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FREE Vol. 39 No. 21
May 28, 2025 ■ Also serving Garfield Park ■ austinweeklynews.com
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1,000 CPS students, several from West Side, graduate with at least a semester of college credits Brianna Hill was the first at Douglass to do so, and 13 students from Michele Clark get associate degrees with their high school diplomas
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Westside Men’s Network invites new members from West Side and beyond The networking group has existed for over a decade and is mentoring its next generation of leaders
By JESSICA MORDACQ
By JESSICA MORDACQ
Staff Reporter
Across Chicago, about 1,000 students from over 80 high schools are graduating this year with at least a semester’s worth of transferable college credits from one of the City Colleges of Chicago under their belts. Of those Chicago Public Schools students, 211 are graduating with an associate degree – 13 of whom are doing so for the first time at Austin’s Michele Clark Academic Preparatory Magnet High School. Brianna Hill is the first at Austin’s Frederick Douglass Academy High School to accrue over 15 college credits. She graduated early and will start in the fall at the University of Illinois-Chicago’s nursing program. “I’m looking forward to learning more
SSoull partners, p t page 6
Staff Reporter
“That was one of the most painful moments of my life,” Hill said at a ceremony at UIC Forum on May 20, which recognized the hundreds of students who
Every third Friday of the month, men from Chicago’s West Side and western suburbs meet at MacArthur’s Restaurant in Austin to network and break bread together. Though there’s a meeting agenda and minutes, it’s also a place for men to discuss whatever is on their hearts. The group is Westside Men’s Network and, more than a decade after its creation, it’s refocusing its efforts and reaching out to younger people. “The premise for bringing the group together was to utilize a network of West Side men to create opportunities, resources to come together, to discuss ways that we can bring positive change,” said Rev. Walter Jones, the group’s founding leader, and executive director of Fathers Who Care and the Westside Community Stakeholders.
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See WESTSIDE MEN on page 3
CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Brianna Hill, the first to graduate from Austin’s Frederick Douglass Academy High School with at least a semester’s worth of college credits, speaks to hundreds of attendees at an early college celebration ceremony at UIC Forum on May 20. about something that I really want to pursue,” Hill told Austin Weekly News. But that success, she said, didn’t come without struggle and perseverance. During Hill’s junior year in 2023, her brother died.
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