Austin Neighborhood Eyes New School

Chicago, Illinois - They want a new high school and they know where they want it to go. Activists in Chicago's Austin neighborhood say their community is number one in crime but could be tops in academics or athletics. The space they want is currently empty. Tera Williams reports where it is.
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Dynamite was packed into a parking garage to make Gotham Hospital in Batman "The Dark Knight" explode. The set was at the old Brach's candy factory on the west side, which i now overgrown and empty.

There was an explosion Tuesday night too. In the form of emotion. Activists want to turn this property into a new state of the art high school for Austin neighborhood students. Austin High School was closed down in 2007 for underperformance.

Now - out of 6,600 high school aged youth in the area, about 2,400 have no place to go but outside of the district. About seven hundred don't go to school at all. Tenth grader Delarian Banks only went to school half of the days last year. He says the gang violence that greets him after his half hour commute isn't worth it. "It's not fair," he says.

More than a year ago Mayor Daley and the city council made the decision to give more than $10 million in incentives to a developer for the Brach's property in hopes it would bring jobs to the area.

Even though the property isn't zoned for a school - these activists say the city could change that. And change the lives of young people. One organizer said "We want them to know that now they have a chance to rectify that because the developer has not kept his end of the bargain and our children need to have a good high school, one that has a campus."