Photo caption: MR. JOSEPH OKOL (left) and another teacher with the winning chess team.
Students in Joseph Ocol’s Ella Flagg Young elementary school won second place in the CPS K-8 chess playoffs Saturday, March 11 at the Solorio Academy High school, 5400 S. St. Louis in Chicago. With this win, the teacher has more of an incentive to raise funds to take his students to Washington, D.C. for the national finals.
Ocol took his students to a state chess competition last month and they came in 10th place out of 60 schools. He needs $25,000 to take eight students and two chaperones to Washington, D.C. to participate in the national finals and to fund his after-school program.
This is the second year Ocol has conducted an after school chess club. He established the first Chess Club last year because he says the club increases academic success and teaches students valuable life lessons.
The most important lesson is understanding how each chess piece they move will have consequences in life. He wants to take his students to Washington, D.C. this month to compete against the best, but there is one snag, money.
Ocol said he was proud that his students, who are in seventh and eighth grades competed in the Illinois state finals and came in 10th out of 60 schools in February. “We were the only ones from CPS who competed in the state tournament,” he said.
“We are trying to open opportunities for these kids and to give them a chance to shine. Many of them come from low-income homes with many of them in foster care. They cannot do it by themselves because some of them are not even with their parents,” said Ocol who has taught with the Chicago Public Schools for the past 18 years.
When asked why did he form a chess club, Ocol said he began the program at Marshall High School when one of his students was fatally shot. “I found out that the most dangerous time for kids to be outside of the building after school is from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. That is when I proposed my chess club last year.
“I teach my kids that chess is about life. Every move they make has consequences and they have to think over and over before they make a move,” Ocol said. Last month, one of his students could not come to the state tournament because his brother was fatally shot.
“It was again a mistaken identity. He was only 16 years old, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ocol said. The brother, his student who is now in the eighth grade, wants to come to the Washington, D.C. competition this year.
Ocol said it has been hard for this student to handle the murder of his brother and that he comes to his chess class after school. This is another factor that is pushing Ocol to raise funds to take the students to D.C. He said his students deserve an opportunity to compete with the best.
Besides playing chess, Ocol said it is also a chance for them to win scholarships. According to Ocol, “There is a big correlation between chess and academics. It’s all about making choices in life.” He said one of the pieces is the queen, which is the most powerful piece and the lonely pawn he said is only one point. “That is the only piece that can become a queen.”
“I think my students can become the most powerful people in the world like the lonely pawn that can become the queen,” he said.
Ocol is asking people to donate on levels of funding including: Queen’s gambit ($20), Snacks on me for one month ($100), Local Hero for the team’s registration costs for local tournaments throughout Chicago for one academic year ($500), and Champion for traveling, lodging, registration and meals ($1,500), Grandmaster ($25,000), which would fully fund Ocal’s chess competition budget for one academic year including travel, room and board to nationals for up to 15 competitors.
Checks should be made out to Ella Flagg Young Elementary School, In care of Joseph Ocol, Teacher, 1434 N. Parkside Ave., Chicago, IL 60651. You must put on the check the funds are for the Chess Club.