In the early 2000s, Nakisha Hobbs was living in Austin and a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago. She was also pregnant and searching for a quality early education program that would eventually prepare her first child for kindergarten.
“There wasn’t a program that we really felt like would meet the needs that we had for Jakya, my oldest daughter,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs’ mother, Gwendolyn Harris, had taught at Nash Elementary School in Austin, as well as at a Chicago Public School middle school. She saw many children who were still struggling with reading as they prepared for high school, Hobbs said. It was something her mother thought could be addressed before kindergarten, when she taught her kids to read.
So, with their friend Anita Andrews-Hutchinson, Hobbs and Harris opened It Takes a Village in 2004 at 4020 W. Division St. in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood to offer quality education to children from birth through age five in a culturally empowering environment.
“We wanted to create a program that was truly culturally sensitive, culturally responsive, and also culturally empowering, and we wanted to implement a curriculum that did all of that,” Hobbs said. She lists examples of Spanish language immersion, karate, music and art opportunities as “the type of early learning experiences that are traditionally reserved for more affluent families.”
What started as a West Side school quickly expanded throughout Chicago to equip children and their families with skills and resources to advocate for themselves.
In April, It Takes a Village will open its fifth location at 5719 W. Chicago Avenue in Austin, four blocks away from where Hobbs grew up. The location is also where Hobbs’ daughter attended an early childhood education program at age two before switching to It Takes a Village, when it opened in Humboldt Park. Hobbs’ other three children also attended It Takes a Village schools.
“What we really want to do as an organization is improve both health and academic outcomes for children in the Austin community,” Hobbs said. “We want Austin to become the best place in the city of Chicago to raise children.”
A ribbon cutting for the most recent location was scheduled for Wednesday. It Takes a Village invited some of its funding partners, like the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois State Board of Education, as well as local legislators, nonprofits and social service providers. But construction on Chicago Avenue, which would restrict parking, delayed the grand opening to late April, though Hobbs said the Chicago Avenue location will likely start serving children in about two weeks and already has a waitlist.
“Most of our growth up until this point has been pretty organic,” Hobbs said. But in the last 18 months or so, she added, It Takes a Village has focused on expanding to Austin and communities on the West Side, where it began.
When It Takes a Village first opened in 2004, it served 47 children and their families, many of them from Austin and Humboldt Park. Through its membership with the Austin Childcare Providers Network, It Takes a Village collaborated with home childcare providers in Austin to grow the number of involved families, a practice they continue to expand their reach.
“The rest of the children primarily came from our reputation of delivering on our mission to develop and deliver those high-quality, early childhood services, as well as comprehensive support to families,” Hobbs said. This support takes the form of social services that address physical, mental, employment, housing and nutritional needs.
When the population of students at the Humboldt Park school grew beyond capacity, It Takes a Village opened a second location next door. Then around 15 years ago, the owner of Chicago-based Marc Realty reached out. He had acquired a building in Chicago’s South Loop and wanted to bring high-quality early education programming there.
Also around this time, parents were asking It Takes a Village to expand its services into elementary school, but the school didn’t have enough space. So, at 800 S. Wells, Marc Realty built out a space for around 250 children from birth through age five — a recently opened location at 1020 S. Wabash Ave. serves as overflow — along with elementary school classrooms for another 200 kids from kindergarten to eighth grade.
“There’s a really high need because there are tons of lower income families coming from across the city into the South Loop looking for that programming,” Hobbs said.
The demand is so great that It Takes a Village is opening a kindergarten through 12th grade, nine-acre campus in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. The South Loop’s kindergarten through eighth graders will move there in the fall, and an early learning center will later open on that campus.
Currently, It Takes a Village serves around 1,500 children. But with its ambitious expansion plans, the organization anticipates scaling that number to 5,000 in the next five years.
“We’ve raised some really amazing children who are not only amazing academically, but they are also folks who are committed to their communities,” Hobbs said. They are people “who have been involved in a number of campaigns over the years that are designed around enhancing or improving the quality of life for all Chicago residents, but definitely for residents on the South and West Sides of the city.”
In addition to filling a gap in early education services, It Takes a Village also works to train early childhood educators through workforce development. The organization offers programs and apprenticeships to everyone, from those getting their first credentials in early childhood education to those getting bachelor’s degrees and professional educator licenses.
Those looking to enroll their child at It Takes a Village should visit https://itavschools.org/resources/enroll/.