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Challenging the Tilden 'turnaround' proposal... One teacher's testimony at the December 14, 2011 Chicago Board of Education meeting

Jerry Skinner - December 17, 2011

Dear CEO Brizard and the Members of the Chicago Board of Education: I am here from Kelvyn Park High School (KPHS), which like Tilden High School and six other CPS high schools, is a recipient this year of a Transformation grant, and I want to ask the Board: Why, after all the promises that the eight Transformation schools were given, is Tilden being changed from a Transformation into a Turnaround school?

Kelvybn Park HIgh School teacher Jerry Skinner testifying at the December 14, 2011 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Transformation was marketed last year to our students, parents, and teachers by the CPS Office of School Improvement (OSI) and other Lead Partners as a way to avoid closure or Turnaround, yet less than four months into the school year you betray these same students, parents, and teachers by announcing that Tilden is to be Turned Around. Is KPHS next? Then another or all of the six remaining Transformation schools (Hancock, Juarez, Julian, North Lawndale, Richards, and Wells high schools)?

Such actions make it more difficult for us to trust our Lead Partners. I speak from personal experience. Last April the OSI asked me to write an official letter to the Superintendent of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) in support of Transformation at KPHS. I did write that letter, but since that time KPHS’s relationship with the OSI has been “transformed” for the worse. The OSI seems more concerned for what its director, Mr. Randel Josserand, at a September 15 meeting, termed its own “reputation” than for what is best for our students, and it consistently ignores the advice of experienced teachers.

Here are just three examples of OSI obstruction at KPHS:

1. The template and standards that teachers are to use for lesson plans have been changed four times since the beginning of September.

2. OSI was making plans to completely reprogram teachers’ and students’ schedules for the second semester, meaning that teachers would have five new classes and 140 new students, while students would have seven new teachers. This crazy plan would have destroyed the relationships and knowledge that have been built by both teachers and students over the course of the first semester. Vocal protests have at least temporarily put a hold on these plans, but teachers are weary that they will resurface in the near future with some new excuse as a justification.

3. The OSI consistently rejects teacher suggestions on how to effectively spend Transformation grant money, and ignores all documentation from CPS’s own website that our school’s budget is down $2.5 million total or over $600 per student this year from last. Instead its leaders just constantly talk about the funds that they have brought to KPHS, most of which students and teachers never see in the classroom but are instead spent on the salaries and perks of OSI administrative staff who never interact with our students.

There are many more similar problems, though two minutes is not enough time for me to describe them to you. But months into Transformation at KPHS students are unhappy, parents are unhappy, and teachers are increasingly frustrated and doubtful about whether the OSI has pulled a Bait-and-Switch, and soon KPHS will follow Tilden into Turnaround.

But it’s not too late for the Board and Lead Partners like the OSI to rebuild the trust that’s been damaged. How? Don’t betray the promises made to the students and teachers of Tilden and at all the other Transformation schools who are watching. Reverse the decision to Turnaround Tilden; listen to the students and teachers there and at the other Transformation schools. More importantly, support all of the city’s neighborhood schools; don’t impose closure or Turnaround on them. Thank you.

Jerry Skinner

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