It Takes A Village Family of Schools
The mission of the It Takes A Village Family of Schools (ITAV) is to provide a high-quality, culturally responsive education and life-empowering social services that inspire students, staff, and families to positively transform their communities and the world. They aim to create sanctuaries of knowledge that are seen, valued, and supported, where Black children and their families can thrive and learn, fostering a love of learning and nurturing the potential of every child.
It Takes A Village Family of Schools is a tight-knit network of schools and programs in Chicago that seek to positively transform and advance our communities by providing access to high-quality, culturally responsive education and life-empowering social services. ITAV’s founders include former Chicago Public Schools educator, Gwendolyn Harris, her daughter, Nakisha Hobbs, and their friend, Anita Andrews-Hutchinson. All three women had become disheartened by the failure of children in the education system and made it their personal mission to improve it.
It Takes A Village was founded in 2004 in Chicago’s Western Humboldt Park community and began servicing forty-seven at-risk children and their families. In just a short period of time, the staff of ITAV developed a reputation for delivering a high quality program for parents and families that included relationships with community partners that allowed them to meet the physical & mental health, educational, employment, housing, and nutritional needs of all families served. Before long, ITAV grew to include a kindergarten through eighth grade school, Village Leadership Academy, and hasn’t stopped growing since.