Chicago Tribune: Journey to integration

[Tweed]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0502020286feb02,1,5333409.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed

"It was 6:45 a.m. and still dark when 10-year-old Terrance Leonard and his mother set off from their South Side neighborhood to the far western border of Chicago in search of an integrated school and a better education.

First, they had to pick up Terrance's grandfather, who also lives in Kenwood. Then they stopped at the Metra station at 47th Street and Lake Park Avenue so Terrance's mother could catch a train to the Loop, where she works as an executive assistant.

Terrance's 54-year-old grandfather drove the remaining eight miles to Byrne School, 5329 S. Oak Park Ave., where Terrance is the only black boy in a 5th-grade classroom filled with white and Latino faces.

Across Chicago, parents determined to escape poor-performing neighborhood schools are making similar Herculean efforts this week to take advantage of a little-known transfer program that allows minority children to move into 34 of the city's substantially white public schools."