CPS Parents Take Protest To Emanuel's Home

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 21, 2012 4:30PM

Hundreds of parents of Chicago Public Schools students took their protests of CPS' proposed school closings and "turnarounds" to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel yesterday. (A guess: this may hurt the mayor's internal poll ratings.)

An estimated crowd of 500 people marched from Lake View High School to the Emanuel home on Hermitage, bearing signs and stickers that read "silenced" across their mouths. The protest was a response to plans by CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and the Emanuel administration to close seven underperforming schools and place another 10 schools in "turnaround" programs. They say Brizard and Emanuel have ignored their requests for a meeting about the plans and their suggestions that resources be allocated to improving the performances of the schools. Jitu Brown of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization told the Sun-Times:

“People are fed up,” Brown said. “The hope is that the mayor understands that his constituents are serious, which is why we are doing it the way we are doing it, and that he gives audience to the people who elected him.”

The turnaround plan is set for a vote at tomorrow's School Board meeting. Protesters also held a candlelight vigil outside Wendell Smith Elementary School, Emanuel's neighborhood school. Smith is also on the list of schools set to close.

Over the weekend, parents at Brian Piccolo Elementary School on the West side staged a sit-in over the closings and turnaround plan.