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JILG Featured School:
Kelly High School
Jobs for Illinois Graduates (JILG) is extremely proud to feature Kelly High School (Chicago) as its featured school of the month. Kelly is located on the southwest side of Chicago at the intersection of Archer and California. A school rich in tradition and diversity, Kelly one of Chicago’s largest high schools has an enrollment of 3,100 students drawn mostly from the surrounding neighborhoods of Brighten Park, Back of the Yards, and China Town.
During the 2007-2008 School Year the JILG program at Kelly served over 80 high school students in both the Senior and Multi-Year programs. Under the direction of Career Specialists Raul Ventura and Daniela Serrano the Kelly program prepares students for life after high school by focusing on the JILG Career Association Goals of Leadership Development, Career Preparation, Citizenship and Social Awareness. Over the past few years Kelly completed the highest number of service learning hours among JILG programs in Chicago including raising money for the March of Dimes, cleaning neighborhood schools in Chicago’s Clean and Green Day, as well as volunteering at Chicago’s Human Rights March.
During the 2008 school year Kelly again was extremely active in their community. In September students participated in cleaning and restoring the natural beach habitat along Chicago’s lakeshore at the 57th Street Beach in Chicago. Kelly also worked with the Chicago Kiwanis Club to raise funds to help underwrite volunteer activities and charitable donations of the club. Kelly students also volunteered at the Greater Chicago Food Depository working on the assembly line to package emergency boxes for needy families over the holiday season as well as working with students at Kinzie Elementary School of the Deaf.
Besides completely a number of service learning projects the Kelly JILG program has done a wonderful job providing students with career exploration opportunities. The specialists have been able to match the diverse interests of their students by bringing in a variety of guest speakers from a number of different educational institutions including Devry, ITT Technical Institute, as well as representatives from the University of Illinois. The specialists have also been able to show their students first hand the post secondary education opportunities by taking their students to the National Hispanic College Fair and DePaul University.
One of Kelly’s greatest accomplishments is helping their student’s transition into life after high school. For the class of 2007, the specialists were able to help 95% of their students graduate and were able to place 74% of students in full-time placements. It is also worthy to note that 75% of Kelly’s graduating students were enrolled in post-secondary education 12 months after finishing high school.
About the Specialist
Raul Ventura will begin his fifth year teaching, his fourth as a JILG Specialists at Kelly High School. After graduating from Kelly High School he earned his Bachelor degree in History from the University of Illinois-Chicago. In addition to teaching at Kelly, Raul also heads the newly formed video game club at the high school.
Best JILG Moment
“Seeing the JILG students I worked with as juniors mature, finish school and come back to share their successes with students that are currently enrolled at Kelly.”
Daniela Serrano will begin her fourth year as a JILG Specialist at Kelly High School. Daniela earned her Bachelor degree from DePaul University in Secondary Education with an endorsement in Spanish. In December Daniela completed her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction with an endorsement in ESL from Concordia University.
Favorite JILG Activity
“My favorite JILG activity is when I have my students do teambuilding activities. I enjoying seeing them communicate and work with other students whom they might not always associate with and through the process watch how their leadership skills develop.