Changing lives, one student at a time
Kim Day and Diana Shulla-Cose, two young Chicago Public Schools teachers, started Perspectives as a small "school within a school" at Dyett Elementary School in 1993, serving 45 students. The co-founders believed strongly in the advantages of a small school environment which offers students more personal attention, a sense of individual importance and belonging, and affords teachers a greater opportunity to provide guidance, resources, and one-on-one time to students. With a $1,000 grant and an idea called A Disciplined Life they founded Perspectives.

When the Illinois General Assembly legislated charter schools in 1996, Kim and Diana jumped at the opportunity to build a new kind of public school from the ground up.  Perspectives was chartered in 1997 as one of the first five charter schools in Illinois.

Kim and Diana opened Perspectives in a warehouse space at 1532 South Michigan, serving 150 students in their first year, continuing to develop the principles of A Disciplined Life. In 2002, they moved to Federal and Archer, in a small trailer building across the street from where a new school and the first permanent home for Perspectives was to be built. In 2005, a brand new, soon to be award-winning, school building opened on the corner of State and Archer.

Also in 2005, Mayor Richard Daley announced plans to open 100 new schools to transform and improve public education in Chicago, called Renaissance 2010. With encouragement from Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley, and support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Perspectives decided to begin building a network of schools.

The Calumet Campus opened August 2007, serving 270 students in seventh and ninth grades, with at least 75 percent of those students coming from the Auburn Gresham community. The Calumet Campus now consists of Calumet Middle School, Calumet High School and Calumet High School of Technology. Each of these schools will eventually serve 500 students, for a total of 1,500 students in grades seven through twelve by the 2009-2010 school year.

In May 2008, we renamed our South Loop Campus in honor of our later Board Chair, Rodney D. Joslin. We are proud that his name lives on through the accomplishments of a school that he was a vital partner in building.

In fall 2008, we opened the Perspectives/IIT Math & Science Academy. In partnership with IIT's Mathematics and Science Education Department, Perspectives currently serves over 500 students in sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth grades this year, eventually expanding to more than 700 students in grades six through twelve.

Going forward, we will work to ensure that our five schools are the very best schools they can be, while executing a growth plan that allows us to achieve self-sustainability on public funding alone.  When fully enrolled in 2012, we will serve more than 2,500 students, giving them the educational opportunity they deserve, and changing public education in Chicago, one student at a time.