Meet Christopher Flint of City Elementary in Hyde Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Flint.

Christopher, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been working in the autism/diverse learner field for over 20 years. I started as a classroom teacher, then became a trainer and supported teachers, parents, and community organizations by sharing best practices for interacting with and teaching diverse learners. I also started a nonprofit volunteer organization that recruited autism experts to take trips to vulnerable areas of the globe to spread awareness and information about autism and diverse learners. Finally, before starting at city Elementary, I founded a social enterprise that develops apps to help reduce barriers to access cultural institutions and other venues. When the opportunity to become the Head of School at City Elementary arose, I was thrilled at the opportunity to help grow an organization while directly working with students with diverse learning needs and their families.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
As Head of School, there have been many challenges. One current struggle is how to support students and families that cannot afford tuition at our school. We have had dozens of families’ contact us whom have students that could be a great fit for our school, but do not have the resources to attend. We currently do not have a scholarship fund and do not offer tuition assistance. We have tried to help these families find other schools and be a resource to them as they evaluate other programs. But it is difficult to turn students away as there are not many other schools like ours.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the City Elementary story. Tell us more about the business.
City Elementary is a private school for diverse learners. We serve students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Our niche is supporting students who are doing well academically – most of our students are at or above grade level – but need supports for social interactions, attention and focus, regulation, and sensory processing. These are students who could keep up with the curriculum in a public school but would have a hard time with the sensory and social demands of 20 or 30 kids in a classroom. We support these students by having small class sizes, with up to 6 students in a classroom along with one special education teacher. There is also an assistant in each classroom, so we have a 3:1 ratio of staff to students. This small class size allows us to individualize programming around students’ strengths and interests, as well as have a great deal of control over the classroom environment.

I am most proud of the success of our students at City Elementary. We are a data driven school and set goals for our students and measure progress. Our students are meeting around 85% of academic as well as social emotional goals that we have set. The progress and success at school has also translated to home as parents have reported tremendous growth outside of school as well.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I have read a lot of interesting articles recently about luck – and behaviors that can translate into creating and cultivating luck. One thing that I think can help you be lucky is by doing good and making sure people have a positive experience. We go out of our way to help students and families, and this has often led to unexpected (or lucky!) results. There have been situations where we have helped a student overcome an obstacle and have great success, and the parents shared that success on social media. One of their Facebook friends saw the post and then donated to the school – which helped us purchase items on a wish list we just created the day before! Of course, there has been bad luck as well. We recently applied for several grants and got close to getting them but ended up not receiving any of them even though we had strong applications. We did learn a lot, so we’ll be better next time.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1100 E Hyde Park Blvd, Chicago, IL 60615
• Website: www.cityelementary.org
• Phone: 8722402489
• Email: cflint@cityelementary.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cityelementary/

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