Phone +1 773-342-8022 | ||
Address 2739 W Division St, Chicago, IL 60622, USA Similar Roberto Clemente Communi, West Town Academy, Aspira, North‑Gra High School, Wells Community Academy | ||
Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School is an alternative high school located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is named for Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos, and was founded in 1972 as La Escuelita Puertorriqueña, originally in the basement of a Chicago church. The school is NALSAS accredited, a founding member of the Alternative Schools Network, and a campus of the Youth Connection Charter School in Chicago. PACHS celebrated its 40th anniversary in January 2013.
School History
PACHS was founded by concerned community members in response to a March 1971 study that cited a 71.2% high school dropout rate for Puerto Rican youth. Originally named "La Escuelita Puertorriqueña," the school began in the basement of a Chicago church as a response to Euro-centric curricula and negative pedagogical conditions faced by Puerto Ricans in public schools. By 1974, the school moved two miles northeast of [Paseo Boricua], where it remained until moving to its current location on Division.
The Lolita Lebron Family Learning Center is a satellite program of the high school which integrates educational activities for young adults and children, provides daycare services, and offer classes in women's health and wellness at the high school. In March, 2011, PACHS inaugurated a rooftop greenhouse as an extension of its science lab in order to teach students about urban agriculture and help address the high rate of obesity and diabetes in Humboldt Park, which may result from its 2006 designation as an urban "Food Desert."