Quintin Scott graduated Sunday from Chicago’s Crane Medical Prep High School with a head start to becoming a professional welder and a direct pipeline to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
The two met in March during a trades job fair at McCormick Place, where Lightfoot passed her phone number to Scott and encouraged him to keep in touch.
Scott’s teacher, Robert Green, said he asked Scott to see those digits. “He said, ‘Oh no, Mr. Green, I can’t show you this number,’” Green recalled with a chuckle. “I said, ‘You’re a smart kid, man.’”
Scott has become the face of Chicago Builds, a two-year Chicago Public Schools construction training program for upperclassmen. He plans to forgo thousands of dollars in college scholarship offers to pursue a five-year apprenticeship program with Chicago Pipefitters Local 597. If he completes the program and becomes a journeyman, Scott could be making $54 an hour.
How many gender studies majors are going to make $54 an hour?
