On a hot summer day inside the auditorium of Harold Washington Elementary School in the Burnside community, about two dozen teenagers added a fresh coat of paint to the walls, scraped varnish off old chairs, and sanded down small holes in the floor where auditorium seats were once bolted down.

But spending the summer working in a school wasn’t detention — it was a choice. The teens, all Chicago Public Schools students, were part of a summer jobs program where they got paid to renovate aging CPS auditoriums.

In addition to earning money, the teens said the job offered another benefit — it kept them safe. Many of the young people come from some of the city’s most violent areas, and they said being at work instead of hanging out with friends might save their lives.

Read Full Article