Which suburban Illinois school did Kanye West attend as a child?

As a child, Kanye West attended Polaris School for Individual Education in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The school is the specific institution identified in accounts of his early education.

West was raised primarily by his mother, Donda, after his parents divorced when he was three. The family lived in Chicago, and he later attended Polaris in suburban Oak Lawn. His schooling was part of a childhood marked by both conventional education and unusual international experience, including a period in Nanjing, China.

The school is often called Polaris High School in older biographies, but “Polaris School for Individual Education” is the fuller name used in the biographical record. That distinction can make the answer look different even though it refers to the same school.

West’s creative interests were already visible during these years. He wrote poetry as a young child, began rapping in grade school, and experimented with musical composition before becoming known as a producer and recording artist. He later attended art school and Chicago State University before leaving college to pursue music.