By Lotty Blumenthal

Clare Munana chaired the opening session of March 22, 2006 Chicago Board of Education meeting in the absence of President Michael Scott. She started having Arne Duncan read an elegy for Pamela Dyson who had a long career in CPS, ending as principal of two schools. Then, she led a moment of standing silence for the two students in the Englewood area who were killed by gunfire. Then the four teachers in CPS who were Apple Foundation Awardees were honored.

Then public participation began.

Elvia Rodriguez of Pilsen Academy spoke against the UNO charter school to be added to the Pilsen community. She is the LSC Chair at Pilsen Academy and said she also spoke for Oroszco Academy and Cooper Dual Language. She asked why no correct feasibility study was done. She said the reason given for creating this new charter school was that surrounding schools were “overcrowded.” Of course, this is untrue or contrary to fact (or a lie). She gave numbers for the three schools, stating that they were not overcrowded and had been declining in enrollment for the last five years. This fact is true for ten of the 11 schools in the area, four of which are Catholic, she said.

Pastor Charles Dahm of St Pius Church, and representing three other Catholic Schools, spoke next. Like the previous speaker, he said the surrounding schools of this new charter are not overcrowded and have had declining enrollment for the past five years. The length of decline should have been noticed. The Pastor had written letters from the three Catholic School Principals saying they were against this charter. He had written copies of CPS’ own statistics showing a decline in enrollment for five years. He had a letter signed by 15 school principals in this area saying that they had not been notified about hearings on the matter, as well as other community organization people. Any hearing held had not placed a public notice, which he felt might be against the law. He begged and implored that the Board change the location.

At this point, the Board was hearing from its Demographics Department staff (James Dispensa) about both challenges to its credibility. The claim that the area was “overcrowded” was not true, and the hearing notification had been challenged. Dispense tried to differ with the pastor. Munana asked them to discuss this outside, and give her back a report since there seemed to be a discrepancy in information given to the Board. Many felt the issue could have been resolved then and there. Who would you believe — the department that has had wrong numbers since it presented the case for closing Doolittle West two years ago (and turning that into a charter school) or 15 Principals, four of whom are Catholic school principals. Pastor Dahm and the others had his facts in writing. CPS’ staffers did not.

The protest, for those who were trying to follow the argument, was against an action the Board of Education had already taken. At its February 22 meeting, the Board had voted to allow the UNO charter school to add two “campuses”, one of them located at 1641 W. 16th St. The 16th St. campus was being added supposedly to relieve overcrowding in Pilsen schools. (According to the Board Report, with the expansion, next school year the UNO charter schools will be costing $11.5 million).

While the Pilsen people left the Board chambers with several officials, Raquel Rodriguez ,LSC, and Principal Jose Barrera of Columbia Explorers Elementary School said that they have been handling their school’s overcrowding successfully, and that they do not wish to go on a year-round schedule which would cause chaos for families and the community. They had a petition which over 1,000 signatures. They asked the Board reconsider putting them on year-round schedule.

Next Alfred Rodgers of the Southwest Latino Organization spoke. He asked that enrollment be stopped at Gage Park High School whose area is overcrowded. He also mentioned that Tarkington School was shortchanged on its budget from the Board. He talked of the lack of Latinos being employed in administration downtown.

Harlan High School parents (above) returned to the April 2006 Chicago Board of Education to continue reporting on the violence at the school caused by the Board’s closing of the 9th grade at Calumet High School in September 2004. At the March meeting (reported in the accompanying text), students spoke movingly about their fears at Harlan. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt  

Alice Hill-Richards of the National Coalition of ESEA Title 1 Parents thanked the absent Scott and Board for supporting them. Duncan received an award for his contribution.

Wayne Stephans — who said he was representing “the no longer silent majority” at Simeon High School, a classroom teacher — stated that the LSC had selected a principal. He said that this was with the wishes of the majority of teachers and followed all rules outlined in state law. The vote was nine to one and the four-year contract signed in front of CPS officials. However, he said, every attempt at a smooth transition for the selected principal from the interim sitting principal (selected by downtown CPS) has been sabotaged by a small group of supporters of the interim principal. Mr. Stephans said there’s no conflict with the interim, but with the adults who have their own agenda. He said they obeyed all the rules, and the new administration should be taking over. James Deanes of the central administration said that he worked with Designs for Change to bring about the orderly selection of a principal. He would bring any evidence if there’s any to the Board of impropriety.

Following Stephans, the Simeon discussion became a bit more graphic. Jackie White-Turner, a Simeon parent, said she felt that the school has been on probation because conditions have not been monitored — including talk in class about oral sex, bikini waxes, and nude photos on computers. She waited in a class where students were working computers for 15 minutes with no adult present. The next day, she said, the same teacher was sleeping in class and not supervising for 15 or 20 minutes at the end of the class. The parent had reported this to the AIO and the principal. She faxed papers about this and money to Central office officials, including Duncan and has had no response.

Next, an individual identified as Ysmin of the Simeon Alumni represented those who want to keep the interim principal and feel that the LSC has not followed the correct procedure. He felt the LSC was responsible for not leading the school properly and was responsible for misused money and poor conditions at the school (apparently no one has given him a job description for school administrators). He felt the LSC ignored the alumni and some parents.

Donald Pittman, head of high schools for CPS, said he’d work with Mr. Deanes and both groups who had reported to the AIO to investigate the groups’ problems. He said his area was about the teacher and classes while Mr. Deanes was the person in charge of elections.

Following Ysmin, Simeon continued. Angela McMiller of Simeon listed what she and her husband perceived were violations by the LSC in the selection process. She too had mailed copies to everyone and CPS. Munana took notes throughout the testimony and thanked all for coming. Outside in the hall, parents argued about what White-Turner had said. Some parents had not heard of any of these conditions.

Dwayne Truss, an Austin TAC Member, said that Austin’s “educational structure was in disarray, and the Chicago Board of Education was” the cause of it. When students were transferred when Austin was closed to freshman, the TAC asked for a monitoring system that would show their attendance, reading scores, behavior and progress. CPS did not do this. Instead, he referred to the Sun-Times article (March 14,2006) showing the city wide results of sending large numbers (200 or more) to schools five to seven miles away from the sending school. Mr. Truss did not mention that the logistically challenged Board did not send the books, teachers or special resources for the students first. He also said their statistical reason for shutting Austin was because students opted to go to other schools out of the Austin area was faulty. Since Austin holds 2,000 or fewer students — and the area has 5,162 students — many must go to other areas (also that is the whole idea of integration, an alien concept to CPS). He said the “whole concept of closing the schools was flawed” since the test scores and other data from the feeder schools showed the problem was in the feeder elementary schools (CPS has a problem correctly analyzing data and being able to tell valid from invalid).

Munana graciously thanked Truss for his seven-page copy of the information. Duncan said that previously Austin’s attendance was low, 76% and at schools student wish to attend it’s in the 90’s. He said some statistics were available from his aide, David Pickens. Many observers noted that it is hard to believe that students with attendance problems would improve with no personal intervention except being sent more than six miles away from home with no transportation — as the Austinites were.

Following the Austin information, Leroy Kennedy and Christine Perkins of the Grand Boulevard Federation in Bronzeville who presented seven critical elements for successful schools. Their seven elements included welcoming buildings, ample resources, enough energetic teachers, preparation for jobs or college, prepared administrations, involved parents.