Teachers, Parents, and Community Activists Organize Against 2010 Closings and Turnarounds
Twenty-five teachers, parents, and other community activists met on short notice in a Westside community center on Saturday, January 30, 2010, to discuss the Chicago Board of Education's latest attack on community schools, and to make plans for an emergency response.
Some of the participants in the January 30 meeting to plan the response to the latest Hit List. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. Representatives from targeted schools Phillips, Marshall, Marconi, Thorpe, and Keeler were there, plus members of PURE, Blocks Together, the Pilsen Allliance, the Westside NAACP, CORE, CSDU, and others. The meeting was called by GEM, the Grassroots Education Movement.
Parents and teachers left out of plans for their own schools
Throughout the course of the meeting a picture began to emerge about the harm that will be caused by the BOE’s latest closing, consolidation and turnaround plan.
For example, a parent from Marconi explained how that school is to be merged with Tilton — and the school board's proposal would see Marconi teachers and staff lose their jobs, while Tilton moves into their building. Tilton currently shares a building with Talent Development High School — a charter school that will expand to take over Tilton’s facility.
“We’re not even against the consolidation — we’re under-enrolled, but they didn’t even come out to talk to us about it — we know these students, we know the gangs, we should stay with our kids,” she said.
Rather than simply letting the staff follow the children (or in this case, remain in the same building with the children they already know) CPS aims to fire Marconi’s staff when they create the new ‘Tilton-Marconi Magnet.’
In addition to planning for the hearings, the GEM plans to attend the February 10th demonstration at the Board of Ed Building (125 S Clark at 4PM) and hold a Valentine’s Day protest.
The Chicago Board of Education will meet on February 24 to vote on the closings, consolidations, phase outs, and turnarounds. The hearings continue this week, beginning Monday evening, February 1, at 5:30 p.m. Hearings will not take place on Election Day (February 2), but will continue the rest of the week.
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