School's Out Forever: Final Day Of Classes For 20 CPS Schools
By aaroncynic in News on Jun 24, 2013 8:00PM
The last 20 schools on the Chicago Public Schools chopping block will close their doors for good at the end of the day Monday in the one of the largest mass school closings in history. Initially, CPS officials planned on closing 129 to shore up a massive budget deficit, but over the past few months the number dropped to 50. Since the closings were announced, parents, teachers, students and family members throughout Chicago mounted a massive resistance, which included petitions, protests and occupations of schools on the list. Just last week, two families staged a sit-in that lasted a few hours at Lafayette Elementary in Humboldt Park.
Despite the public outcry, CPS moved forward with the closure plan, and now the final bells will ring for the last set this afternoon. Community members continue to express the loss they’re feeling. Osmar Rodriguez, a parent who has a long family history at Von Humboldt Elementary told the Sun-Times “It’s sad because you’ve got a lot of good families in this neighborhood. II (feel) for them because they don’t have the transportation to take their kids to (new) schools.” A teacher from Von Humbolt said “It’s been a stable building, a stable school in this community for so long that for a lot of these neighbors and community members, this is all they know.”
Even though hope seems to be lost for most people to save any of their schools, community members still continue to fight. Monday afternoon, a group of parents called CPS Parents United will host an early voter registration drive on 61st and Cottage Grove, where four people were arrested protesting the closure of Sexton Elementary last month. “School closings are not about making our school better,” said Marilyn Harper, a parent at Sexton, in a statement. “They are about privatization and the Mayor and his band of puppets making money, we need to vote him out of there.” On Wednesday morning, the Chicago Teacher’s Union plans to protest at CPS headquarters over the draft budgets schools were sent which they say would force layoffs and program cuts at “nearly every school in the system.”
Meanwhile, the Board of Education will vote Wednesday on 19 new “safe passage” vendors. According to Fox News Chicago, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett will make recommendations Monday for vendors which would hire more than 600 workers to help secure routes for children heading to welcoming schools in the fall. Progress Illinois reports currently 10 vendors employ 600 people and serve 35 schools. That number would double, at a cost of $7.7 million, to cover the 51 welcoming schools. Byrd-Bennett said in a statement:
“Expanding the successful Safe Passage program to include next year’s welcoming schools is one of several steps we’re taking to create safe environments in and around our schools.”
CPS claims the program so far has led to a 27 percent drop in criminal incidents among students, and a 20 percent overall drop in criminal incidents around Safe Passage schools. Representatives from the CTU however, say that the effort won’t be enough. Kristine Mayle, financial secretary for the Teacher’s Union told Fox:
“I think Safe Passage is a little too little too late. We had over a couple dozen shootings this weekend and last weekend. Dozens of people have been killed.People wearing green vests are not going to make the kids safe on their way to school. It's a huge concern for us. We're very afraid for these kids.”