Chicago Board of Education continued delay of video of the July 23, 2014 Board meeting until the final day of the month
It took more than a week, but the Chicago Board of Education finally posted a completely censored video version of its July 23, 2014 meeting just as the month of July ended and August began. As late as the last day of July 2014, the monthly meeting of the Chicago Board of Education had taken place on July 23, 2014, but the video record of the Board meeting was still not available to the public on the Board's official website.
Long accustomed to censoring the video, the Board members, led by Board President David Vitale, a millionaire from Hyde Park, apparently ran into trouble censoring out the attack by CPS security on the family of Rousemary Vega and her husband, Jesus. Vega, long a vocal critic of Vitale and other members of the school board (especially Board Vice President Jesse Ruiz) were wrestled out of the Board meeting in front of their four children. The attack on the family came after she criticized Ruiz from the public seats at the meeting. Her husband was manhandled and carried out of the meeting in a choke hold by CPS security.
The couple and their family have grown increasingly outspoken in their criticisms of the Board members following the May 2013 vote of the Board to close 50 of the city's real public schools. One of those schools, Lafayette Elementary School, was the school the family had attended, and the children were enjoying their school experience, especially Lafayette's heralded music programs. Despite a promise from "Chief Executive Officer" Barbara Byrd Bennett that the closed schools would not be give to charter schools, the family became more incensed when the Board announced that the Lafayette building would be turned over the the "CHicago Arts..." school, a so-called "contract" school.
