Protst against Rahm's layoffs at City Hall... 'This is despicable, disgusting and completely unacceptable...'
Protesters at Chicago's City Hall after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the latest attack on the city's real public schools following the payment by the Board of Education of the $634 million payment due to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF). Substance photo by Jean Schwab.A little over two hundred teachers, students, parents and union members marched on LaSalle street in front of city hall to demonstrate their opposition for the reported layoff of 1,400 educators and the reduction of resources to Chicago neighborhood schools.
Speakers included Chicago Teachers Union's Recording Secretary Michael Brunson, and Financial Secretary Kristine Maley.
"We need a LaSalle Street tax," said Michael Brunson, CTU Recording Secretary, "This (laying off employees and reducing resources) should not come off our backs" repeating a theme he has hammered for years: making the rich pay a fair share. "It should not come off the backs of our students. We should not have to come back to school and have classrooms with 45-50 students. We have had enough. They are going to start cleaning up their house. They are going to start listening to us . We need an elected
representative school board. We need someone that will not destroy our public school system."
"During negotiations, it became clear that CPS was going to save money by not filling vacancies which were open," said the second speaker, Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle. "The cuts would result in not enough Special Education teachers in self contained classrooms or clusters. The children will not get the resources they deserve and it will affect the Special Education cluster students."
Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle speaking to the protesters in front of City Hall during the July 2, 2015 march and rally. Substance photo by Jean Schwab."Our Special Education students deserve an environment where they get the services, equipment and staffing that serves their needs," Mayle continued. "CPS is going to destroy that. This will not only affect cluster students, it will affect all of you and your students in your classrooms because the kids that need the most care will be dumped in our classrooms without the resources they need. I need you to get out and yell about
this. Get out in the streets and talk to all the people you know. This is despicable, disgusting and completely unacceptable."
The union's email calling for the march and rally at City Hall also included a call for union members to be active at the July 22 Board of Education meeting. The email said:
"CPS is broke on purpose and they want to make teachers pay while bankers and politically connected vendors get rich. On Tuesday, July 1 the mayor announced that CPS would offset the cost of repaying its �pension holiday� loans through $200 million in cuts, including 1400 layoffs. There are better options available than cutting services for kids. We need to picket City Hall and let the mayor and his handpicked Board of Education know that we demand they cut excessive testing, cut wasteful vendor contracts, and renegotiate toxic swap loans to balance their budget. Let the mayor know that Chicagoans want progressive revenue options that make the wealthy pay their fair share for the schools and services that make this city work. We also need people to pack the July 22 Board of Education meeting and to speak there to the devastation that these cuts will have on our schools."
Another speaker was from KOCO, the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization...
The speech was by Jawanza Malone, Executive director of KOCO, parent and activist:
"We are standing out here with you because you are fighting for us. This is ridiculous. Instead of dealing with the problem, problems CPS created, they are attacking you. By attacking you, they are attacking us. By attacking you, they are attacking neighborhoods, attacking our schools.
"When they push you out, (CPS) is setting up to close our schools. Sending our babies out of the neighborhoods where they are in harm's way. Why is this happening? Why do we have people in Springfield and on the fifth floor fighting against us and people taking money out of our pockets and into their pockets? They are getting rich off of our backs. We are the ones suffering everyday because of them. We're the ones dying in the streets everyday because of them, It's not a mystery what's happening. They set the policies and make the decisions that destroy our lives. Keep fighting!
Another speaker was Carlos Rosa, a newly elected alderman from the 34th Ward:
"This is the power of the regular people of the city of Chicago," Rosa told the crowd. "The people of Chicago are ...organized and powerful so they would not take cuts lying down. They are fighting back right before July 4th when our Mayor 's school board issued $200 Billion in cuts and announced the lay off 1,400 educators. I felt that I have to get out of my district and go downtown to join the teachers that fighting back. Our children have paid enough. It's time for the super wealthy to pay their fair share. In the state of Illinois 2/3 of the corporations pay no affective taxes. When a family in the 34th ward buy a gallon of milk,they pay taxes but when milk is bought on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, they don't pay any taxes.
"So Michael Sch's bottom line shouldn't be any concern of the Board of Education or City of Chicago. Our children should be the bottom line of the Board of Education and city of Chicago. So where there is a will, there is a way. I'm letting you know that among you here and cetain aldermen and elected officials, there is a will and there is a will and a way to ask the rich to pay their fair share. We need the rich to pay a financial transaction tax like in New York, stop loop holes and make corporations pay Income taxes. The rich must pay their fair share because we have paid enough!"
Chris Barrett a unionized charter school teacher spoke also. . "There are about 10-30 of us here. The last two days of school 17 educators from Urban Prep were fired, mostly black educators. They were fired because sixty percent of the teachers at Urban Prep voted for a union Urban Prep has also been using public tax dollars to union bust. We need the support of the people here to rally against the firing of the seventeen teachers."
The Chicago Sun-Times, in its report, underestimated the number of protesters and acted as if the entire march was focused on cuts in special education personnel, when, as the speeches show, that focus was much broader. The Chicago Tribune virtually ignored the event, providing its readers with nothing more than a photograph.
BELOW IS THE SUN-TIMES STORY. THE ONLY MENTION IN THE TRIBUNE PRINT EDITION WAS A PHOTOGRAPH WITH A BRIEF CAPTION...
As teachers picket, some worry about special ed cuts. WRITTEN BY BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK AND JORDYN HOLMAN POSTED: 07/02/2015, 10:58AM
Annie Tan marched in front of City Hall Thursday morning in her red Chicago Teachers Union shirt, appalled at the mayor�s proposed cuts to the services her special education students need.
Tan, who�s taught second- and third-grade special education students at Finkl Elementary School, stood up for the district�s most vulnerable students who are among the targets of Rahm Emanuel�s budget cuts.
In addition to 1,050 total staff layoffs at Chicago Public Schools, some 350 vacant positions won�t be filled, Emanuel said this week, a consequence of the cash-strapped district�s decision to make its entire $634 million pension payment.
�If they don�t allow for these vacancies to be filled, our jobs become a lot harder as special-needs teachers,� Tan said. �I�ll be trying to service a huge caseload of students. . . . It�s impossible to meet needs.�
With a sign reading, �I don�t want 2B pushed out of teaching, Rahm,� Tan was one of about 75 protesters who walked up and down La Salle Street railing against proposed cuts that include profound changes for the district�s special education students.
CPS still could not provide details Thursday on how many bureaucrats, operations staff or teachers were getting laid off.
Finkl Elementary teacher Annie Tan (left) marches with CTU staff member Brandon Johnson during the July 2, 2015 picket at Chicago's City Hall. Substance photo by Jean Schwab.SEIU Local 73 official Matt Brandon said that 310 of their special education classroom assistants � whose salaries average about $30,000 � were getting pink-slipped. Some 30 security guards and 20 night watchmen also lost their jobs. Of the 300 vacancies that won�t be filled at CPS, 115 of them are Local 73 members, he said.
But the union already knew that 200 bus monitors and 63 �child welfare attendants� were getting phased out as of June 30, Brandon said.
Jesse Ruiz, CPS� interim CEO, agreed that �these cuts are painful and intolerable,� but blamed Springfield for them.
�We urge CTU leaders and members to join us in concentrating our energy on the one place that can partner on a comprehensive solution to close our $1.1 billion budget gap and prevent even deeper, more painful cuts: Springfield,� he said.
Ruiz said Wednesday, alongside the mayor who appointed him, that CPS would try to move more of its special education students to their neighborhood schools. Many are at special cluster programs.
Ruiz also said that CPS� special education staffing exceeds state standards and will get �rightsized,� for a savings of $42.3 million, including $14 million from closing out about 200 empty positions.
CTU recording secretary Kristine Mayle, a special education teacher, said it sounds like CPS is canceling special ed clusters � programs in a single school with extra social workers and psychologists and expert teachers that serve children from neighboring schools � and funneling those children back into general education settings. And that idea is �astoundingly crazy,� she said.
�We do have qualified teachers who can do it, but the level of service isn�t going to be there because [the clusters have] a concentrated group of kids so they can divert those resources to those kids,� Mayle said.
�I can�t believe parents won�t be outraged when they hear about this,� she said. �Why are they picking on those kids?�
Monica Serrano, mother of a rising second-grader at Ravenswood Elementary School who has a plan for his medical condition, stopped on La Salle Street on her way to work to lament the loss of one particular special education worker who helped her family navigate the system.
�She�s not in the position based on the email I received yesterday at 4:15,� Serrano said. �While I am sure that there are wonderful other people at CPS central, she was the only one I could say is effective and good at her job and understands the nuance of the issues.�
Contributing: Fran Spielman
Comments:
By: George N. Schmidt
Our reporters count accurately... Trolls get deleted...
Substance reporters count crowds accurately, and I am not surprised that some corporate media might undercount an activity that took place over the better part of an hour. As the old stand by goes: We stand by our story.
The troll who again attacked the union has been deleted. He's been ranting and raving anonymously for years, and so we just hit DELETE whenever he comes up out of the outhouse hole where he lurks to take spray -- or try to spray -- his fecal materials on the rest of us. He's been a union traitor since he was delegate from Orr High School and twice betrayed his fellow teachers, first by approving the "small schools" fraud (which cost teachers' jobs) and then by trying to go along with the "turnaround" fraud (which ultimately cost not only his brothers and sisters but himself the jobs).
There is a kind of classic justice in all that, but sadly not for those men and women whose union "delegate" back then (during the Marilyn Stewart days) praised and sucked up to each new twist and turn of corporate "school reform."
By: Margaret Wilson
Layoffs
What they're talking about is insane! Special Educational students often need more services not less!! No teacher can successful teach in a classroom with 45 to 50 students.
First of all, it's a fire hazard and second, it will mean to teach to the "average student" ignoring both the gifted students and those with special needs.
By: Theresa D. Daniels
Anti-union illiteracy of the first comment here
While the media said there were 50, or 75,or 100 people at the protest, this article had the true number at 200. I appreciated the analysis of the effect on special ed of the new cuts the Board is making. What about all this made the writer self-named Abracadabra of the first comment after the article write his nonsense: Union luring people to protest? Or was it go to Hawaii with SB7? "Without a knowledge"? Illiterate anti-union ignorance here.