The celebration started at the beginning of the entrance to South Shore Cultural Center, bass booming from the parking lot and already audible for people driving on South Shore Drive. The music was only broken up by the announcement of names and the loud cheers that followed them as people donned in shiny black robes walked across a stage.
While most graduations take place in arenas in May, the ringing applause heard throughout the center on Thursday marked the end of the high school educational journeys for over 50 students, many of whom have been involved with gun violence and used school to change their life direction.
Using a staggered entry approach to ensure safety for students who may have conflicts with other groups, graduates were driven into the parking lot and cheered on by their families and staff members of Chicago CRED — a nonprofit community violence intervention program — as they walked across the stage.
Chicago CRED, an acronym for Create Real Economic Destiny, provides education through Penn Foster, a virtual high school program, and offers community programming like outreach and therapy alongside education to try to reduce gun violence.
Students can complete the program at their own pace, although it’s designed to typically take around nine months. While it is an online school, students are able to go to different educational sites set up by the organization and work in person, which helps them foster connections with staff members.
Students strutted up to the outdoor stage on a red carpet rolled out specifically for the moment, to the soundtrack of a remixed version of the traditional graduation tune, “Pomp and Circumstance Marches.” They were met onstage by Chicago CRED staffers decked out with pompoms. The graduates received their diplomas, some even dancing onstage, before heading down the steps, grabbing a goodie bag, and returning to their cars.
Though each graduate’s trip around the stage was quick, it was established that everyone had their own moment and their name called for everyone to hear. Chicago CRED staff members also lined the parking lot while the graduates walked through, offering hugs and posing for pictures with students. Many staff members work as coaches who interact with the students, including as life and job coaches, and see firsthand how they evolve into graduates.
Sisters Shannon and Verlena Conner celebrated that achievement together. Both graduated this year from the program at ages 27 and 23, respectively, after learning about the opportunity through Verlena Conner’s boyfriend.
For the sisters, graduating from high school is bigger than getting a degree. Their little sister died three years ago, and this accomplishment was partially for her, they said.
“The people watching over me that couldn’t be here, I know they see that I did it,” Verlena Conner said. “That’s all that I keep thinking about, that I did it.”
Shannon Conner became a mother as a teenager and didn’t think graduating from high school was a possibility.
“I was pregnant at 14, so I would never think in my life that somebody like me can do this,” Shannon Conner said. “This is the best day of my life. I hope you know that.”
Since the program’s founding in 2016, 400 students have graduated from the Penn Foster virtual high school program through Chicago CRED. On Thursday, the program’s ninth annual ceremony, 58 students graduated.
Students from other community violence intervention organizations were also recognized during the ceremony, including groups like the MAAFA Redemption Project, a faith-based organization for young men of color in West Garfield Park. “Maafa” is a Swahili term often used to reference the transatlantic slave trade of the 16th through 19th centuries, according to the organization’s website.
Graduating students and offering them a path through life away from potential gun violence is essential to the core mission of Chicago CRED, said Arne Duncan, the organization’s founder.
Duncan started the nonprofit in 2016 as an effort to reduce gun violence in the city after serving as the Chicago Public Schools CEO from 2001 to 2008 and a U.S. secretary of education under President Barack Obama’s administration from 2009 to 2015.
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“I really thought that we failed to keep our kids safe on the South and West sides,” Duncan said. “Somehow, it didn’t feel like we could make a dent in this. I just thought that we had to try.”
Once the students are close to graduating from the education program, they work with life and career coaches to help manage the transition to the workforce, according to Chicago CRED job coach Aaron Knight. He got involved with the nonprofit a year and a half ago because he wanted to work with people at risk after growing up in a similar background to many affected students, he said.
“I was from the streets, but I wasn’t a participant,” Knight said. “I understand what they’re going through.”
Despite not knowing all the graduates personally, Knight said he was excited to be celebrating and see the hard work come to fruition for the students.
“By the time they trickle down to us, we’re the ones responsible for helping them get jobs, helping them get training for plumbing, electrical, things like that, but we help them go forward, to go here and be prepared to be adults and get their own place and do their own thing,” Knight said.
The program helps prepare students for jobs in the trades and the workforce through training and internship opportunities, he said. A lot of the graduates’ background checks could make employers hesitate to hire them, Knight said, so the trades offer an opportunity to find employment for themselves in industries like plumbing or electricity after completing their education.
CRED’s graduation comes as the city has seen a decline in crime rates, including in gun violence. Knight hopes more people recognize the fact that the crime numbers are falling and make a change to help show people affected by gun violence a different lifestyle.
“Most of the time, like with these young folks, everybody just wants their story to be heard, and somebody to love them and show them how to go. Show me the way, don’t just tell me,” Knight said. “A lot of people want to tell you, but they don’t want to help you.”