BOARDWATCH: Held up in the 'Holding Room' -- parents, teachers, and activists speak out about the Board's June 26 meeting and police state tactics
It was interesting being in the long line of people that were not “preregistered” and ending up on the 15th floor in what is called the "Holding Room" during the June 26, 2013 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. What happens on the day the Board meets is that the Board meets in its "chambers" on the fifth floor of headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. in Chicago, but the majority of seats on the fifth floor are filled ("Reserved") for some reason or another -- and then many additional ones are filled with CPS bureaucrats who seem to pose as members of the "public." As a result, hundreds of people who come down for the public meeting of the most important public body in Chicago are kept out of the meeting and forced to watch it on closed circuit TV ten floors above the actual meeting.
Board of Education staff members often take up seats in the general part of the fifth floor "Board Chambers" thereby forcing parents, teachers and students up to the 15th floor "Holding Room." Above, former CPS Budget Chief Christina Herzog (second from left in the above photo), who is currently a CPS budget consultant, takes up a fifth floor seat during the June 26 Board meeting. Substance photo by George N. SchmidtEveryone had an opinion and they did not mind expressing it. On the 15th floor people visibly and verbally responded to the speakers. For example, as students receiving scholarships spoke about their schools and mentors, the 15th floor audience shook their heads in agreement. As Barbara Byrd Bennett talked about dropouts and steps taken to insure safety for students from closing schools because she cares, people shook their heads “No!” or muttered “Lies!”
Most of the people in the "Holding Room" knew that Barbara Byrd Bennett had just added to the dropout problem by destroying 50 of the city's real public schools the previous month, and no Power Point was going to change the truth. Hundreds of children are going to "disappear" this summer because their schools were closed and CPS, despite the propaganda about "Welcoming Schools," is really in the business of pushing out them and their families.
Sara Hartmen a parent at Beard School. Hartman had “pre-registered” to stand with and support Georgia Walker, of Beard, but instead she was in the “unregistered” line. Beard School is an all Special Education School. The new budget caused 21 positions to be cut for next year, Hartman told Substance. The CPS "Student Based Budgeting" is going to hurt some of Chicago's most vulnerable students: CPS is forcing Beard to cut 10 teaching positions and eleven PSRPs.
Jean Luchini, a teacher at Beard, told Substance that along with position cuts there will be an increase in class size for the severe Special Education students. ”This is not safe," she noted. "because these students have severe physical or behavioral disabilities. Some students are runners and need to be escorted when walking around the building..."
Two high School students, Clementine Frye from Lane Tech and Nidalis Burgos from Lincoln Park, were opposing the closing of schools and budget cuts.
Jacqueline Casmir, a teacher at Garrett A. Morgan and a member of the local school council, was opposing the closing of Morgan Elementary. Casmir told Substance that all of the computers had been removed from Morgan Elementary.
Whitney Young teacher, Ed. Dzidzic was protesting the budget cuts of eight teachers and of seventh period. This has forced the school to charge $500 students to attend a 7th class, something many of the students at the school have always done.
Lisa Davila, a PSRP from Jesse Owens School was protesting the cutting of one teaching position and foreign language specials, such as Spanish. Gym is now once a week and that there is now no computer teacher in the school. Of course, PSRPs will now get the trickle down effects from this. There are only two PSRPs left in the school.
Erica Wax, a parent from Lincoln Park High School says that she is protesting the cutting of $1million dollars next year. Wax says she has attend three meetings to try to work through the budget which is not helped by the fact that Emanuel announced a wall to wall IB program next year. The school was given one and a half weeks to figure out what to do. Wax feels that the blame has more to do with the State Legislature‘s failure to come up with a budget and deal with the pension obligations.
Rousemary Vega, a Lafayette parent, was asked to leave the 15th floor because she called Barbara Byrd Bennett a “liar” when Bennett said that dropouts are devastating because Vega feels the cuts and closing schools are more devastating.
Neal Rysdahl, from Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) brought drums and noise makers to the demonstration that had taken place before the Board meeting. He said they will disrupt "business as usual,” which he said would cause a disturbance along with boosting morale. Rysdahl said that IWW also brought drums to Lafayette School to encourage the occupation of the school, which took place on one afternoon a week earlier. Unfortunately, he said, the occupation was leaked to authorities and only a few people made it inside and they did not know how to handle intimidation by the police.
Rysdahl said: ”We had the labor power, more reinforcements were showing up to sustain the occupation, but people were not trained and the police were wearing them down with threats. A typical tactic was that police were telling people that,’ If you don’t leave, we will call DCFS on your kids.’
"That was ridiculous because there was no abuse or neglect involved," he continued. "A judge would have laughed them out of court. IWW is an independent militant group. We tend to use more militant tactics. IWW wants all the schools closed occupied because we have the man power to keep them occupied. “
