be doing that, no matter what the politics of the situation might say,” Boyd added

Despite the school’s Englewood, Bronzeville and West campuses having a history of excellence that includes having sent all graduating seniors to college for at least eight straight years beginning in 2009, Urban Prep West faces the real danger of being shuttered for good.  

West was one of two charter schools Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson recently recommended for closing based on both poor academic and financial performance.

Clouding the school’s future all the more is new Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s public support for a freeze on all charter schools across the city. More recently, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, one of the leading candidates for mayor of Chicago, indicated she shares Pritzker’s viewpoint.

Through it all, Boyd vows top administrators at Urban Prep will continue doing what they’ve always done.

“When we opened our doors in 2006, one in 40 boys from this demographic were going on to earn a college degree,” he said. “When he came along, those abysmal numbers are what Tim King was trying to address. Our mission is to get as many African-American boys as we can to have college degrees. There is no other school of its kind on the West Side with an all-male environment that does what we do.”

As for West’s suspect rating, Boyd said that’s largely a case of faulty evaluations.

“Our stance is the school rating system is inherently unfair to Urban Prep and all three of our campuses,” he said. “One of the huge things the system doesn’t account for is that we serve all African-American boys. If you compare us to other prep schools without breaking down the numbers to specifically look at that sector it’s unfair to who we are. I would stack up well against the population of who we are of any other school.”

A vote on West’s future is scheduled next month before the Illinois Charter Commission. Meanwhile, the school has launched a #KeepUpWest Facebook page to keep supporters in the loop.

"We are appealing the CPS decision to close the Urban Prep West Campus to the Illinois Charter School Commission,” school officials wrote in one recent post. “In addition to submitting hundreds of pages of evidence to the commission explaining why closing West would be a travesty for our students, the African-American community and the city of Chicago, we have also launched a campaign called #KeepUP to mobilize community support to keep Urban Prep West open (www.keepupwest.org).”