But a national program, the Health Careers Opportunity Program, aims to change this by sparking the interest of students in Morgan Park and other low-income communities in becoming health care professionals themselves. HCOP gives them an opportunity to earn a degree in public health and go back to their community to help.

“We take students from impoverished areas who are interested in a career in health care, and when they are finished with the program and college, he or she can go to an area where health care is lacking and offer it,” said Dorothy Washington-Calvin, a UIC School of Public Health staffer who administers HCOP.

HCOP is run through the University of Illinois at Chicago and Chicago State University, serving 6th through 12th grade students from Morgan Park and other elementary and high schools on the South and West Sides of the city. The program covers 95 percent of the state areas designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas, meaning they lack residents with Masters and Doctoral degrees in public health.

The program revolves around “Public Health Sciences Saturday Colleges.” Every Saturday for 30 weeks, students spend six hours a day learning subjects that will help their academics and expose them to public health research. The classes aim to increase students’ interest in science, math and public health. Students are encouraged to take Honors and Advanced Placement science courses.

Along with the Saturday classes, students take field trips to labs, science museums and health care institutions, where they can observe health care professionals at work. The program also offers free ACT prep classes.

Program leaders hope training youth in health care fields can improve health care access in the community as a whole.

According to the Encyclopedia of Public Health, people in low-income neighborhoods are especially prone to health problems and disproportionately lack health care. They are more likely to become ill and die at younger ages than those with higher incomes.

During the last school year, 71.4 percent of Morgan Park High School’s 1,744 students qualified as low-income, according to the Chicago Public Schools. Additionally, 83.2 percent of students at Alice L. Barnard Computer, Math & Science Center, an elementary school in Morgan Park, were low-income.

HCOP began in 1981, but in 2006 the program was put on hold due to a lack of funding. When HCOP was re-launched in 2007, Morgan Park High School did not get involved. But at the start of this school year, Washington-Calvin came to the school as principal for a day. She talked with faculty about the program, and they decided to get back into it.

Remy Washington, math and science coordinator at Morgan Park and co-sponsor of HCOP at the school, says there are about 15 Morgan Park students in the program, mostly girls.

Morgan Park junior Jirmiah Leverette said there are various reasons he is participating. Among other things he wants to raise awareness of how healthy habits pay off in better quality of life. Because of the program, he said he reads up on health care issues, and he wants to help provide affordable health care to under-served communities.

“I want to assist in designing an electronic medical database that makes things easier for people with legal cases with health care,” he said.

Morgan Park High School on Chicago’s South Side is one of many schools considering “track” scheduling beginning in the 2010-11 school year.

Non-traditional “track” scheduling gives students the same number of weeks off as summer break, but the 10-week vacation is split up throughout the year. Track scheduling has class in session for six- to eights-weeks at a time, with two- to three-week breaks in between.

The idea was brought to Morgan Park principal Dr. Beryl P. Shingles by parents in the community, whose children attend one of the three elementary schools on track scheduling that feed into the high school. They asked Shingles if she would consider putting the high school on track scheduling to coincide with the elementary schools, making things easier for families with children in both high school and elementary school.

Shingles called Alan Mather, principal of Lindblom High School on Chicago’s West Side, the only CPS high school on track scheduling. She talked with Mather about the benefits of the format.

After many meetings with faculty, CPS administrators and parents discussing the pros and cons of track scheduling, a non-binding vote was taken at Morgan Park High School on Oct. 30. Of the 107 votes cast, 35 percent were in favor of the new schedule, and 28 percent were in favor only if a cooling system is installed in the school, since track scheduling means going to school in the hot summer months, and Morgan Park doesn’t have air conditioning. Thirty-five percent voted against the schedule change.

Peggy Goddard, a community resident and Morgan Park school council secretary, said some parents and students oppose the new schedule because of conflicts students would face in the summer.

“Some of the students work,” she said. “A lot work as lifeguards and work up to Labor Day. Some have internships, some are involved in collegiate programs.”

Mather said Lindblom’s track scheduling decision was discussed for two years. “If the teachers didn’t want it, it wouldn’t work,” he said. “We needed to build support. That’s why we spent so much time planning.”

Lindblom is in its second year on track scheduling and, according to Mather, everyone likes it.

“The students like it better than expected,” he said. “They get more regular breaks. It makes sense. People get burned out. Now they get to recharge regularly.”

One of the struggles that Lindblom faced when they changed scheduling was grading. There were no semesters, making it difficult for the school to collect grades, but eventually they figured it out.

The students didn’t seem to have a problem with the new grading period.

“The grades for the first grading period this year are higher than they were at the same time last year and in the first semester the year before that,” he said.

On Friday, Nov. 6, Shingles and Morgan Park submitted an application to the Chicago Board of Education for track scheduling, but with the installation of a cooling system.

Shingles didn’t spend as long deliberating the idea as Mather did at Lindbloom, but she’s confident that this is what’s best for the school.

“It was presented at LSC meetings, PTSA meetings, and we had enough interest from staff and many of the students are pro,” she said.

The school will not find out if they were approved for track scheduling until late January or early February of next year. Meanwhile, Morgan Park engineer Mike Cox is currently making appointments and getting estimates for the cooling system to be ready if they get the go-ahead.