Westinghouse College Prep

In the fall of 2009, Free Spirit Media launched a program at the new Westinghouse College Prep High School in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood.

Through a close relationship with Westinghouse and shared partner, After School Matters, Free Spirit Media offers an intensive broadcast journalism and media production program.

Westinghouse College Prep High School is a hybrid of two highly competitive programs — a selective enrollment College Preparatory program and a College and Careers program, with four rigorous career pathways including the Broadcast Journalism Academy. The Westinghouse lab features a state of the art broadcasting studio, control room, and editing lab, which FSM helped to design.

Free Spirit Media’s original program, HoopsHIGH, was piloted and developed at the old Westinghouse Career Academy between 2000 and 2006. Free Spirit Media encouraged Chicago Public Schools to build broadcasting into the new Westinghouse, thus promoting additional opportunities and access for youth in Chicago.