catalyst-chicago.org

It's a place where small corner grocers serve families trying to make it on a tight income. It's also where the city's first Wal-Mart opened recently, triggering a national debate about the need for a living wage.

It's a place where patches of dirt lay before run-down apartment buildings. It's also a place where one can find block after block of neatly trimmed lawns. It's a place where street corners give way to a bustling drug trade. It's also where the most active block clubs and community groups are found.

Shiva Singh Khalsa and his wife, Shabad Kaur Khalsa, went through more than a dozen schools before they found the perfect fit for their son, Amar Dev.

The Khalsas are Sikhs and Amar, 6, wears his long hair tied in a ball and practices a vegetarian diet. They finally decided on Passages Charter, an elementary school founded to serve a diverse immigrant student population.

"My wife looked at 13 schools—the best schools in the city—and nothing held a candle to Passages," Khalsa says.

It's a Tuesday afternoon, and a group of 8th-graders loosely file into John Yolich's social studies class at Uplift Community School.

"Let's get comfortable," Yolich tells the kids draped in loose-fitting T-shirts who slowly break away from private conversations and find their seats.