CORE leader's testimony against closing Guggenheim Elementary School at the community hearing
My name is Kristine Mayle. I am a CPS teacher and a proud member of CORE. Look around you at the faces of these children. They are not numbers. They are human beings, citizens of this city and this community. This madness needs to stop. You say Renaissance 2010 is about choice. From looking at this crowd, I’d say the community has spoken. Their choice is clear. They want you to keep your hands off of their school.
Candlelight vigil and picket outside Chicago's Guggenheim Elementary School (72nd and Morgan in Chicago's Englewood community) following the community hearing on Ron Huberman's proposal to close the school. Substance photo by Kristine Mayle.We all know this has nothing to do with the well-being of this school community. This has to do with real estate, with politics, with rich businessmen, just as the closure of dozens and dozens of schools before it. Your numbers and criteria for determining school closures are bogus and you know it. The formulas you use make it so that one-third of all elementary schools are failing and all general education high schools can be considered failing. For example, my school on the southwest side has 70 plus percent of our students making state standards and we are on probation.
Shame on CPS for destroying yet another school and community. Do you want the blood of these children on your hands? Or do you want to do the right thing and leave these students alone?
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