Students walking out the front door of Liberty Academy now see, directly across Joslyn, the burned-out hulk of what was an apartment building. Directly across Florence is a burned-out house. On Puritan, Hamilton still waits for Highland Park's comeback. Every Liberty Academy student qualifies for a free or reduced-price lunch, Everson said. Sixty percent of the students are Highland Park residents.
Most students are black.
A few are white, some are of Arab descent, a few are Asian Indians. She started at the old Eastern High School on East Grand, but graduated from the new Martin Luther King on East Lafayette. Kids are used to learning on the computer. They use the Internet to talk to children in other countries. You can measure staff attendance.