IMPORTANT MEETINGS: 'Education Summit' Saturday (July 24). CORE meeting Monday (July 26). Chicago Board of Education meeting Wednesday (July 28).
The Chicago Teachers Union has announced a meeting to be held on Saturday (July 24) that is supposed to be what the union is calling a 'Save Our Schools Summit.' The 'Summit' is to be held from 11:00 A.M. to 12:30 p.m. at Ariel Community Academy Ariel Community Academy, 1119 East 46th Street, Chicago, on Saturday, July 23, 2010.
The announcement came in a July 19 e-mail blast to all union members and reads as follows:
Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman continues to move forward with the corporate agenda followed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley despite growing opposition to his policies from the newly elected leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union and thousands of people in communities across the city. Above, on July 19, 2010, Huberman orchestrated a media event at Cesar Chavez elementary school on the Southwest Side to announce the "back to school" programs for the 'Track E' schools. Some Chicago schools begin August 9, while the majority of schools begin September 7 (for children). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.SAVE OUR SCHOOLS SUMMIT - THIS SATURDAY... Will your neighborhood school be next on the Board of Education's chopping block?
The Board has already... ELIMINATED after-school and sports programs, CUT over 200 citywide teachers (special services, literacy coaches, hospital teachers, and more), REDUCED world language classes,
...and plans to: INCREASE high school class sizes, DECREASE the number of electives offered to our students, and FIRE more teachers in addition to the hundreds already terminated or displaced WITHOUT regard to seniority and tenure.
The Board hasn't learned its lesson yet. Let's plan how we will fight these cuts together.
The Chicago Teachers Union and community partners invite you to the:
Save Our Schools Summit
Saturday, July 24, 2010, 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., Ariel Community Academy, 1119 East 46th Street, (parking in school lot)
For more information, please contact Norine Gutekanst at (312) 329-6226 or norine gutekanst@ctulocal1.com.
The next CORE general membership meeting will be held Monday (July 26) at Operation PUSH. According to the CORE announcement:
CORE Meeting Monday, July 26, 2010. 5:00-7:00 PM, Operation PUSH, 930 East 50th Street, Chicago, IL 60615.
The Chicago Board of Education will be meeting Wednesday (July 28) at CPS headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. in Chicago. The full agenda for the Chicago Board of Education meeting will be available at CPS headquarters by 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 26, and will be summarized here at www.substancenews.net by the morning of Tuesday, July 27, 2010. Last month (June 23, 2010), the Board's summary agenda was eight pages long, but the actual agenda, which is not available on the Board's website, was more than 300 pages long. Members of the public who do not get the full agenda for the Board meetings are unable to calculate the cost of the Board Reports which will come before the Board at each of the public hearings of the Board.
The July 28 Board agenda is expected to include many controversial items, including a proposal by Ron Huberman to turn the new Southwest Side High School, built to relive overcrowding from Gage Park High School and other high schools in the area, over to the controversial Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL). AUSL will utilize the new high school building as another one of its training facilities for the supposed super-teachers who are used to staff the "turnaround" schools. CPS has already given AUSL the Wright College facility on the city's Northwest Side and the Collins High School building on the city's West Side for AUSL training. Many activists and teachers from the Southwest Side are angry about the planned takeover of the school for which the community has fought for more than ten years by AUSL, which has no roots in the communities surrounding the next building.
