To list what makes the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (CHSAS) unique is certainly attention-worthy. From an academic standpoint, there are few schools like it in the nation.
Sitting on nearly 80 acres — with 40 of those producing crops and livestock, serving as the last and only farm in Chicago’s city limits — CHSAS has earned a reputation of providing a full-circle experience in community building.
While that classroom journey is the engine of its success, its fuel, however, is how it impacts the lives of its nearly 800 students. Because, at CHSAS, relationships, mentorships, touchpoints and connections are what propel its student body forward.
And at the heart of that momentum is the school’s partnership with FFA, seen as an integral part of fostering leadership and agricultural development.
“FFA is the very foundation of everything since our inception,” said Noelle Coronado, lead agriculture teacher and FFA chapter advisor at CHSAS. “It has been our student governing body and every student is a member of the organization. When they come in, they’re all enrolled.”
CHSAS is a Chicago Public School District magnet school established in 1985. It began with a freshman class of 150 students. Today, a lottery system is needed to pick each year’s 200 new students from an application list topping 3,000.
“From the beginning, this has been about bringing urban and production ag into the environment,” Lucille Shaw, CHSAS administrator, said. “They are intertwined. What our students soon find out is that agriculture is not only about farming. There’s so much more to it.”
To Shaw’s point, while CHSAS has the structure of a “typical” high school with math, English, social studies (and other core educational classes), along with a wide variety of sports and other extracurricular programs, it’s the six agricultural pathways that draws students and families from throughout the country’s third-largest city.
“I had no interest in agriculture. Because when I looked at agriculture, I thought of farming. I didn’t think of anything beyond just farming,” said Caitlyn McFadden, a product line information specialist at John Deere and CHSAS graduate. “I realized that being from the city, I had this misconception of agriculture because I had no exposure to it. So my hope has always been to educate, inspire, and share the journey of agriculture.”
At CHSAS, inspiration seems easy to find.
“What interested me from the beginning, on the ag journey and with FFA, was the involvement that I saw from older students,” said Jarvis Williams, a CHSAS grad and part of Deere’s marketing development program. “Their involvement within FFA enhanced my curiosity within agriculture and played a formidable role in my development.”
Numerous key partnerships, Coronado said, play a role in the school’s success. One of those is CHSAS’ relationship with agricultural manufacturing leader John Deere.
“One key aspect of that partnership is the intentionality of how Deere works with us,” Coronado said. “You can feel how important it is to the company because it almost feels like we’re a carved-out piece of a person’s workday.”
The “human side of Deere,” she added, does not go unnoticed.
“Representation matters. Kids want to see themselves in someone else,” Coronado said. “And by far, there is a diversity there that represents our student body when they come to participate at our school. And that matters.”
It’s those “touchpoints,” McFadden said, that really resonate and bring lasting impact.
“Our journeys weren’t something that we just picked up and said, ‘Hey, I want to do this.’ It was the people and the mentorship and role models we had that led us through the entire journey,” McFadden said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for everyone that I had contact with at CHSAS and through FFA. They were ag teachers and administrators that spoke life into me. … I think it’s the people that also can help make this full circle moment for future students and future talent.”
