LABOR BEAT: 'David Vitale, you wake up!' Rousemary Vega's confrontation with the Chicago Board of Education on May 28 is now a delightful You Tube video being enjoyed by thousands
How Can We Shut Your Door? Rousemary Vega, Chicago public school parent and activist, made a two minute contribution during the public comment period at the May 28, 2014 Chicago Board of Education meeting that will probably rank among the best over the years. And the competition is formidable for that honor. The encounter is now available on on YouTube at:
http://youtu.be/Y1JbS6FK6T4.
Five or six large CPS security men were ordered to pull Rosemary Vega, who has four children, away from the microphone during public participation at the May 28, 2014 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.It is also archived at: laborbeat.org.
Vega, a parent of four children, had helped organize and lead the protests against the school closings one year earlier, and had cried when the music programs at Lafayette Elementary School, where her children attended, were snatched from them. Since then, she and a growing number of parents, teachers and students have confronted the Board's systematic sabotage of the city's neighborhood schools, including organizing the "Neighborhood Schools Fair" and the recent "Neighborhood Schools Picnic."
Vega confronted Board President David Vitale with his habitual dozing off, and Board members and executives looking at their phones, texting and reading their messages and emails during public comments (which we confirm visually).
Chicago Board of Eduction members Mahalia Hines and Jesse Ruiz (above) snapped to attention when Rousemary Vega demanded that they stopped fiddling with their PDAs and cell phones as she spoke during the May 28, 2014 meeting of the Board. Like Board President David Vitale, who was personally called out by Vega, Hines and Ruiz were appointed in May 2011 by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.While the Board shuts the door on quality education for minority and poor students, she asked the Board the big question on everybody's minds: "How can we shut your door?"
Some like to use the expression "speaking truth to power", but many have concluded that the powerful already know the truth: that they're in power. As Rousemary Vega and her little girl are forced out of the room by a metric ton of CPS security guards (and as Board toadies laugh, which we document) we start to think more seriously about her question. (See Substancenews article at ). Length - 3 min.
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By: Jean Schwab
This is exactly what a BOE meeting is like-
Funny! if it wasn't so true.