It was a weekend the kids had prepared for since September. Ms. Santiqua Strickland’s fourth-grade class at Learn Charter School adopted the University of Illinois as their college prep learning focus. And after reaching out to Illinois, they were surprised by a special invitation by Coach Lovie Smith to visit the Urbana-Champaign campus.

The weekend was finally upon them and they embarked on their trip on Friday before the Illini played Iowa at Memorial Stadium. LEARN Charter School from Chicago is one of a network of schools under the same name dedicated to providing high-quality college preparation classes.

“The school mission is to provide our scholars with the academic ambition and foundation to earn a college degree,” said fourth grade teacher Santiqua Strickland, “We didn’t want to just talk about it, but we actually wanted to make it a reality and see what it’s like to earn a college degree and what college life was like and that in turn would encourage [the scholars] to work even harder.”

Read more about the experience HERE.