Results tagged “schoolboard”

Chicago Public Schools today announced that they will open nine new schools and expand two existing schools, just weeks after the CPS school board voted to close 16 schools based on low enrollment and low performance. The CPS will create seven high schools, three elementary schools and one middle school. They've proposed for some of the schools to fill the spaces that are currently occupied by the 14 elementary schools and two high schools that the CPS has decided to close.

The Illinois High School Association is coming under fire from the media this week with a story in the Reader and an editorial in the Trib about the organization's recent decision to ban photographers from high school sporting events unless they sign a document promising not to sell their photos. Yikes.

We always thought it was pretty ridiculous when students at other schools got the second-tier holidays off of school — you know, your Columbus Days and your Presidents' Days. It seemed almost as ridiculous (read: unfair) as when the kid down the street got ten dollars from the tooth fairy while we got a quarter. Why celebrate some presidents' birthdays by sitting at home but celebrate another's when it rolls around? And didn't they "discover"...

Last Friday, 775 teachers in the Chicago Public School system were given the ol' heave-ho. All involved are Probationary Appointed Teachers, or PATs, those who have been in the system less than five years. Unlike last year, these firings are not budget-related; they were let go for "various reasons," with the emphasis on teachers that were not performing well.

For readers who have arrived via search engine, Chicagoist features no real teacher on teacher action, but the Sandridge Elementary School District does.

Except for an art teacher over in Evergreen Park. Bruce Lupori, a sixth-grade teacher over at Southwest Elementary School allegedly participated in a "joke gone bad" whereby he apparently put a plastic bag (with a hole cut in it) over a student's head. The incident happened in February, but the school only heard about it when kids told administrators about it on March 23. That seems a little odd. Did they not tell because it...

While Chicago churches are trading computers for guns, one suburban kid found out that turning in a pellet gun gets you expelled, instead. In Plainfield, a thirteen year-old boy allegedly discovered a pellet gun in the boys restroom of Troy Middle School and turned it in to an assistant principal, only to be kicked out of school. Several local news groups are covering the incident. The kid's parents are protesting the expulsion and they...

One of Chicagoist's favorite movies of 2005 was the adorable documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom, which told the story of New York Public School students who cha-cha-cha-ed and fox-trotted in a local competition with training they received in extra-curricular dance programs. We were apparently not the only fans of the film, as former Chicago School Board President Michael Scott brought a similar program to Chicago Public Schools after seeing the film. Current Board President Rufus Williams...

Public humiliation seems to be the new fad sport. From "American Idol" to those people dressed as fruit that you see sometimes, everyone wants in on the chance to exploit themselves. Even still, we at Chicagoist are not sure if that was a smart move on Dr. Rich Mitchell's part.

Chicago school board members are expected to approve a program this week to train 100 principals in struggling schools how to pick and retain better teachers. The $150,000 program is aimed at recruiting candidates who are realistic about the challenges of teaching and won't leave the school after one or two years, if they show up at all.

Chicagoist likes to think we’ve seen it all, but, sometimes, we’re still a little shocked, or at least puzzled, by our fellow humans. Which, we suppose, isn’t a bad thing. Good to keep things interesting.

We here at the Chicagoist offices only do what’s good for us: we feed our bodies all the right foods, we watch only educational television programming, we exercise regularly, we don’t drink, don’t smoke (what do we do?), don’t gossip, don’t make promises we can’t keep, don’t kiss on the first date and don’t have sex without love.

What kind of a city do we live in where a high-school senior gets expelled simply for shoving his testicles in a freshman’s face?

Continuing today's "Fun With Drugs in Schools" theme, Chicagoist just had to let you know about the suburban dad that is using the time-honored method of newspaper advertising to allege hard drug sales in the halls of a local school. Park Ridge's Dominic Vecchio, whose grammar school-age children attend schools within the Maine Township High School District, spent $900 of his own cash to publish an ad in last Thursday's Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (a Pioneer...

Score one for Native Americans! Following years of internal debate in the Village of Lemont, a community-wide vote this month and approval at Monday’s meeting of the District 210 Board of Education, the name “Injuns” has officially been dropped as the moniker of Lemont High School’s sports teams. The switch, to the not-so-offensive “Titans,” comes after five years of pressure from the Illinois Native American Bar Association, who are pleased with Lemont's decision but promise to continue fighting against the 27 Illinois high schools that still use “Indians” as their nicknames (not to mention the six that use “Redskins,” the three that go by “Braves” and the twenty that consider themselves “Warriors”).