City Announces Comprehensive Trades Program At Dunbar Career Academy
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago Public Schools have announced that Dunbar Career Academy will establish the city's first comprehensive high school program for the construction trades, reports WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore.
Dunbar High School on South King Drive has struggled at times but principal Gerald Morrow says it is being revitalized by housing a citywide construction trades program and that he says will give students a more promising future.
"We're taking a lot of our youth who probably will not attend a college campus but we're still going to give them a viable option to be successful in life," Morrow said.
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In past years, it has been hard for black and Hispanic young people to get into the trade unions but Donald Finn, a business manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, says organized labor is fully aboard now.
"We in the building trades hope that enough children are interested in this program so we can expand this, not just keep it at Dunbar but move it throughout the city and we have all the trades in the future in this program," Finn said.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the vocational program won't shortchange the chances of students getting college degrees, just expand their horizons.
