While Alma Jiminez’s friends spent the summer tanning themselves on the beach and shopping for the newest fashions, the West Side 8th grader sat in a classroom studying vocabulary lists and analyzing classic books.
But those summer studies paid off Tuesday when Jiminez walked across a stage in a white cap and gown to receive a diploma, granting her entrance to high school.
“I gave up my whole summer and worked so hard for this,” Jiminez said, clutching a bouquet of roses in one hand, and her mother’s hand in the other. “I am so relieved and so happy.”
Jiminez was one of 3,596 Chicago Public School 8th graders who graduated after passing seven weeks of intensive summer school. The students received their diplomas Tuesday during eight commencement ceremonies across the city.
“I knew she could make it. I believed in her,” Alma Jiminez said of her namesake daughter. “I was very disappointed in her for not passing before, and now I am so proud of her.”
All told, more than 47,000 failing 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th graders were forced to attend summer school this year after the city eliminated social promotions, the practice of automatically promoting students–even if they are failing–to maintain their self-esteem.
Of those, 56 percent of 3rd graders; 43 percent of 6th graders; and 38 percent of 8th graders flunked summer school.
Still, school officials and Mayor Richard Daley said they were pleased with the results.
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“The improved math and reading scores show that summer school works,” Daley said during a commencement ceremony held at Lane Technical High School. “Without summer school, thousands of students who were not ready for the next grade level would have been promoted.”
Now, more than 80 percent of 3rd graders; 85 percent of 6th graders and 92 percent of 8th graders across the city have met the standards of promotion, Daley said.
Despite repeated admonishments to keep quiet, the crowd at Lane Tech–where some 400 students received diplomas–cheered wildly, some yelling “way to go,” “you made it,” and even an occasional “thank you” as students paraded across the stage.
Security guards and public school officials tried to keep the crowd seated. But dozens of emotional parents packed into the aisles of the auditorium to snap photographs and take videos of their sons and daughters. Some steadied their view finders against teary eyes.
“He’s made us so proud,” said an elated Dora Roa, as her 14-year-old son, Cristian received his diploma. “Everyone in the family is so happy. It’s our dream for him to go to high school and then maybe college.”
For 14-year-old Bill Ash, the seven weeks spent in summer school taught him not only to dream about the future, but to study the past.
“I should have done my homework. I should have listened to my teacher,” said Ash, a new 8th-grade graduate of Peter Reinberg Elementary School. “Next time I’ll work a lot harder.”
Mayor Daley praised the graduates’ hard work–however belated–and said attending summer school gave them a greater chance to succeed.
“The biggest punishment anyone could have given you this year would have been to let you go to high school unprepared,” he said. “We did this for one reason: we wanted to prepare you for life.”
Alma Jiminez was not looking so far into the future.
“Now she has to get ready for the big job–high school,” Jiminez said of her daughter’s planned entrance into St. Benedict’s High School. “She knows she’s going to have to work harder if she’s going to make it. Life only gets harder after 8th grade.”