President Barack Obama Surprises CPS High School Students with Free Access to ‘A Promised Land’

CHICAGO - This afternoon, Chicago Public Schools CEO Dr. Janice K. Jackson joined President Barack Obama as he surprised CPS high school students in a virtual assembly to announce that all CPS high school students have received free access to digital copies of A Promised Land, President Obama’s riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making during his time in office. All CPS high school students were invited to tune-in to the livestream with hundreds of students participating in the Zoom call. 

A video of the event can be found here. 

During the virtual assembly, it was announced that a follow up conversation with CPS students and educators will be held in the coming weeks in early 2021 and live-streamed for all students and teachers to tune in. The conversation will be moderated by ABC7 Windy City LIVE’s Val Warner.  

All Chicago Public Schools high school students and teachers have access to digital copies of A Promised Land which is published by Crown, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. The books are available in e-book and audiobook formats in both English and Spanish through the generosity of Penguin Random House and OverDrive Education, through its Sora student reading app. Students and teachers can access the book at CPS’ internal website library.cps.edu. 

Chicago Public Schools serves 341,000 students in 638 schools. It is the nation’s third-largest school district.