Over the last few years, Horizon Science Academy McKinley Park has built itself into one of the best K-12 schools in Chicago. More and more families are looking to be a part of its community due to the trust it has built helping guide students at all stages of their academic journey.
With more demand than ever before, the school is looking to expand its footprint in the area.
Around 100 students, teachers and community members came out to support the school’s efforts to add a satellite campus for its high school students at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year. With the help of Concept Schools, the school led a productive town hall meeting at Lourdes Hall of De La Salle institute to make its case for why it’s ready to grow.
“I feel like it would be a great opportunity for the high school to move over here because it would give us more space to do more things,” said a former HSA McKinley Park student. “As an alumni at the school, I feel like having more variety of options, like a robotics lab, would be a great opportunity for any future high school students. I think we should move here.”
Throughout the night, members of the community heard from prominent members at the school about how moving its high school students over to the new campus in Bridgeport would be a beneficial move for everyone involved. Having outgrown its current home, HSA McKinley Park would be able to dedicate more space to its high schoolers for athletics, STEM programs (including more science labs), its career pathways program and theater program. Enrollment would be able to jump from 900 students to over 1,200––giving the community access to another excellent high school.
11th Ward Alderperson Nicole Lee made an appearance and stated she is “excited” to support the application for HSA McKinley Park to have its own high school campus. Lee reflected on her children’s own experience having gone to a quality high school, a privilege, she acknowledged, that not all students across the city have.
“My commitment to the community remains the same: we are looking for more high school options for the residents of the 11th ward and this is an incredible one,” said Lee. “Chicago Magazine released its rankings of the top high schools in the city. Guess what? This is one of them. We could have that right here in Bridgeport.”
The school has made its pitch to the community and beyond, detailing how it has planned for transporting students to the campus, how a new campus would create new jobs for teachers and how it would fund the construction of the new campus without costing taxpayers any additional money. It was clear by the end of the night HSA McKinley Park being granted a satellite campus would be a clear win for the high school, students and its ever-growing community.
“This is a no-brainer,” said one HSA parent after the town hall meeting. “HSA is ready for this and I hope it goes through.”