PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — With one of its biggest graduating classes, Quest Charter Academy High School in Peoria announced all 57 seniors are graduating and moving on to some form of higher education.
The school’s college and career specialist, Felicha Brown, said the goal is always a 100% graduation rate, so it was no surprise when the school’s seventh graduating class met that goal.
“We need to help our students to become the future,” Brown said. “We need to help them to become the doctors, the lawyers, the plumbers.”
Collectively, the students accrued $1.9 million in scholarship funds.
Jazel Ware-Grant is Quest’s class president. She is pursuing law and plans to attend the University of Illinois in Springfield.
She said she will be the first person in her family to attend college, and she is setting an example for her younger siblings.
“Something that I’ve looked into forever. My grandma always made sure I was looking into colleges, made sure I was on the right track to get into college and things of that nature,” she said. “I’m ready for it. It’s something new. Something bigger than Peoria.”
Another graduating senior, London Griffin, won State Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth’s “Annie’s Girls” scholarship. She said she was accepted to her number one school, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA, where she will prepare for a career in early childhood education.
“If they’re not pushing me, if my family is not pushing me, then nobody else is going to push me but myself,” she said. “So I needed an extra push.”
Quest focuses on career pathways, Brown said, offering students the opportunity to visit colleges and speak with professionals about career paths throughout their high school years.
Out of 57 students, 26 will attend two-year schools, and the rest will attend four-year schools.
Graduation is June 2 at the Scottish Rite Theater in Peoria.