Juan Perez Jr. and Jennifer Smith Richards :

Between classes, Theron Averett Jr. walks past rooms stacked with empty desks and an off-limits area where he’s heard there’s an empty swimming pool. “I’ve never seen it,” he says. He climbs a stairwell where a rainbow-colored mural carries a two-word message for Tilden High School’s students: “Dream Big.”

Averett was one of 250 students enrolled this year at the South Side campus, which Chicago Public Schools says has room for about 1,900 students.

Dwindling enrollment has cut Tilden’s budget. The school now offers only a small slate of classes. Tilden’s football team forfeited most of its season for a lack of players, leaving homecoming without a game to celebrate. Last year’s graduating class, on average, scored 14.5 on the ACT, far short of what’s considered college-ready.

In Chicago, where funding follows students, Tilden is one of more than a dozen shrinking neighborhood high schools that has been starved of resources, leaving students like Averett to prepare for their futures in largely empty buildings that can make dreaming big a daily struggle.

“Why should we go without because of our student body?” asked Averett, who dreams of attending college and pursuing a career in law enforcement. “I feel like it’s unfair. We should get the high school treatment too. But, you know, it is what it is.”