Chalkbeat

Who’s the boss? Chicago principals report to many different people.

2024-02-27T20:48:12+00:00

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During Femi Skanes’ 10 years as a Chicago principal, her boss was primarily a district official known as a network chief, she said. Alan Mather, who was also a principal for a decade, says he answered to then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan.

Many principals in Chicago also feel their Local School Council, or LSC, is a boss, while others view the council as more of a partner.

Principals are the leaders of their schools and staff. But in Chicago, multiple entities have power over principals. Later this year, Chicagoans will begin electing school board members, marking another shift in control over the city’s school system, which has been run by the mayor and a hand-picked CEO since 1995 and by a decentralized system of elected LSCs since 1988.

The city’s principals have unionized in hopes of creating more job protections for a role that has seen high turnover in recent years.

“Right now it’s kind of the wild wild west,” said Cynthia Barron, program coordinator and assistant professor with UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program. “We’re kinda all waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Barron, who spent more than three decades at CPS, said she doesn’t foresee immediate changes as a result of unionization or an elected school board. But, given that details around the future principals union contract and the elected school board are still being ironed out, she said there are “so many unknowns.”

How Chicago principals ended up with many bosses

Those unknowns — as the principals union takes root and the city moves to an elected school board — may disrupt an already complicated hierarchy.

As it stands now, a Chicago principal’s direct supervisor is the head of their network — the geographic area their school is organized under — and they are also accountable to their Local School Council, or LSC, a unique-to-Chicago elected body at most schools made up of parents, teachers, students, and community members, that can hire principals. Both have different hiring and firing powers.

Local School Councils were created in 1988 under the state’s Chicago School Reform Act, which gave LSCs the power to hire principals, approve school budgets, and approve annual school improvement plans.

The state amended that law in 1995 in an effort to centralize and improve the city’s school system. Lawmakers voted to keep LSCs but mandated training for them. The changes also gave the mayor sole authority over appointing the school board and replaced the superintendent title with “chief executive officer” — which stands today.

Today, LSCs can hire a principal and offer them a four-year contract. They can decide to keep the principal or fire them when their contract is up for renewal.

Network chiefs, on the other hand, work for the district and are tasked with ensuring that schools are complying with district policies and meeting academic and instructional goals, according to interviews with school leaders. Network chiefs answer to district leaders who report to the CEO, the Board of Education president, and the mayor. School leaders can also turn to their chiefs when they need extra support.

Both chiefs and LSCs use a similar rubric to evaluate principals annually. Only network chiefs can fire principals at any time for just cause.

Though LSCs hold power over principals, they do not have the same connection to district officials and the school board that a network chief does. It’s also not clear how they’ll interact with the school board once it expands and includes elected members.

Froy Jimenez is a member of the city’s Local School Council Advisory Board, which the state created to advise the Board of Education. Jimenez, a teacher and LSC member at Hancock College Preparatory High School, said he believes that LSCs and principals are “co-leaders” with the shared goal of supporting students.

“When we look at [the] budget, when we look at curriculum, when we look at any specific need of our school,” Jimenez said, “we’re doing it like we’re collaborating.”

Principals balance multiple interests

Principals’ responsibilities have grown over the past two decades and especially since the pandemic. Today, in addition to being instructional leaders, they’re expected to maintain relationships with students, families, staff, and sometimes elected officials, said Jasmine Thurmond, director of Local School Council principal support at CPS.

Some school leaders appreciate the variety of voices, but others often feel torn between conflicting demands.

One principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, was asked by parents who attended LSC meetings to “publicize or encourage things like picketing or public demonstrations” over a district decision this year to suspend bus service for 5,500 general education students, largely those at selective enrollment and gifted schools.

The principal agreed that the lack of busing has been challenging for many of her students. But she explained to parents and the LSC that publicly protesting the busing decision could put her in hot water with her other boss: the district.

“I have to figure out how I can advocate for the needs of my students and the needs of my families,” she told Chalkbeat, “but in a way that is very respectful of the people that are making these decisions — and that is a really difficult balance to strike.”

She has a good relationship with her LSC, which she said is “fair and reasonable” but also demanding. The council requests a lot of data and presentations. Meeting those needs and building personal relationships can be difficult along with all of her other responsibilities as a school leader, she said.

Ryan Belville, principal of McAuliffe Elementary School, said he has a close bond with his LSC that grew during the pandemic, when they worked hand-in-hand to make sure students and families had what they needed. Belville said the LSC has also held him accountable “to serve the school community effectively.”

“I really see why LSCs were developed and why they were put into action,” Belville said. “It’s something we’re very fortunate to have in Chicago.”

Sometimes the LSC wields its power, as Hancock College Preparatory High School did last year when it decided not to renew its principal’s contract in the face of student and teacher opposition.

But there are limits to an LSC’s authority.

At Jones College Prep, the LSC voted in 2022 to recommend the district fire then-principal Joseph Powers based on various allegations, including that he was ignoring problematic teachers and was not addressing issues around gender and racial discrimination. His contract was not up for renewal at the time, so the LSC could not fire him outright.

CEO Pedro Martinez declined to fire Powers, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence. Later that year, CPS put Powers on leave after a student dressed in a Nazi uniform was seen goose-stepping in the school’s Halloween parade. Powers then retired.

One Chicago elementary school principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said that contract renewal time can sometimes feel political. She must ensure that she’s keeping “these X number of people happy or satisfied” so that she can keep her job. At the same time, she wishes she had “more robust” feedback from her LSC, which she thinks is lacking at her school because people often don’t have time to participate — an issue many LSCs face.

On Chicago’s West Side, the LSC at Oscar DePriest Elementary School is working on ensuring enough participation on its council. It is also figuring out how it will work with the school’s new principal, whom it hired in November after interviews and a candidate forum, said Wallace Wilbourn, a teacher and LSC member.

He wants the LSC to have a greater voice on the school’s curriculum, its culture, and how it approaches assessments.

But he’s already seen that many people are trying to hold the principal accountable. Ever since being hired, Wilbourn said, his principal has had to spend a lot of time in meetings with the network.

Network chiefs, top CPS officials hold power

Barron, with UIC, said the relationship between a network chief and principal more closely resembles a typical employee-manager relationship: The two work together on a leadership plan that has goals to hit throughout the year.

Skanes, who was the principal of Morgan Park High School until 2022, always viewed her network chief as her main supervisor. Feedback from the network chief was sometimes “attached to next steps, even in terms of promotion and opportunities,” she said.

The Chicago elementary school principal said the network chief is looking for things at the school that parents or community members may not have expertise in, such as best teaching practices, she said. Her LSC is more interested in school uniform policies or community events for families, she said.

“I think both of those perspectives are super important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be all one or another.”

A former Chicago principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said most of his network chiefs were good listeners and open to his ideas of how to improve his school. But he also felt pressure from the network to boost certain metrics, such as raising attendance by 10 percentage points, including by visiting student homes.

Those efforts resulted in a lot of pressure on staff and kids at his school who were already experiencing “so much trauma,” he said. After hitting the network’s goal, the principal eased up those efforts, saying it didn’t feel “worth the squeeze and my time and emotional energy.” Attendance rates dropped.

In that case, he decided to “take the heat from the network” because it meant more “sanity” for his school, he said.

A small share of schools have Appointed Local School Councils, or ALSCs, which don’t have the power to hire or fire principals but can provide nonbinding input on who they want to lead their schools. In those cases, the CEO gets final say on hiring a principal.

That was the case for Alan Mather, now the president of the Golden Apple Foundation. He became the principal of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2005 when the school was reopened as a selective enrollment high school. Mather was appointed by then-CEO Arne Duncan and the new school, which drew high-performing students from across the city, did not have an LSC. It wasn’t until his last year at Lindblom that an ALSC was formed, Mather said.

Mather considered Duncan to be his boss and was given a lot of autonomy to craft Lindblom’s culture and academics, such as adopting a year-round schedule during his time.

“It was the CEO who could have removed me at any time,” Mather said. “I was not working under a contract.”

As principals unionize, a question about management

When the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, or CPAA, decided to unionize last year, its president Troy LaRaviere promised to fight for better pay, less focus on bureaucratic tasks, more job security – including the ability to voice opinions publicly without punishment – and more due process when principals face accusations of misconduct.

LaRaviere did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. Another CPAA representative declined to comment, including to confirm whether the union has started bargaining, and deferred to LaRaviere.

The unionization effort could impact how network chiefs discipline and evaluate principals. But huge questions remain.

“We don’t know what is to come,” said Thurmond, from the district. She added that they’re “looking forward to deepening the collaboration” with CPAA to make sure principals are supported, versus the district “being perceived as an enemy.”

Some observers have wondered how a union contract might impact the authority of a network chief or LSC. For instance, will it be tougher for the LSC not to renew a principal’s contract?

Changes to an LSC’s powers, however, would likely require a change to the state law that created them, said Barron, the expert from UIC.

For the district’s part, Thurmond said CPS will continue “empowering LSCs and ALSCs” so that “communities continue to have control of their schools.”

One former principal thinks an elected school board could make LSCs feel redundant or powerless, since board members will represent different parts of the city.

LSCs were created when there wasn’t an elected board and are seen by some as mini-school boards at individual schools. But come January 2025, the Chicago Board of Education will be made up of 10 members elected by their communities and 11 members appointed by the mayor.

“If we have an elected school board of 21 and you have them passing resolutions saying we’re doing this, this and this,” he wondered, “then what does the LSC have the autonomy to say and do if it’s all coming from downtown?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education votes to remove police officers from schools

2024-02-23T03:12:51+00:00

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During a meeting in which tempers flared and community members argued over the merits of school police, Chicago’s Board of Education voted Thursday to eliminate all school police officers by the next academic year and create a new “holistic” school safety policy.

The board approved a resolution that directs Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to draft a school safety policy by June 27 that explicitly bans school resource officers, or SROs, from campuses. These officers are trained and employed by the Chicago Police Department, but the district covers their salaries.

The district’s new school safety policy must instead emphasize more “holistic” approaches to student discipline, such as restorative justice practices, the resolution said. Such practices, which focus on conflict resolution instead of punishment, have replaced sworn officers in some schools over the past few years. The resolution approved Thursday will directly impact the 39 high schools that currently have a total of 57 SROs.

The board’s decision — which drew dozens of public speakers, including 20 elected officials — addresses a yearslong grassroots movement that has pushed the district to remove SROs from school campuses. Advocates instead want the district to spend more money on social workers, mental health resources, and practices focusing on conflict resolution. A recent study found that schools implementing restorative justice practices saw drops in student arrests. Students also reported feeling more safe.

But the decision drew significant pushback as well, including from several city aldermen, who argued that schools in their communities feel safer when officers are on campus.

At one point during Thursday’s meeting, former school board member and community activist Dwayne Truss sparred with audience members over his criticism of the board’s decision — causing advocates to chant “SROs, we want you out.” Truss was on the board when it decided to let Local School Councils vote on whether to keep their officers. He argued that was the most “democratic” solution at the time and still is today.

Truss, who is Black, accused the Board of Education of “telling Black folks, ‘We know what’s best for you.’”

In defending the board’s decision, Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said it was fulfilling a 2020 promise from the previous board, which committed to phasing SROs out of schools. The board’s goal is to reduce disparities among those who are disciplined at school, she said. Calls to police disproportionately involve students with disabilities and Black students, who are also disproportionately suspended, compared to their peers, according to the resolution.

The board has discussed the policy change for several months with the district and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, Todd-Breland said, noting that it’s “about more than just SROs.”

“This is a shift, and this shift to a model of holistic safety is really necessary for all of our schools, not just schools that currently have SROs,” Todd-Breland said. “Continuing the district’s progress in moving from a more punitive approach to a holistic, healing centered approach is evidence-based work.”

Board member Rudy Lozano Jr. said the district will still rely on the Chicago Police Department to help with arrival and dismissal and to respond to emergencies. In response to criticism about pulling power away from LSCs, board member Tanya D. Woods said state law requires the district to “deal with discipline disparities.”

Makayla Acevedo, a junior at Hyde Park Academy and a member of Southside Together Organizing for Power, or STOP, said officers at her school don’t stop the many fights that break out. She wants to see the funding for SRO salaries go toward more career programming at her school, such as for nursing training, as well as restorative justice programming.

“I just feel like we just really need those funds, to invest all of that money to get the programs in order for all students … to be successful in life and reach their dreams,” Acevedo said.

The district has spent nearly $4 million on “alternative safety interventions,” such as restorative justice, at 14 schools where SROs have already been removed, according to the resolution.

After the meeting, Martinez said, “We actually have not paid for any of these services for CPD for the last three years. We weren’t even going to pay for this year.” A district spokesperson later confirmed that although money was allocated, no payments have been made to the police department since 2020, when schools went remote during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longstanding tensions come to a head

The movement to remove SROs grew in 2019, when the Chicago Police Department was placed under a federal consent decree. The next year, after protests over Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, the district asked LSCs to vote on whether they wanted to keep SROs.

But the resolution has exposed long-simmering tensions.

At Thursday’s meeting, arguments erupted between Truss and audience members from organizations that have long pushed for the district to remove SROs. Those organizations include Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Good Kids Mad City, and STOP.

As they yelled at each other, the board called a brief recess and cleared the room for several minutes.

Truss cited recent shootings outside three Chicago schools that left four students dead, and argued that some communities may feel the need to keep police at schools in order to feel safe. That sentiment was echoed by several other speakers.

“The fact is that Black folks are tired of getting disrespected by folks who don’t live in our community,” said Truss.

Ald. Monique Scott, whose 24th Ward represents North Lawndale on the West Side, said the decision needs to be made by local communities. Scott’s brother and predecessor, Michael Scott Jr., replaced Truss on the school board in 2022 and served until the end of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s term last summer.

“Every school doesn’t have to have them, but some schools need them and I think that it should be based on the LSC to determine that,” Scott said.

The district’s Local School Council Advisory Board, charged with advising the Board of Education, “overwhelmingly” approved a resolution Feb. 12 that called for leaving decisions about campus police to LSCs, according to Froy Jimenez, a member of the advisory board and a teacher at John Hancock College Preparatory High School.

The advisory board members were concerned that stripping LSCs of that power chips away their right to make decisions about their schools, Jimenez said. Jimenez noted that his own LSC voted to get rid of the school’s campus police. However, Jimenez said he represents a part of the city “where some schools would want to have [them].”

The board’s decision was celebrated by several advocacy organizations that have rallied for years to stop staffing police in schools, as well as the City Council’s progressive caucus. Several speakers asked the district to spend more money on social workers and boost restorative justice.

Kennedy Bartley, executive director of United Working Families, a progressive political organization, credited Thursday’s vote to the years of advocacy from students and educators, which “built enough political power to elect a mayor with a mandate for transformative change.”

The Chicago Teachers Union, which also supports the change, has submitted a request with the district to bargain over the new school safety policy, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter told the board Thursday. Potter said the union wants several things to be considered in the new policy, including more “trauma supports” and training on restorative practices.

Becky Vevea contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s school board wants to remove police from all schools starting next school year

2024-02-20T19:32:03+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education wants to remove police officers from schools starting next school year, according to a resolution included in the agenda for Thursday’s board meeting.

The resolution directs CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to come up with a new policy by June 27 that would introduce a “holistic approach to school safety” at district schools, such as implementing restorative justice practices, which focus on resolving a conflict instead of punishment.

That policy “must make explicit that the use of [school resource officers] within District schools will end by the start of the 2024-2025 school year,” the resolution said. (Find the resolution on page 15 of your PDF reader.)

The resolution nods to the district’s shift in student discipline to more restorative practices, which has led to “significant progress” in reducing suspensions. However, the resolution notes that disparities in suspension rates are disproportionately higher for students with disabilities and Black students, compared to their Hispanic and white peers.

Most CPS schools don’t have school resource officers who, unlike security guards, are trained and employed by the Chicago Police Department, but are stationed in schools full-time. If passed, the resolution would directly impact 39 schools – all high schools – that have a total of 57 officers on campus, according to the resolution and district officials. Fourteen schools voted to remove a total of 28 officers and instead received a total of $3.9 million for “alternative safety interventions,” including for restorative justice and social service coordinators, the resolution said. CPS also employs more than 1,400 security guards at schools, according to staffing data from the end of December 2023.

Schools that have voted to keep their officers have cited a variety of reasons for doing so, including that in some cases, school resource officers have strong relationships with students. Opponents of police on campus argue that the presence of officers can lead to more punitive student discipline and can leave children feeling unsafe.

Last month, Nadig Newspapers and WBEZ reported that the board was planning to remove Chicago Police Department officers from schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson later confirmed to WBEZ that he’s in support of such a plan.

The resolution, which the board is slated to vote on Thursday, represents Johnson’s hand-picked school board’s clearest statements on removing police officers from Chicago schools. As a mayoral candidate, Johnson had said police officers “have no place in schools,” WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times reported. However, last year, he told the outlet he would leave the decision up to LSCs.

The resolution said the district would continue to partner with the Chicago Police Department, but district officials did not immediately explain what that relationship would look like.

Having police stationed inside Chicago schools came under scrutiny in 2019 as part of the police department’s federal consent decree. In 2020, amid protests and the racial reckoning that swept the country after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, Chicago schools began voting one-by-one on whether or not to keep their school resource officers.

Driven by similar issues, Denver Public Schools removed police from schools in 2020 and 2021, but its work to implement a new school safety policy, as Chicago’s board is seeking, was derailed by the pandemic. The Denver school board reversed its decision last June after a shooting inside a high school.

In 2022, the Chicago school board reduced its contract with the police department from more than $30 million to roughly $10 million and allocated money for schools to implement alternatives to police, such as restorative justice counselors. The contract was renewed last summer for $10.3 million and about $4 million to improve school climate was separately allocated to schools that had removed their officers.

Research from the University of Chicago released last fall found an improvement in student engagement and a decline in suspensions at schools that had implemented restorative practices in recent years.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools plans to end Aramark cleaning contract

2024-02-13T01:41:10+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools said Monday it is not planning to renew a multi-million dollar deal with Aramark for the management of school janitors and cleaning services after a decade.

The move comes after years of concerns and complaints over school cleanliness from staff, parents, and students.

The school board’s latest agreement with the Philadelphia-based company is set to end June 30, 2024. According to a school board committee agenda posted Monday, the district is asking board members to increase the current contract, which started Aug. 2021, from $369 million to $391 million “due to unforeseen expenditures associated with overtime, custodial supplies and custodial equipment.”

A district spokesperson confirmed Monday the district is not renewing the contract with Aramark and the school board will vote on seven new contracts at its Feb. 22 meeting.

Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer at CPS, said the district is looking forward to more direct oversight of janitorial services and supplies and allowing principals to have more say on school cleaniness. Mayfield said the district will contract with seven vendors for custodial services. He said he doesn’t anticipate any job losses with this change.

CPS employs more than 1,000 custodians, according to staffing records updated at the end of December.

“We had an opportunity to renew at Aramark and we opted not to,” said Mayfield. “There were some challenges there, but they’ve also been great partners over a number of years. Sometimes change happens.”

A spokesperson for Aramark wrote in a statement that the company was disappointed to not be selected to continue providing facility services for CPS.

“We are proud of the efforts of our dedicated employees and are committed to ensuring a smooth transition to the school district’s new provider,” said Chris Collom, Aramark’s vice president of corporate communications.

Chicago Public Schools first contracted with Aramark in 2014. Budget officials at the time promised that outsourcing the management of school cleaning would save money and ease the burden on school principals.

But the deal backfired in the first school year when staff returned from summer break to dirty classrooms and, in some buildings, fewer custodians. Then-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett admitted the shift to privatized management of custodians was not going smoothly and the board reversed nearly 500 planned layoffs. By the spring of 2015, the contract with Aramark had gone millions of dollars over budget, WBEZ reported.

The union representing school janitors called the move a victory for its members. SEIU Local 73 — the union that also represents school employees such as special education classroom assistants, bus aides, and crossing guards — has been meeting with the district’s facilities department for almost three years to raise concerns about Aramark’s management of equipment and supplies for custodial staff.

Stacia Scott Kennedy, executive vice president of SEIU, said she is thrilled the contract is over.

“I feel hopeful that this change in management will improve the outcomes of cleanliness,” said Scott Kennedy. “I also feel hopeful that it’ll improve the working conditions of our members who have suffered under private contract with management for the last 10 years.”

SEIU Local 73 has been in contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools since its contract ended June 30, 2023. One of the union’s economic proposals was to ask the district to get rid of the contract with Aramark. Scott Kennedy said they will keep the proposal as negotiations continue.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools enrollment climbs as more migrant families arrive

2024-02-08T23:43:51+00:00

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More than 5,700 newly arrived immigrant students have enrolled in Chicago Public Schools since the beginning of the school year, district officials said Thursday.

Preliminary school enrollment data updated daily on the city data portal and analyzed by Chalkbeat shows overall enrollment increased by 4,500 students since the official count on the 20th day of school in September. After more than a decade of decline, CPS saw its enrollment stabilize this school year.

“The number is fluid and evolving,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said Thursday. “Our principals and teachers and school communities have been incredibly welcoming to the students and their families.”

His comments came during a virtual press conference about a new volunteer coordination effort launched by the City of Chicago aimed at supporting migrant families. It also comes after city officials once again delayed its plan to enforce a 60-day shelter stay limit on migrant families.

Publicly available data does not reveal how many CPS students are migrants or how many are living in city shelters. District officials said they do not collect information about the immigration status of students or their families “to support the City of Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance.”

Preliminary enrollment data analyzed by Chalkbeat indicates nearly 7,000 more students have been identified as English language learners since the end of September, when the district officially counted enrollment. English language learners can include both newly arrived immigrants, as well as students already living in Chicago.

Last school year, English language learners made up about one-fifth of all students; a decade ago, these students made up roughly 16% of CPS.

Last month, educators, union officials, and some local lawmakers raised concerns about schools without enough bilingual staff and other resources struggling to meet those students’ language and mental health needs.

District officials said Thursday that just under 6% of schools are lacking teachers with necessary ESL or bilingual credentials. Karime Asaf, the district’s chief of language and cultural education, said officials are prioritizing those roughly 30 schools — which officials did not identify — “for any kind of services or resources.”

Asaf said schools are working to get more teachers certified to teach English learners. District officials said they’ve allocated a total of $8 million to schools that saw increases in English learners since the 20th day of school.

Martinez said around 600 teachers are currently working toward getting bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsements.

Martinez said currently 7,200 teachers have these qualifications, up from about 5,100 teachers in 2018. However, bilingual staffing can vary by school, and often support staff, such as social workers, are not bilingual. CPS does provide a 24/7 language interpretation hotline that schools can call to get assistance communicating with families, but some parents have said they’ve struggled to communicate with schools or understand their school options when it’s time to move.

Students who are homeless — those in shelters, living doubled up somewhere, or living in a public place — have a right to remain at their school even if they move out of the school’s boundary and are entitled to transportation provided by the district, such as free CTA passes. By state law, if a school enrolls 20 or more students who speak a language other than English, the school must set up a bilingual education program with qualified staff. Asaf said this is “a multi-year process.”

“Generally, the challenge we have is when families just walk up to our buildings and we always tell our schools: Enroll the families. And then we have a process to work with those families to make sure we find the nearest program,” Martinez said.

The district also has bi-weekly meetings with staff at the city’s largest temporary shelters that are housing migrants, to “make sure that our families understand that there’s always a way to connect with the Chicago Public Schools … to make sure all their questions are answered,” Asaf said. She added that most school leaders attend these meetings.

Martinez said CPS is planning to hire newcomer adults who have received work authorization for “critical needs” at schools, including as custodians, as well as positions in transportation, nutrition, and classroom support.

Many of Chicago’s migrant families have been searching for work but need authorization to obtain jobs legally. Axios reported that about 1,000 newcomers have received work permits as of late January, four months after the federal government expanded eligibility to nearly half a million immigrants from Venezuela, where political and economic turmoil has pushed many residents to leave.

“We were proactive working with the city to say, since we know we have these families who are looking for jobs, we have many openings,” Martinez told reporters on Thursday. “We are now just trying to make it easier for our families to be able to apply for these different jobs.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org. Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

As Chicago gets its first elected school board, Local School Councils may become a proving ground for candidates

2024-02-08T16:32:48+00:00

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect an extension to the deadline for candidates to file paperwork to run for LSC. It is now Wednesday, Feb. 14.

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In the halls of Uplift Community High School, Karonda Locust is known as “Mama T.”

“If you need help, go tell my mom,” her daughter Tiara, now 23, would tell her friends when she was a student there.

“That’s how I got stuck here,” Locust said with a laugh on a recent Monday.

For four years while her daughter attended Uplift, Locust served as a parent representative on the school’s Local School Council, the governing body of community members, parents, and school staff that make decisions about the school’s budget and academic plan and evaluate the school’s leaders. Locust has also served on the LSC at Willa Cather Elementary school, where her youngest daughter still attends, for nine years.

For Locust, the LSC was a gateway to more involvement in the school.

“That’s how it should be,” said Locust’s sister Taschaunda Hall, who is also an active member of the Cather’s LSC and briefly served on the LSC at Uplift as well.

Chicago’s LSCs are unique and powerful. There’s nothing quite like them in other school districts across the U.S. The Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 established that every CPS-run school would have a Local School Council. Today LSCs are made up of six parents, two teachers, two community members, a student representative, and the school’s principal.

But while the first LSC elections in 1989 had over 17,000 candidates, those numbers have plummeted over the years. The last LSC elections in 2022 saw just over 6,000 applicants, but voter turnout was at its strongest in a decade, with students making up the majority of the 110,700 voters.

Still, LSC members have successfully advocated for change and improvements and many believe the councils are the key to better schools across the city.

Now, with Chicago’s Board of Education adding elected seats for the first time this year and transitioning to a fully elected board in 2026, LSCs may become a sort of proving ground for positions with a broader reach.

“I do predict many of our LSC members may put their hat in the ring,” said Kishasha Ford, director of the CPS LSC Relations office. “Our LSC members [are] very well-equipped to do this work because they have some experience being on a kind of a board, because if you think about it, LCSs are like mini school boards for their local school.”

Elections for these “mini school boards’' are happening again this spring. The deadline to run for LSC is 3 p.m. next Wednesday, Feb. 14 and election day for elementary schools is April 10 and April 11 for high schools, with new two-year terms of office beginning July 1, 2024.

As of Feb. 1, 1,902 people had filed to run for LSC, according to district officials. At the same time last election cycle in 2022, 852 people had applied.

Over the decades, LSCs have changed the names of schools named after enslavers, removed controversial leadership, won capital improvements, even helped open new schools. Others have sat mostly empty, served as little more than a rubber stamp, or been rendered ineffective by infighting and conflicting interests.

It depends on who’s running the ship, says Kendra Snow, the lead parent organizer for grassroots organization Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

Studies showing that parent involvement in schools can have a major impact on student outcomes are abundant, but for LSCs to be effective, Snow argues, parents have to do more than just show up, they have to be informed.

But the “showing up” part is still a major part of the battle.

After elections in 2022, over a thousand LSC positions were unfilled and according to CPS data, 311 schools still have vacancies on their councils. Still, according to CPS, 97% of LSCs had enough members to meet “quorum,” which requires that seven members be present for the LSC to vote and conduct business.

Chalkbeat caught up with four parents who have served on LSCs, where they called for improvements and guided their schools through challenges. Their experiences demonstrate what LSCs are capable of, some of the reasons parents may be opting out, and how the role of LSCs may shift as Chicago gets an elected school board.

The mom who wants to open LSCs to more people

Karonda Locust (right), a current LSC parent representative at Willa Cather Elementary School and former LSC parent representative at Uplift Community High School, stands with her sister, Taschaunda Hall (left), on the playground outside Cather.

Karonda Locust is decked out in the red and black of Willa Cather Elementary school on a recent Monday morning. Today, she’s helping out at the security check-in at the front doors before heading to work, but “I’m always there, everywhere,” she says.

She chats easily with staff and students and no one questions her presence as she walks the halls. They all know who she is.

Locust has served on the LSC at Cather alongside her sister Taschaunda Hall for nine years. When her eldest daughter moved on to Uplift Community High School in 2019, she joined the LSC there as well. For four years, she served on both LSCs at the same time.

Her time on the LSC at Uplift helped her forge relationships with the staff and kids and she continues to volunteer there even though her daughter has graduated. That’s the point of LSCs, she said, to invest in not just your own kids, but the school community as a whole.

That’s why in 2022 when her daughter was a senior at Uplift, she and her daughter (who sat on the LSC as a student representative) advocated for a bus service to bring in more students from the West Side. Her own daughter would never benefit from it, but other kids would.

Now, a bus picks up kids from Cather Elementary to bring them to Uplift, giving West Side kids a chance to attend the school without leaving parents to figure out the hour-and-a-half commute.

“That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of – that we were able to bring kids from other neighborhoods to Uplift and they can have that experience as well,” said Locust.

With the first Chicago Board of Education elections happening later this year, Locust said several friends and community members have asked her to run for a seat, but she doesn’t have the time.

Instead, now that her daughter has graduated – she earned a scholarship to study education at Truman College and plans to become a teacher – Locust is shifting some of her focus to advocating for changes to the structures and rules of LSCs.

Some of the requirements for serving on LSCs, she says, are keeping people out.

When Locust herself was a teen mother, she had a hard time making it to her daughters’ school events. In her stead, she often sent grandparents or aunts or uncles, any way to make sure her kids felt supported. But none of those family members could run for the LSC as a parent representative – and none lived within the school’s neighborhood boundaries, making them ineligible to serve as a community representative.

Family structures have changed in the past three decades, said Locus, and she wants to open up LSCs to more family members outside of the traditional parent-child paradigm.

“We’re actually losing out on opportunities for family members that could support the school because of the structure that was created over 30 years ago,” said Locust. “This is a non-paid position, so if somebody wants to serve and help my kids’ school, God bless ‘em.”

She also hopes to end the fingerprinting and background check requirements for LSC parents, saying it alienates parents with criminal records and scares off parents who are undocumented, though, barring convictions for certain offenses, both are legally allowed to serve on LSCs.

The veteran LSC leader who built a new school

José Quiles, a community representative on LSCs at Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, Belmont-Cragin Elementary School in Belmont-Cragin, speaks inside of a classroom on Fri., Jan. 25, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

José Quiles has served on LSCs since they were first created in 1989. In his 35 years as a parent representative and then as a community representative, he’s seen it all.

The stories roll out of him with ease on a recent Thursday as he leads a Local School Council information session at the Belmont-Cragin not-for-profit organization he founded in 2015, the Education Community Committee (ECC).

He currently sits on LSCs at three schools – Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, and Belmont-Cragin Elementary School – and when he’s not conducting LSC business, he’s teaching other people in the neighborhood how to join their LSCs and get things done on them.

In the workshops at ECC, they talk about things like how to read a budget and the rules and expectations for LSC members.

But what he hones in on and repeats over and over in the workshops is that the LSC is about the kids. All of the kids, not just their own.

That’s what sustained the eight-year movement he helped lead to get a new school built in Belmont-Cragin, he said – knowing that it was what the kids in the area needed.

“Belmont-Cragin started because Mary Lyon had 1800 kids,” said Quiles.

Initially, to address the overcrowding, some of the Mary Lyon kids were sent to a nearby site on Mango St. that was formerly the Catholic school St. James. When it became clear that the principal at Mary Lyon was struggling to oversee both school facilities, the LSC requested a separate principal and LSC to separate the school from Mary Lyon altogether, thereby creating a new school.

“Basically, we gave birth to it,” he said with a laugh.

Amid the swath of school closures in 2013, the St. James facility was closed and the students were relocated to a site on Palmer St., but the LSC found that there were not enough bathroom facilities for the students.

The LSC and other community organizations began pushing for a new school to be built at Riis Park.

In January 2023, the new Belmont-Cragin Elementary School officially opened in the park, offering 32 classrooms with park views, a black box theater, library, music room, and access to the connected park fieldhouse.

Quiles’ own children and foster children have long since graduated from the schools where he currently serves as community representative on the LSCs.

At 68, he says he wants to retire, but he’s worried that the LSCs aren’t ready for him to do so.

“A strong council moves mountains,” he told participants in Spanish during a recent LSC workshop. “But a weak council goes in no direction. And when you don’t move in any direction, there is no progress.”

That’s what his work with ECC is all about – educating parents so they know what questions to ask and how to push for change, whether on LSCs or as members of the new elected school board or as the voters who put people on those governing bodies.

Despite his insistence that he needs to retire, Quiles still has his ear to the floor at his local schools.

Right now, he says the biggest issues his LSCs are working on are the social emotional impacts of the pandemic on the students and supporting immigrant students and parents.

Advocating for the South Side

Kendra Snow is running for LSC at Christian Fenger Academy High School in Roseland. She is a former LSC member at Harvard Elementary School in Auburn-Gresham.

Back in 2002 when Kendra Snow sat on her first Local School Council at a school in Auburn-Gresham, “it was like a puppet show,” she said.

The principal “hand-picked” the parents she wanted on the council and ran the meetings, quickly going over budget lines. No one asked any questions or knew what anything meant.

“We were just bodies here to put a signature to something,” she said.

Then, Snow began to learn on her own.

“I had to learn this for myself, it’s the parents with the power, and if you want to know something then you read into it the same way she did,” said Snow. “So now I’m the troublemaker, because I challenged things.”

CPS supports LSCs with trainings and office hours, as well as 13 specialists supporting 511 LSCs, according to the department’s director Kishasha Ford.

There is a 300-page manual for LSC members and online modules as well as in-person trainings, said Ford.

“That’s the biggest part of our job is the education piece.” she said. “Because it is a lot to know and we can’t expect every single LSC member to know every single nuanced thing. That’s why we’re here to help support and to guide them.”

Snow read the manual and did the online modules, but she says, it’s not quite enough.

“You got to just do more than just watch these videos,” she said, suggesting that CPS incorporate questions into the modules to make sure viewers understood the material before moving on to the next video.

She supplemented her CPS training with resources and workshops from community organizations. Now, Snow works to empower other parents so they can have a voice on their LSCs. She is the lead parent organizer with Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

The mother of seven, Snow has been entrenched in public education since her eldest son, now 31, first attended school. In fact, it was when her son was accepted into a school on the North Side that Snow was able to compare his experience there to the schools her other children attended on the South Side.

The biggest difference?

“Resources,” she said. “We’re not fighting the same battles. The resources that are in those schools, we don’t have in our schools.”

In her experience, Snow said parents are angry about the lack of resources and come into the schools shouting about it. She sees it as her job to give them a more effective way to get things done.

“You’re not getting results that way. So now let’s fight a different way for what we need in the school,” she said. “You hit them with policies. You hit them with facts.”

Snow has concentrated her efforts specifically on the South Side where she grew up and where most of her children have attended public schools.

In her work as a CPS-certified LSC trainer, she hopes she can not only encourage more South Side parents to run for LSC seats, but help make sure they are informed and therefore empowered to help improve their schools – one parent at a time, one school at a time.

“Know your power. Know that this is for your kids,” Snow said. “You have to fight for your kids. Just be there. Just show up. It’s a couple hours out of the month. Just show up. That time is worth it for public education.”

Educating fellow parents, ousting a principal

Vanessa Espinoza is former LSC member at Orozco Community Academy in Pilsen.

Vanessa Espinoza has been volunteering in Chicago Public Schools since before she had kids.

When she became a mother and began making friends with other parents, it opened her eyes to some of the inequities and challenges in CPS. Espinoza, who is bilingual, became particularly interested in supporting English language learners as well as students with IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs, to help students with special needs.

She soon joined the LSC at Orozco where her kids were enrolled and was surprised that few of the parent representatives understood the documents and policies they were supposed to be making decisions about.

“Why are you expecting the parents to approve something that they don’t understand totally?” she said. “You gave them the power just to say yes and no, but not do anything else.”

The trainings offered by CPS to parent representatives, she said, were superficial. For example, they teach the names of the budget lines, but not that each budget line can only be used for certain purchases.

“None of that was taught to the parents who were going to make this decision on the budget” she said.

However, Espinoza’s background as a support worker at another school gave her a leg up in this area. And her knowledge of finances turned out to be particularly important on Orozco’s LSC in 2014.

Because she knew how to read the budget, Espinoza soon discovered that the principal at the time was transferring large sums of money between budget lines, something that required approval from the LSC.

So she asked to see all of the reports on the budget and the school’s internal accounts. The principal refused and Espinoza requested an audit. The LSC tried to work with her, Espinoza said, but the principal was not amenable.

“This money’s for the kids. You don’t want to tell us where the money is and how you’re going to use it, then that’s it,” she said. " So we requested her removal.”

The council voted unanimously to remove Principal Nancy Paulette-Aguirre in November 2014.

But it wasn’t an entirely popular decision.

Most of the teachers at the school supported the decision, raising issues about turnover among other things and other LSC members said Paulette-Aguirre refused to work with the council, but non-LSC parents were split. On the day of the vote, 12 parents protested outside the school. Paulette-Aguirre was later removed from a second school in 2019.

“Even though the parents have the power to make significant changes, you have to be able to educate the parents with the information needed to make educated decisions, and [CPS] is not. In my opinion, they’re not.” said Espinoza.

She worries that these same issues might bleed over into the newly elected school board but is still hopeful that parents will gain some of the 10 elected seats this year.

“To have an elected school board that is going to be successful you have to have parents involved,” she said. “They know what their kids need.”

Espinoza’s children have graduated out of CPS, but Espinoza remains an advocate for education and serves as the bilingual communication specialist with Kids First Chicago and as the president and co-founder of Amigos de Gunsaulus, a parent-led non-profit that supports Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy in Brighton Park, where one of her children graduated.

Despite her challenging experience on Orozco’s LSC, she’s hopeful things can change as long as LSCs are filled with people who put the kids first.

“To be honest with you, it’s a lot of responsibilities, and it’s not well rewarded in a sense, not a monetary reward. Sometimes you get enemies,” but, she said, “If in your mind and your heart is the best for the kids’ education, I think you should run.”

Chicago proposes later start date for 2024-25 school year due to Democratic National Convention

2024-02-01T19:58:07+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools has proposed calendars for the next two academic years, pushing next year’s start date back by a week to avoid overlapping with the Democratic National Convention.

The Board of Education is slated to vote on the proposed calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years at its Feb. 22 meeting.

The first day of school for the 2024-25 academic year would be on Aug. 26, about a week later than recent years. The move avoids starting school the same day Chicago is set to begin hosting the Democratic National Convention from Aug. 19-22. The convention is expected to bring in about 75,000 visitors, according to a news release from CPS.

“This shift not only accommodates the city’s logistical needs as they relate to the influx of Conventiongoers, but it also allows time for students to attend, volunteer, and participate in the civic process of hosting the Convention,” district officials said in a press release.

Because of the later start, the first semester next year would also end after a two-week winter break on Jan. 17, 2025. School would end on June 12, 2025, about a week later than this year.

For the 2025-26 school year, the first day would return to the third week of August – on Aug. 18, 2025 – and classes would end June 4, 2026.

Both proposed calendars would continue the recent practice of taking a full week off at Thanksgiving.

The district is asking parents, staff, and students for their feedback. A survey for parents, staff, and other community members will close at 5 p.m. Feb. 7. while a survey that CPS distributed Tuesday to students in grades 6-12 ends at 5 p.m. Feb. 2.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Inspector general’s report prompts Chicago Public Schools to propose changes to device tracking policy

2024-01-17T23:39:41+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is working to improve how schools keep track of electronic devices and other items, in response to an inspector general’s report that found the district had lost more than 77,000 devices.

The proposed changes — some of which were outlined at a school board committee meeting Wednesday — include disciplining staff for failing to abide by the district’s policy for managing school assets, such as devices, and updating policy language to say that training is “mandatory” for staffers who are responsible for keeping track of devices. The district’s asset management team would also create an annual report about theft and loss of devices, according to the proposed changes.

Last week, CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher released his annual report which, in part, found that the district had marked more than 77,000 devices lost or stolen in the 2021-22 school year. The district has found 12,000 of the missing devices, nearly all inside schools, district officials said.

Fletcher’s report cited a lack of training and an unreliable tracking system as some reasons for why so many devices were missing or unaccounted for. He also said staff and students were not held accountable for devices. Last year, a Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation also found that the district didn’t have a structured system for tracking down devices and lacked a clear plan or vision for how to best use the technology in the classroom.

“The [policy] has been amended to reflect a more accurate description of the current process, eliminate sections of the policy which are obsolete, and overall improve CPS asset and inventory management practices,” said Rolando Hernandez, assistant deputy controller for CPS’ finance office, during Wednesday’s meeting.

The district’s asset management policy doesn’t just cover technology. It applies to any item that is not real estate, that is purchased by or donated to CPS, is valued at more than $500 but less than $25,000, and has a lifespan of more than a year. The current policy applies to schools, central offices, and network offices, which are responsible for managing their devices.

Each school and district office should have an “accountable official” who is responsible for keeping track of devices, the existing policy says.

Other proposed changes include:

All devices must be entered into CPS’ electronic inventory system once they are delivered – not just purchased – within 30 days.
Each person designated to track devices within their school or office will be responsible for complying with their annually required inventory and ensuring its accuracy.
Schools and offices will report potential loss, damage, or theft to the district’s asset management team. That team will share an annual report on such loss or damage to the district’s Risk Management team, the Department of Facilities, and Safety & Security team.
If a student or staffer transfers to a new school or department, any devices they’ve received from the district will follow them, which their old school or department must log into the district’s asset management system. Once students or staff leave the district, they must return devices and other “assets.”
Broken computers must be disposed of through a special process created by the Information and Technology department, though that process was not spelled out in the proposed changes. Items that are not computers will be disposed of by the Department of Facilities, including through contracted salvaging companies.

The board is expected to vote on the proposed changes in March after a month-long public comment period, which is slated to begin Jan. 26.

Separately, the district is also working on several other changes “to more accurately represent” what devices are in schools, district officials said Wednesday. That includes automating the process of recovering computers, which would involve freezing and sending notifications to devices that would ask students or staff to return them. The district is also considering replacing its current asset management system because of “functionality and data issues” that must be improved.

On Wednesday, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez disputed Fletcher’s estimate that the missing devices were worth $23 million. Martinez said many of those devices were old, bringing the total cost to about “a tenth” of Fletcher’s figure. However, he added that’s “not an excuse” to explain the lack of tracking at a time when the district added hundreds of thousands of devices to its inventory.

“It’s been great that now all of our children have access to devices [but] it is easy for us to not prioritize how we get rid of old devices, and it’s not always clear even to staff, and so I just want to call that out,” Martinez said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Inspector General urges overhaul of Chicago Public Schools’ ‘flawed’ tracking system for tech devices

2024-01-09T06:01:00+00:00

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The Chicago Public Schools inspector general is raising red flags about potential waste and fraud — particularly in areas where the district has spent more than $2 billion in federal COVID recovery money.

In his annual report out Tuesday, CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher also outlined eight cases of substantiated sexual abuse of staff on students, and recommended more consistent training on sexual misconduct for vendors who provide services to schools.

The report — which details the inspector general’s work from the previous fiscal year, or July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 — highlighted the office’s investigation into lost or stolen laptops and other technology valued at at least $23 million and, for the second year in a row, detailed cases of fraud and potential mismanagement of extra pay for staff.

The OIG found that CPS marked at least 77,000 devices as lost or stolen during the 2021-22 school year, often with little or no effort to find those devices, according to the report.

The OIG’s review comes after Chalkbeat and WBEZ found the district spent tens of millions of federal COVID relief dollars on technology without a reliable system for tracking those devices.

“CPS spends a couple of million dollars on software and other assets that try to monitor and keep track of their assets, and we found out that that system is just very flawed,” said Fletcher, in an interview Monday with Chalkbeat.

District officials are “concerned about the loss of any public asset,” and are working to improve their tracking systems and hold staff accountable to district policies in how to manage devices, a CPS spokesperson said.

At three dozen schools, all of the devices assigned to students were listed as lost or stolen, according to the OIG’s review of audits schools submitted of their technology inventory during the 2021-22 school year.

“When we followed up with the schools, we would talk to people who had an asset or a laptop or a Chromebook that was issued to them that was marked as lost or stolen — that in fact wasn’t,” Fletcher said. “There were a few interviews with people who reached into their desk and said, ‘Hey, I got this laptop, no one ever asked me for it.’”

Incorrectly labeling devices can lead the district to purchase replacement devices “at taxpayer’s expense,” the OIG noted.

During the time period the OIG investigated, the district spent $2.6 million on services meant to keep track of and recover the technology, the report said. Fletcher described the district’s tracking system as “very flawed,” mainly because there isn’t enough of an effort to find devices. In July, the district sent messages to 50,000 reportedly lost or stolen devices in order to recover them. As of Monday, the district has recovered more than 12,000 devices, a district spokesperson said.

Almost all of them were “in schools and were simply missed in the previous inventory cycle,” the spokesperson said.

There isn’t enough training for how schools should track their devices, leaving the district with flawed or incomplete data that’s not credible or enough to use to determine if criminal activity, such as theft, might have taken place, Fletcher said.

Between March 2020 and August 2023, Chalkbeat and WBEZ previously reported, the district spent more than $308 million on computers and other technology from its three main vendors — Apple, CDW, and Virtucom. The amount was roughly as much as these companies got paid during the previous two decades combined.

District officials said they bought nearly 311,000 laptops and tablets during that time, but more than 41,000 of the devices were sitting in a warehouse or yet to be shipped by a manufacturer. They also cited a lack of dedicated staff at schools to do inventory as an issue. According to district data, roughly 35% of schools had a technology coordinator.

The OIG’s office has recommended 16 changes to the district’s technology tracking system, including making principals accountable for their inventory audit results, making students and staff accountable for their devices, and requiring students and staff to be notified that they’re supposed to be in possession of an item that’s gone missing.

The district is now working to automate the process in which devices are recovered, a spokesperson said. Schools will be able to send messages to devices that are marked as lost or stolen, “urging people to return them.”

Devices that are not returned “promptly” will be disabled, the spokesperson said.

The district ultimately wants to create sensors in schools that would track mobile devices “and other high-value assets,” the spokesperson said.

‘Systemic problems’ tracking extra pay for staff

In addition to new technology, Chicago has spent millions in federal COVID recovery money on support for students beyond the normal school day — such as after-school programs, summer school, and tutoring — that existing school staff often help run.

As he did last year, Fletcher’s office raised concerns about how the district is tracking the recent spike in extra pay, which employees receive for working outside normal hours, such as to run an after-school activity.

According to the report, 67 employees each made more than $15,000 in extra pay in the 2021-22 school year, an amount that district officials consider excessive. The report says district officials plan to ask principals in late January to verify amounts for all employees whose extra pay was 50 percent or more of their normal work hours.

The OIG’s office noted a 74% increase in extra pay from 2017 to 2021. The district has since received $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief funding. The report notes that last school year, about $100 million of that funding was allocated to summer school, after-school programs, and professional development.

The OIG has pressed the district to monitor those payments more closely after detecting seemingly unchecked approvals of extra pay, such as pay granted without timesheets or without “supporting swipes” in the timekeeping system.

The district plans to create “new processes to ensure that payment reports are accurate and validated,” a spokesperson said, but did not provide more details.

Fletcher’s office highlighted two cases of fraud connected to programs operating outside the school day. Though both schemes allegedly began prior to the pandemic, Fletcher notes that they illustrate the “systemic problems” with how extra pay is tracked.

In one case, an elementary school assistant principal allegedly stole $195,000 over two years by diverting fees paid by parents for after-school programs into her personal bank account. Fletcher’s office first reported the alleged fraud, which dated back to 2011, in 2021 and referred the case to local authorities. In July 2023, a 17-count indictment came down against the former assistant principal, alleging she stole a total of $273,364.

“I mean, $200,000 is a lot more than a rounding error for an after-school program,” Fletcher said. “For that to go missing without any curtailment of the programming or anything like that raises concerns about what the parents are getting charged.”

In another case highlighted in the report, Fletcher’s office found a school clerk approved close to $70,000 in extra pay for hours she didn’t work. The alleged fraud took place at two separate schools dating back to 2017. She was able to log the payments for herself and an additional $15,000 for another clerk because “supervisors did not check to see whether they earned the extra pay they were claiming,” the report said.

CPS timesheets now have new language that says employees must swipe in and out of the timesheet system to receive extra pay for extended day and summer school programs. Because of pressure from the OIG’s office, timesheets detailing extra pay now also require employees to sign an attestation saying that they can be disciplined or fired for submitting false timesheets, the report said.

Sexual Assault Unit tackles 20% of all complaints

The OIG’s Sexual Assault Unit was created in the wake of a 2018 Chicago Tribune investigation that found schools failed to protect students from sexual abuse. It has opened more than 2,188 cases since its creation and fielded more than 400 complaints in the past year.

The annual report includes details of eight cases of substantiated sexual abuse of staff on students and dozens of other sexual misconduct cases that led to discipline, all of which the unit closed in fiscal year 2023.

One case led to criminal charges for a now-former security guard who the OIG found had sexually abused a 16-year-old student for five months, often inside the school building during school hours. The guard was charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Cook County Criminal Court, the OIG’s office said.

While sexual misconduct-related complaints made up one-fifth of more than 2,000 complaints filed with the OIG last fiscal year, most of those complaints — about two-thirds — are about allegations that don’t rise to sexual abuse or harassment. These “other concerning” allegations could represent grooming of students and involve allegations of staffers texting students or “liking” their students’ photos on social media, for example.

Separately, the OIG’s report raised concerns about inconsistent training on sexual misconduct and professional boundaries for outside employees who work with schools, such as vendors contracted to work with the district. The office found that some vendors and volunteers said they were trained on CPS policies while others weren’t. Of the 157 complaints reported to the Sexual Assault Unit about vendors or volunteers, about one-third were substantiated, according to the OIG.

The district has started training at least one subset of volunteers, the OIG reported.

Becky Vevea contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago public schools run by principals given more independence saw better student achievement: study

2023-08-03T21:55:39+00:00

Eight years ago, Chicago Public Schools launched a program that gave certain principals more control, such as more flexibility over budgets and being freed of extra oversight from district leaders. It was an effort to reward effective veteran school leaders with “more leadership and professional development opportunities.”

Now, a new study by a Northwestern University professor shows that the initiative — known as the Independent School Principals program, or ISP — resulted in better test scores and school climates and could be a cost-effective way to improve schools.

The analysis looked at 44 elementary schools that joined ISP between 2016 and 2018. Those schools saw pass rates for state reading and math tests grow, on average, by about 4 percentage points more than similar schools that weren’t part of ISP, according to the study. (Comparison schools were chosen based on things like demographics and test scores.)

The findings suggest that schools can benefit from more empowered principals, who are “closer to the ground” and may have a better sense than district leaders of what their students need, said C. Kirabo Jackson, an education and social policy professor at Northwestern who conducted the study.

But there are some caveats, Jackson said. The ISP schools with the best test score results were also run by principals who are considered “highly effective,” as determined by teacher ratings and other evaluations. Less effective principals saw test scores grow at a slower rate. Other studies have found mixed results when giving schools more autonomy, Jackson noted in his study.

The benefits of such a policy depend on “the capacity of the leaders to manage on their own,” said Jackson.

Test scores don’t show the full picture of how well students are doing, Jackson said, and his study found mixed results in other areas. For example, ISP schools on average had better ratings for school climate. But he found no evidence that these schools saw better student or teacher attendance.

The ISP initiative was launched under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel as part of an effort to pair principals with “more leadership and professional development opportunities,” according to the district.

Currently, district leaders identify veteran principals to apply for the program and then evaluate them based on several criteria, including their school’s test scores, their “five essentials” survey data and a series of interviews, according to the district.

A spokesperson did not respond in time for publication on whether there were minimum test scores that schools had to meet in order to be eligible.

Jackson noted that nearly all of the elementary schools he evaluated were highly rated by the state. In all, 86% of the city’s current 63 ISP schools — which also include middle and high schools and one early childhood education center — were rated either commendable or exemplary by the state, according to the most recently available Illinois Report Card information.

In addition to less oversight and more budget flexibility, ISP school leaders also have more power over professional learning for their staff and more flexibility over principal evaluations. In exchange, principals must meet several requirements, including maintaining or improving school performance, remaining compliant with district wide policies, and remaining as the school’s principal for at least two years.

Having more power over professional learning was among the biggest boons for Patricia Brekke, principal of Back of the Yards High School, who joined the ISP program in 2016. Her school, like others, used to spend time addressing student needs in ways that district leaders recommended.

While she considered those good strategies, her staff didn’t have extra time to focus on other issues they believed to be important, such as drilling down on students’ analytical and essay writing skills.

For the past seven years, she and other teachers have created their own professional development sessions to, in part, improve kids’ analytical skills. Her team draws on good examples from their own classrooms, including taking videos during the school day, so that teachers can see how their own colleagues are approaching instruction, Brekke said.

“I’ve got a lot of brilliant teachers, and their ideas really pushed me, I think, to be a better principal, you know?” Brekke said. “And it was really important for me to have them around the table and identify our problems of practice.”

Jackson only studied elementary schools, so he doesn’t know the program’s impact on high schools.

SAT scores at Brekke’s school were within five percentage points of the district’s. But Brekke said she’s noticed her students demonstrating “elevated” writing skills that go beyond a classic five-paragraph essay response.

“They’re really starting to think more deeply about text,” Brekke said.

Jackson found another bonus of the program: Principals “tend to remain in their schools” even after the two-year requirement. That is by design, said Jerry Travlos, a former ISP principal who now works as a district leader.

Travlos conducted a study, which Jackson cites, and found that ISP principals largely preferred the autonomy they got under the program. Extending more power to veteran principals is also a “retention strategy,” he said, at a time when school leaders are heading for the door.

Brekke, who has been an educator for 32 years, said she sometimes misses the camaraderie that comes along with a traditional network like most of Chicago’s public schools. But she loves being able to “geek out” and customize instruction for her students.

“Having those kinds of conversations are really just so refreshing and encouraging and motivating,” Brekke said. She paused and added, “Maybe it’s contributed to why I’m still here.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago schools with mostly Black student bodies share less information about LSCs: report

2023-07-27T21:17:13+00:00

Chicago families on the South and West sides were less likely to have access to information about their Local School Councils, compared with their North Side neighbors, according to a new analysis about the 2021-22 school year.

The report, released this week by advocacy organization Raise Your Hand, also found that most schools — 61% — had at least one parent vacancy on their Local School Councils, or LSCs. These school-based elected bodies, made up of parents, other community representatives, and students, can make school-level decisions, such as evaluating and selecting principals and voting on the annual campus budget.

The findings suggest that white and more affluent parents are more likely to have access to accurate LSC information and LSCs without parent vacancies. On top of the neighborhood disparities, schools with mostly Black student bodies were less likely to have updated information online about their LSCs, compared with schools citywide. They were also more likely to have at least three parent vacancies on their LSCs.

Last year, following LSC elections with significant voter turnout, more than 1,400 vacancies remained, mostly on the South and West sides, Chalkbeat found at the time.

“Vacancies make it impossible for the schools that need LSCs the most to have effective LSCs,” the just-released Raise Your Hand report said. “This means student needs are ignored, budgets are cut, and more.”

On the city’s North Side, schools were more likely to list basic information on their websites about their LSC, the report found. That information includes a mention of the LSC’s existence, meeting times, agendas, minutes, a list of current members, and contact information for those members.

For example, an average of 67% of schools across the Far North, North, and Northwest sides had LSC meeting times listed on their websites. In comparison, meeting times were listed for less than a quarter of schools, on average, in neighborhoods across the South and West sides, according to the report.

“This lack of transparency and accessibility is unacceptable and leaves parents feeling frustrated and powerless,” the report said.

Other findings include:

About one third of all schools have an LSC meeting time posted online, while the same is true for 14% of schools with student bodies that are at least 90% Black.
32% of all schools have three or more parent vacancies. The same is true for 36% of schools on the South and West sides, and 23% of schools on the North sides as well as the Loop.
42% of schools with more than 90% of Black students have three or more parent vacancies.

Raise Your Hand said that school websites have not changed even after they raised some of their findings with Chicago Public Schools “months ago.” The group has urged CPS to ensure websites have updated information, including meeting times and locations, a list of current LSC members, and contact information for the LSC.

After Raise Your Hand members revealed some of the study’s findings at a Wednesday Chicago Board of Education meeting, Board President Jianan Shi said the district “has to do better.” Shi is the former executive director of Raise Your Hand.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Evan Moore noted that the district saw a record-breaking 6,145 people apply for LSC positions last school year. He touted district efforts to raise awareness about LSCs, including roughly 100 “engagement sessions.”

Still, Moore acknowledged the need to improve and said officials are reviewing Raise Your Hand’s study.

“As a District, we are committed to continuing to work to improve awareness and access to this important democratic process,” Moore said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Urban Prep Academies could be turned over to Chicago Public Schools after state denies appeal

2023-04-19T21:44:09+00:00

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Urban Prep Academies may soon no longer operate public charter high schools in Chicago after state education officials denied the nonprofit’s appeal of a decision by the Chicago Board of Education.

The Illinois State Board of Education’s ruling could mean the end of Urban Prep’s 17-year run as a nationally-recognized charter school network known for serving Black boys.

But Urban Prep officials said late Wednesday that they filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County “asserting that the Chicago Public Schools has violated state law that there be a moratorium on school closings until 2025.”

However, the district is not planning to close the schools. In October, when the Chicago Board of Education voted to revoke Urban Prep’s charter agreement to operate campuses in Englewood and Bronzeville, district officials – in a nod to the network’s unique mission and model – promised to continue operating the schools under district management.

At the time, the Chicago school board cited the charter network’s mismanaged finances and its response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving Urban Prep’s founder, which were uncovered by a report by Chicago Public Schools’ Inspector General.

That report alleged that the charter network’s founder, Tim King, groomed an underage student who later worked at the nonprofit and continued to receive paychecks and benefits after he stopped working there. King denies the allegations.

Board chair Steven Isoye said after Wednesday’s vote that “critical steps are already in motion” to communicate with current students and families about the transition. He said Chicago Public Schools will operate a new school with two campuses and an advisory group is already working on transition plans. A district spokesperson confirmed that plan and said the campuses would remain at their current locations.

Two state board members — Donna Leak and James Anderson — abstained from voting on Urban Prep’s appeal.

“As an African American woman and the mother of an African American son myself, I know there’s a need for a safe space that provides them with the chance to know your value and not how you are portrayed in the media on so many occasions,” Leak said. “We have to do better for African American young men.”

Over the last several months, parents and school leadership have fought to keep all three campuses open and under the operation of Urban Prep Academies. The school’s website also appears to still be accepting applications for new students.

“We trust that the courts will rule in favor of justice and Urban Prep students and families,” the statement from Urban Prep read.

The state board had also voted in November to revoke a charter it held with Urban Prep for a third campus — which the state took over in 2019 after the charter network appealed a decision by Chicago’s school board to close that campus. That campus is slated to close at the end of this school year.

Dennis Lacewell, Urban Prep’s chief academic officer, told state board members their decision will impact 400 current students and “hundreds of elementary and middle school black boys” who will “lose the Urban Prep option.” He called the Chicago school board’s October decision “erroneous” and accused the district of “moving the goalposts” as the network tried to address concerns about financial mismanagement.

“A decision to close our schools would eliminate this black institution which almost 20 years ago took on a challenge to successfully educate the most neglected demographic of students: Black boys,” Lacewell said prior to the vote. He also said the decision could result in roughly 100 people losing their jobs, 85% of whom are Black.

Isoye said Chicago Public Schools is committed to retaining as many current Urban Prep staff as possible.

As part of the appeals process with the state, a hearing officer issued a full report for each school in February and recommended the appeals be denied. The reports outlined concerns about Urban Prep’s financial management, noting “extensive borrowing practices via credit cards and predatory lenders.”

It also highlighted a finding by Chicago Public Schools Inspector General that the charter network obtained a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government that “made significant misrepresentations regarding the cost of its operations leading to the receipt of a loan larger than what it would have otherwise been qualified to receive.”

Last fall, Chicago school board members acknowledged that Urban Prep’s academic model has been successful for the Black teenage boys it serves. In the past, Urban Prep has received national recognition for graduating Black students at high rates and steering them into college.

The school’s leadership decided to appeal to the Illinois State Board of Education in November to prevent Chicago from taking over the schools.

After the vote, Isoye said the decision to deny Urban Prep’s appeal — effectively ending the once-lauded charter network — was “not an easy one to make.”

“Supporting the success of Urban Prep students through the transition and beyond is a top priority of all of us here,” Isoye said.

Mauricio Peña contributed to this report.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago mayoral election 2023: How Johnson, Vallas answered 10 important education questions

2023-03-01T18:23:38+00:00

Chicago voters will head to the polls once again on April 4 to vote for a new mayor, choosing between two candidates who are vastly different when it comes to public education.

Brandon Johnson is an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and Paul Vallas is the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Both are Democrats, but their views vary widely on everything from school choice to measuring academic performance to how campuses are funded.

Whoever wins will take office in late May and will get to appoint a school district CEO and seven school board members to oversee the nation’s fourth largest school district, its $9.5 billion budget, 635 schools, and the education of 322,000 children. They will also be the last mayor to have control of Chicago Public Schools before the district transitions to being governed by an elected school board.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked candidates 10 important questions about the city’s public schools in January — some of which came directly from our readers. Explore Johnson and Vallas’ answers below.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?
What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?
The Chicago Board of Education will expand from 7 appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?
The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?
Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?
What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?
The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?
During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?
Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?
Describe a high quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high quality school?

Chicago voters will now pick between former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas (left) and Cook County Commissioner and teachers union organizer Brandon Johnson (right) in the mayoral runoff election on April 4.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?

JOHNSON: If you recall, that decade began in 2013 with the greatest closure of Black and Latinx schools in Chicago’s history. If we can build sustainable community schools alongside quality affordable housing, we will reverse the trend. We must also tackle the violence epidemic with more holistic measures that provide resources and trauma intervention for students and families.

Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot have both presided over precipitous declines in pre-kindergarten enrollment. This is not simply a result of demographic change, but the district moving to an online, centralized application process for preschool that is elitist and prejudiced against families with little access to technology. Enrollment also decreases due to poor program design. This is also evident in a number of special education crises – from State monitor to transportation – over the last 10 years.

Schools communities need direct investment, guarantees of staffing and program offerings. Every school should have a library and librarian, adequate clinicians and counselors, thriving arts offerings and sports programs and teams. And the mayor of Chicago has an obligation to be actively fighting in partnership for the revenue required to fulfill those basic needs for every school in the city, not just some.

VALLAS: Making the schools more attractive to parents by allowing for schools to take on specialties as well as bring back the work study program for high school students. We must also make our schools safe, so students feel comfortable in their learning environment. We must also have the dollars make it down to the school level, right now only 60% of the budget makes it to the schools. In my career I have worked to make education meaningful to students allowing a greater trust in the system by not only the students but also their parents. I would also expand the alternative schools network to provide for the educational needs for high school students too old for the traditional high school program.

Reader question. What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?

JOHNSON: Let’s remember that students and families are still struggling with the pandemic, and there is much trauma and recovery that must occur – especially among Black and Brown students and families who make up the majority of CPS students (like my own).

First, we must address the trauma that existed pre-pandemic, and acknowledge that COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated conditions around cleanliness, bilingual education, access to technology, special education services and more, that city leaders left unaddressed for decades. Asking a student to catch up on math when they are still recovering from the death of a loved one, or a classmate, is inhumane.

Students and families must have trauma support, such as weekly cognitive behavioral therapy, and students need summer jobs and engaging programming. Support student and staff mental health by infusing schools with mental health professionals like counselors and clinicians so that unaddressed trauma is acknowledged, and treated, and learning is more of the focus from day to day. Teachers and staff need adequate time and professional development to help address student needs. And educators need to be empowered with planning time to reinvigorate curriculum and work with students to ensure instructional practices and pedagogy meet students’ needs and interests.

VALLAS: The loss of learning due to the COVID pandemic has been unprecedented. We must work to ensure that our children catch up and can be competitive in their future. In order to meet the gap our children are facing I will open all school buildings through the dinner hour, weekends and summers. We need to invite community organizations to provide enrichment to students in the CPS during these off hours as well as invite retired CPS Teachers to provide tutoring and academic support to the students.

The Chicago Board of Education will expand from seven appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?

JOHNSON: I support a map that ensures all communities in this tremendously diverse city have the opportunity to have their voices heard. This is why I worked so closely with Illinois Senate President Don Harmon and community organizations on the legislation to create this vibrant model of democracy for the first time ever in the history of Chicago Public Schools.

We need campaign finance rules to prevent those with no stake in our public schools, or our communities, from controlling our democracy. We cannot have uber rich, arch-conservatives usurping the power that working people in Chicago fought so hard to win. We need candidates who are deeply invested and knowledgeable from the communities served to have a fair chance to win races to influence the education of their children.

Democratic governance requires partnership. The city doesn’t absolve itself of any responsibility to schools just because there are democratically elected school community leaders sitting at the Board of Education. As mayor, I will continue to fight for resources in our schools, and maintain and build upon the coordinated support and services that the city has to offer children and families.

VALLAS: Like I have done all my career I will work with the elected board of education with the respect that is due to them as an equally elected official that is representing the needs of the community that elected them. In all CPS work I will put the needs of the students first and advocated with the board for any necessary resources. Before this board takes office it is important that they do not inherit a broken system, I will push the dollars to the school level and ensure that schools have the resources they need.

Reader question. The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?

JOHNSON: We need a mayor who can reasonably work with labor. We cannot have the type of leader who will promise something like, say, an elected representative school board and then fight tooth and nail to stop it from being enacted. We cannot have a mayor who, on the campaign trail, calls for a nurse and social worker in every school, then puts teachers on strike for two weeks when they ask for exactly that in writing. We cannot have a mayor who grants expanded parental leave to city workers, but blocks educators from receiving the same.

Just a shift in consistency and keeping one’s word will more than allow for a much more rational and collaborative process.

As mayor, I will be a partner in working with Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union to remove obstacles in the way of achieving excellent schools, rather than contributing to constant friction. The stakes are too high for our students and families for labor and leadership not to have a positive working relationship. And I will openly advocate and build coalitions to identify revenue sources and structures that, over time, will deliver the fully funded schools that families and communities deserve.

VALLAS: The previous CTU strike could have been avoided and we see the cost of that strike in the already exacerbated loss of learning from the pandemic. Over the course of my career I have negotiated 6 teacher contracts with teachers unions in the largest district in 4 different states that led to no strikes and members getting a pay raise. If all parties work in good faith there should be no need for a teacher strike this year which only leads to a greater negative impact of the education on Chicago’s children who are already struggling to regain confidence in the classroom.

Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?

JOHNSON: We cannot continue to punish schools that have suffered from decades of divestment, violence and destabilization. When a school struggles, we often give them more accountability, yet fewer resources. So any school rating formula must bring greater equity, and greater support, to ensure greater success.

Chicago Public Schools does not need its own rating structure, as the state still has and requires one. CPS’ time is better spent identifying sources of revenue to fill the gaps identified in programs, staffing, and services that we know hold schools back from meeting student needs and increasing enrollment. I live in Austin. My wife and I drive two children to Portage Park and another to Hyde Park every day because there are few schools in our community to meet their extracurricular needs. Families should not have to leave their community to find a school with a music program, a sports program, a nurse in every school, or a library with a librarian. We have to use what we already know about the strengths, weaknesses, and assets in our schools to ensure that we are directing resources to where they are needed to make every school excellent.

VALLAS: We should aspire for high standards, we cannot embrace the bigotry of soft expectations. We must set high standards, we have to measure school’s base on their improvement as a school. We must take every school uniquely and see their growth from where they were to where they are.

Reader question. What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?

JOHNSON: Student-based budgeting (SBB) and the former SQRP rating policy have had a devastating impact on our schools. SBB, in particular, has contributed to principals whose budgets are strapped to choose between keeping a veteran teacher or having a librarian and a functioning library. Schools struggling with enrollment need to have a process by which root causes are identified and resources are deployed to ensure students still have the richest possible education, and the school has an opportunity to grow its enrollment.

The state, in its evidence-based funding model, has recognized that student and community needs must drive school funding, and that all districts must be brought up to a certain level of resources to meet those needs. Yet CPS has not adopted that approach among its schools. We cannot keep supporting a system that favors choice, but does not provide schools with the same baseline resources and offerings – then punishes students who attend the less frequently chosen school.

VALLAS: The first priority is to push the funding down to the schools. We have to have the majority of the funding flow down to the local schools as of right now only 60% of the funds makes it to the local schools. My second priority is to make sure that the money that is allocated to the students encompasses the needs of the student, we need to make sure the school district is allocating Title I money directly to the school it is assigned too. This money needs to flow directly to the school with only minimal diversions because unfortunately funding due to poverty has been used as discretionary funds by the administration.

Reader question. The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?

JOHNSON: I do not, because this is the kind of thinking that continues to reinforce unequal educational opportunities. Until every Chicago public school and big-city public school has the baseline of resources provided in suburban districts with high property tax bases, the idea of “choice” is a fallacy.

Parents with resources are able to navigate the system for their students, which I don’t begrudge. What is concerning is that families without the means, time, resources, and access to navigating these same systems have no choice at all.

I am not interested in continuing to shift unequal resources around. I am interested in leveling the playing field for all families.

VALLAS: The tax credit scholarship program is beneficial in empowering parents to pick the school that best suits their child’s needs. Whether the students attend private, parochial, public or public charter schools they are students of the City and we need to ensure quality education regardless of their zip code.

During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?

JOHNSON: Teachers in Seattle last fall ratified a contract with a three adult (two teachers, one instructional assistant) to 10 student ratio to help address the needs of their special education population. Chicago must work toward something similar to address compensatory services and the particular needs of this incredibly vulnerable student population. We also need greater clinical support to properly diagnose and service the individualized education programs of these students. This includes the need to ramp up pipelines with state and local funding to hire many more teachers, special education classroom assistants, and teacher assistants to address the accumulated needs of students living with disabilities.

VALLAS: Students with disabilities are a priority even much more so after the loss of learning experienced due to the pandemic. The key to supporting these students is the availability of resources at the local school level. My administration will reallocate dollars in a way that the schools see the most benefit and allow principals to support all the students in their neighborhood schools.

Reader question. Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?

JOHNSON: We need to do much better to train Chicagoans to fill the jobs that exist today. Businesses are hiring and manufacturers are hiring. There may be somewhere around 30,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs across the state, and a good number of them are here in Chicago. But we’ve abandoned vocational training in our schools. Modern manufacturing jobs require tech skills, and it is our job to give our students the skills necessary to succeed. So I am all for trade and vocational education, commonly known as Career and Technical Education (CTE), in Chicago Public Schools. CTE is essential to closing the gap between our district, and skilled trade industries and employers.

There is potential in some of the plans the district and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez have around this. With an aviator simulator in Dunbar, and making Tilden, Phillips, Chicago Vocational, and Fenger sustainable community schools with specialized and relevant trades training, we will have education and apprenticeship pipelines to create the skills and engagement necessary for a CTE corridor that will empower our Black and Latinx students to become the next generation of unionized trade workers.

VALLAS: Yes I support trade and vocational education. However I believe on a broader scale that we need to integrate a work study program into all of our high schools and make elective programs more meaningful. We need to reestablish our VocEd and occupational training programs that were in our high schools during my time at the CPS. My administration will do this by partnering with local trade unions and businesses in our city. We have to leverage these connections in ways that attract our students to take interest in these programs that offer amazing opportunities for success after high school.

Describe a high-quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high-quality school?

JOHNSON: We have a model that works – the Sustainable Community School (SCS) model, which calls for collaborative and effective strategy for increasing educational equity. SCS builds on the traditional community school model to prioritize specific pillars and principles to make schools the anchors of their communities, and to share leadership around meeting student, family, educator, staff, and community needs.

We also have schools that have parent mentors, community programming, and partnerships to provide additional support for mental and physical health across the district. Neighborhood schools like Kelly High, National Teachers Academy, Hanson Park Elementary (despite a horrendous facility situation), Chavez Elementary, Beidler Elementary are all vibrant school communities using culturally relevant curriculum and community partnerships to advance the academic and social/emotional needs of countless children. However, we need to do more and better. That will require greater investments in addressing the needs of homeless children, students with disabilities and all the newcomers who do not speak English as their primary language. It also cannot continue to be the case that selective enrollment schools, which provide students with the most extensive course offerings, extracurriculars and sports opportunities, serve only the wealthiest students in the system.

VALLAS: A high quality is a medium sized neighborhood school that embraces high standards and offers the students a high quality curriculum that ensures students achieve a high level of proficiency in all core areas. The ideal quality school offers key enrichment opportunities in the academic year as well as continuing into the non-traditional school hours (weekends, evenings, summers and holidays) to support students in their growth. My ideal quality school offers key wrap-around services for students to ensure they are holistically growing. This school also needs a well trained and supported local school council that broadly represents the community and can provide a vehicle for community input in school governance and supplemental activities.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board moves to take over once-lauded charter serving Black boys

2022-10-26T22:35:09+00:00

Chicago’s school board moved Wednesday to take over two South Side charter campuses that specialize in serving Black boys — an unprecedented step to pull the school’s charter but preserve an academic model officials acknowledged has delivered for many students.

School board members voted unanimously to revoke the Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men’s charter. They forcefully rejected the school’s arguments for more time to prove they are on the right track, and voicing dismay at the school’s response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving the school’s founder.

Urban Prep leaders pushed back forcefully, calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to halt the district’s plan to take over its two campuses.

Urban Prep, which once received national recognition for steering its students to graduation and college admissions, has come under intense district scrutiny in recent years. Its founder, Tim King, resigned his positions as CEO and board chair this summer after a district watchdog report substantiated allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a former student — allegations King has strongly denied.

The district has also rung alarms about the school’s financial management, which is the focus of an ongoing district inspector general investigation, as well as its services for students with disabilities and the number of licensed teachers it employs.

In a Tuesday news conference on the Englewood campus and during Wednesday’s board meeting, the school’s leaders and supporters decried the district’s own track record of serving Black male students and said the school, run largely by Black men, has delivered better outcomes. They said Urban Prep has gotten its finances in order more recently, and accused the district of using the allegations against King to launch a takeover of the school.

But school board officials were unmoved.

“It’s an egregious report, and it should make everybody upset,” said board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, referring to the investigation’s findings about King. “It’s shameful to me that the Urban Prep board had this information and did not act swiftly.”

However, district officials said Urban Prep has forged a strong academic model and a supportive environment for Black boys, who in Chicago and nationally have long faced the widest academic disparities. In an unusual move, district CEO Pedro Martinez said Wednesday the two campuses, which have a combined enrollment of about 370 students, will remain open under district management — either as free-standing schools or as programs of existing high schools. It plans to keep teachers and staff at the school.

“We want to make sure high-quality programs continue for children in Bronzeville and Englewood — it’s essential,” Martinez said. But, he added, “We cannot compromise. We need ethical behavior, and we need to make sure we are protecting our children.”

The school can appeal the district’s decision to the Illinois State Board of Education. The state took over a third Urban Prep campus in 2018 after the school board revoked its charter.

Tensions between school, CPS boil over

The inspector general’s report alleged King groomed and sexually touched a student who was 16 at the time. According to the report, the relationship continued after the student graduated, and he eventually came to work at Urban Prep; the report also says he continued to receive pay and benefits long after he stopped working there.

The district said the school’s handling of the investigation was troubling because it allowed King — who was featured on a 2010 People Magazine cover as “hero of the year” — to continue interacting with students after the inquiry substantiated the allegations.

Urban Prep also refused to email families about the investigation’s findings, and appointed King to two boards after he resigned, according to board documents.

Meanwhile, an ongoing district watchdog investigation is taking a closer look at the school’s finances. The district says that for years the school relied on district cash advances and high-interest loans to make payroll, racking up more than half a million dollars in finance charges in the process.

Yet Urban Prep still defaulted on paying salaries, leases, and vendors providing services for students with disabilities. The school was able to use a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan during the pandemic to balance its books, but a separate inspector general investigation found it inflated the number of employees on the loan application.

During public comment at the school board meeting and during a Tuesday press conference, Urban Prep officials and supporters decried the plan to revoke the school’s charter. They argued that district leaders can’t come in and replicate the charter’s climate and culture, which is steeped in the sense of identity and backgrounds of its leaders.

They touted the school’s outcomes, from its attendance rate to the 100% college acceptance rate that the charter has long made a cornerstone of its model.

(The rate of College Prep students who actually enroll in college within a year of graduation has plunged in recent years to 48% on the Bronzeville campus and 63% on the Englewood campus, according to state data.)

Troy Boyd, the chief operating officer, asked the board to at least delay the vote on revoking the school’s charter, insisting the school has done everything the district asked of it, and that its financial problems are a thing of the past. He called Wednesday’s vote “tragic.”

“The non-renewal of Urban Prep would mean the end of something that has been transformational for the city,” he said. “We won’t stop fighting.”

At the meeting, a string of students, dressed in the school’s uniform of navy blazers, red ties, and khakis, spoke about the impact the school has had on them, which many credited to the Urban Prep’s leadership and educator team of largely Black men.

Avery Barnes, a sophomore at the Bronzeville campus, said at the school he came to see his value as a Black male, built close relationships with educators, and went on several college visits as an underclassman.

“I feel like Urban Prep has already started the process of preparing me for adulthood,” he said, adding that, “Urban Prep Academies needs to be renewed simply because they make young Black males feel accepted and seen in a society where we are often predicted to go to jail or end up in an early grave.”

Kevin Scott, a senior at the Bronzeville campus, said the school gives students positive role models who look like them in the classroom and principal’s office. Unlike district-run schools, it remained open for in-person instruction throughout the 2020-21 school year, Scott, a National Honors Society member, pointed out.

“Urban Prep is more than just a school,” he said. “It’s been like a family, a safe place, a hangout and so much more.”

Urban Prep Charter Academy leaders and parents hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Englewood.

Inside Urban College Prep Englewood Tuesday afternoon, Dennis Lacewell, chief academic officer at the charter school, said the charter has made progress in rectifying past financial problems, and said Urban Prep officials had completed more financial reporting than at any CPS schools.

Leaders dismissed the district’s claim that the school has compromised its students’ safety. He also argued that the district has been unfairly attacking Urban Prep for some time by revoking the license for its downtown campus in 2018, and disparaging the charter to potential financial lenders.

“Despite CPS’ lack of success and commitment to Black male students, they have the audacity to think they can be successful taking over Urban Prep and turning it into a program of another CPS high school,” Lacewell added. “It is both ludicrous and infuriating.”

But school board members and district officials said they could not allow the charter’s current leadership to continue on. The board has granted the school a series of short-term extensions of its charter amid mounting concerns, in part because of its reluctance to cause any disruption to students at the height of the pandemic, members said.

“At this point, unfortunately, all doubt has been removed that the leaders of the organization do not have students’ best interests at heart,” board Vice President Sendhil Revuluri said.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

At West Side military high school, alleged misconduct often went unreported: watchdog

2021-12-23T22:26:56+00:00

A Marine Leadership Academy principal contributed to a “dysfunctional and divisive environment” at the West Side school and failed to conduct a background check on a volunteer before he was allowed around students, according to Chicago Public Schools’ watchdog.

The office of William Fletcher, the Chicago Public Schools inspector general, on Thursday released its second summary report publicly detailing more instances of sexual misconduct, inappropriate behavior between a volunteer and students, and failures by the principal to safeguard students at the public military academy and college-prep high school.

The report issued during winter break — and just days before Christmas — concludes the inspector general’s investigation that started in 2019. The second report paints a picture of a school culture where sexual harassment and charges of abuse and inappropriate behavior were overlooked or brushed under the rug by those in charge.

The latest from the inspector general’s office summarizes the final two reports issued to the Chicago Board of Education on its investigations at Marine Leadership Academy, or MLA. In total, the office has issued five reports to the Board of Education detailing allegations of sexual misconduct at the school dating back to 2016.

According to the watchdog, the principal violated the CPS Volunteer Policy by failing to have a volunteer complete fingerprinting and a background check before unsupervised interactions with students, according to the latest report.

The volunteer’s interactions included unsupervised interactions with students, as well as calls and text message exchanges with students. He also took students out for meals and went for walks with them, according to the report.

The principal eventually reported the volunteer for texting with a student but failed to report multiple instances where he violated CPS policies. The volunteer was eventually removed in Jan. 2020 after the principal raised concerns about his conduct, but investigators found no evidence of sexual misconduct with students.

Still, investigators found multiple instances of staff failing to comply with Chicago Public Schools policies prohibiting interactions between staff and students, including texting, connecting on social media, or giving students rides.

The report separately said the principal contributed to a “dysfunctional and divisive environment, which played a role in whether MLA staff members reported violations of CPS policies at all and how the reporting was handled, or mishandled.”

Even while under investigation, former Marine Leadership Academy principal Erin Galfer was promoted by the district before being fired on Nov. 6, according to WBEZ and the Sun-Times.

Neither Galfer nor her attorney could be reached for comment Thursday.

The Chicago public school at 1920 N. Hamlin Ave. is affiliated with the Marine Corps JROTC program and is one of a handful of schools connected to branches of the U.S. military. In 2013, a plan by district officials to convert the neighborhood school into a military academy faced significant community pushback.

The report said military staffers were responsible for most improper communications with students, citing more than a dozen phone records. But the watchdog said they found no evidence that the communications between instructors and students were sexual.

The full investigation substantiated allegations of violations of other CPS policies against 13 individuals, including the Marine Leadership Academy principal, four current and former staff members, four teachers, three military instructors, and a member of the MLA board of governors, the military school’s equivalent to a local school council member.

Chicago Public Schools office of the inspector general, or the OIG, investigated allegations against 29 individuals associated with the school. The allegations spanned sexual abuse of students, grooming nonsexual conduct, failure to report inappropriate behavior, and violations of CPS guidelines and policies.

Since the investigation’s started, the school district’s investigative arm communicated with Chicago Public Schools and the city’s police department regarding student safety. The watchdog agency contacted the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services at least 22 times since 2019 about allegations at Marine Leadership Academy, according to the November summary report from the inspector general’s office.

That report describes a school employee having a sexual relationship with a student after that student turned 18. Another staffer groomed a student and began a sexual relationship after that student graduated. A third employee sexually harassed and retaliated against a student after the student filed a report, and a fourth groomed one student and crossed boundaries with others, according to the report.

Seven other staffers, including the principal, assistant principal, head of security, a counselor, and a teacher’s assistant, did not report and actively hid suspected violations, the OIG said.

District officials said all staffers involved have been removed from the district.

No individuals currently face criminal charges, according to the OIG.

Mary Fergus, a Chicago schools spokesperson, said in an email that the OIG investigation “revealed a school culture in which adults did not keep the safety and well being of students a priority.”

“CPS has zero tolerance for perpetrators of inappropriate relationships and abuse and complicit non-reporters who do nothing to stop such behavior,” Fergus said.

With the investigation now completed, the district has begun to move forward with “disciplinary action or dismissal proceedings against involved employees and will keep the impacted students updated on any action taken,” Fergus said.

During the Chicago Board of Educators December meeting, district CEO Pedro Martinez addressed the “culture of inappropriate adult behavior” at Marine Leadership Academy

“Our top priority at CPS is protecting the safety and wellbeing of our students, ensuring that all students feel safe, supported, and valued and that their learning environment reflects a culture of respect and trust,” Martinez said. “When that standard is not upheld, we are committed to being transparent and taking actions to fix it.”

The CEO said the “perpetrators and enablers” had all been removed from the school and were being disciplined to the greatest extent possible.”

He expressed frustration that federal and state laws have until recently limited the district’s ability to prosecute those who are grooming students. Weeks after the allegations emerged, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law aiming to make all forms of grooming illegal.

Martinez said that the district would “not tolerate anyone using their position of authority to manipulate children, and those who turn a blind eye to this behavior will have no place in our schools.”

The reports come more than three years after a 2018 investigation by the Chicago Tribune revealed a systemic failure in the school system’s handling of cases of sexual misconduct. The district responded to that investigation by transferring some investigative authority to the inspector general, creating a 20-person Office of Student Protections tasked with protecting students from sexual violence and discrimination, establishing a reporting hotline for alleged abuse, and strengthening its background check policy for staff, vendors, and volunteers. At the time, Chicago also removed two principals.

Following the revelations in last month’s OIG report, the union said the lack of action was concerning and called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to make her “district responsible for all facets of student safety.”

“We cannot continue to have such an alarming lack of attention, and lack of action, in protecting children,” the union said Friday. “We must also continue to push back against cultures of fear and intimidation from administrators in our schools.”

Wanted: Ways to boost the profile of Chicago’s Local School Councils. A new bill could be a start.

2020-01-28T01:29:51+00:00

Established as a way to ensure parent and staff input into the running of schools, Chicago’s Local School Councils were heralded as a potent mechanism to empower communities.

Twenty years later, many councils suffer from vacancies, parent indifference, and a sense of powerlessness. But with council elections looming in April, the school district is hoping to beef up participation, parents are speaking out, and a key state bill could boost the councils’ profile. Chicago community groups are seeking to engage parents and community members and press lawmakers to give the bodies more teeth.

In a city lacking an elected school board, “It is the only democracy we have within the education system in Chicago,” said Rod Wilson, an organizer from the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, at a workshop aimed at strengthening the councils.

“If you’re getting public dollars then we’re saying that parents should have some say in the governance of the school.” But some parents feel as if they’re fighting an uphill battle to create change.

“Most members don’t welcome me there,” said Myriam Perez, who has served three terms as a community representative on the council of her former school, Nathan S. Davis Elementary in Brighton Park. She joined the council because she wanted to give back to the school that made her feel safe when she didn’t in her own home. But she’s had a mixed experience.

“I tend to ask a lot of questions, I tend to call people out if they’re not doing something … I don’t like going sometimes but I go anyways because I know that I want to speak up for students that might want a safe space at Davis.”

At the Saturday workshop, the host group Raise Your Hand encouraged attendees to get involved with their councils and briefed on coming changes, including the proposed LSC Empowerment Bill that would bolster councils’ powers.

More than 150 council members, parents, teachers and community members, plus several school board members, attended the Saturday workshop at offices of the teachers union.

Chicago is the only city in the state that uses the local school council model in public schools. Each school council has space for six parents, two teachers, one non-teacher staff member and two community members, as well as a student representative in high schools.

The councils have the authority to hire and evaluate the principal, allocate discretionary funds, and approve and monitor the school improvement plan.

Charter schools, contract schools and military schools — which together make up about one-fifth of public schools in the city — do not have councils.

But those schools would be required to form local councils under a state bill proposed by Rep. Sonya Harper, of the 6th district, and Sen. Ram Villivalam, of the 8th district. The bill also would allow councils to keep decision-making authority when schools are on probation.

It also would prohibit the district from closing any school without a supermajority of the council approving.

Additionally, the bill would scale back district influence on the councils and create advisory positions for seventh and eighth graders. In response to criticism about the preparation and ongoing support for council members, the bill calls for an independent commission in charge of training.

Some parents cite a lack of consistency among schools in running councils. Many attendees raised questions about voting technicalities and election rules, as well as the specifics of LSC authority.

The John H. Hamline Elementary council has a community vacancy and a non-teacher staff vacancy, said Geszill Lightfoot, a teacher at the school who has served on the council.

“Community should be involved because they have a stake in the education of the kids as well. It’s their school, their neighborhood,” said Jessica Suarez Nieto, who also teaches at Hamline Elementary, located in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. “How do we welcome parents to come in?”

David Vance, who is the community representative at James H. Bowen High School and James N. Thorp Elementary School, in South Chicago, said he’s noticed a lack of parent and community involvement in both councils.

“We need more parent involvement,” Vance said. “This is our taxpayer money. Our schools are public institutions, so we need to have our voices loud and clear to fight for the money that we need to fight for better schools because CPS hasn’t been doing it.”

Others said they hoped to bring a fresh perspective to their current councils. Bridget Doherty Trebing, a visual art teacher at Taft High School, in Norwood Park, said that her school’s council does not reflect the diverse student body and has consistent low attendance at meetings.

“We benefit from some privilege, being a well-resourced school, but our LSC is not terribly progressive … so I don’t feel like our LSC best serves our students,” Doherty Trebing said. “I don’t think we’re doing a good job of engaging the community.”

The coalition LSCs.4.All will launch a hotline Feb. 15 will launch a hotline on Feb. 15 to assist with elections and answer general inquiries, said Jennie Biggs, communications and outreach director of Raise Your Hand. The number will be 707-LSC-4ALL.

Elections will be held April 22 at elementary schools and April 23 at high schools.

In a move that has families on edge, Chicago is exploring enrollment caps at some popular schools

2019-11-20T23:37:26+00:00

In a city where some schools sit half-empty while others are bursting at the seams, Chicago education officials are trying to build support for a potential solution: capping enrollment at some neighborhood schools.

Instituting caps would mark a significant change in a district that has long guaranteed students admission to one elementary and one high school based on their address — a policy that has meant that families with means can effectively choose their schools based on where they buy or rent homes.

Even before any formal proposals are on the table, parents and school community members are pushing back.

At Audubon Elementary School in Roscoe Village, community members are awaiting a second visit from a top district official who recently gave a presentation about “controlled enrollment,” an approach where some applicants would be sent to nearby schools instead of the one to which they are zoned.

At Burley Elementary School, where classrooms are packed with students from the crowded zone, parents traded anxious emails this week before their principal told them that admissions changes are off the table for this year.

And multiple parents from Sauganash Elementary School exhorted the city school board Wednesday to build an addition to their school rather than send some local students elsewhere.

District officials say no formal proposals are on the table. But it is clear that they are casting about for strategies to quell an ongoing enrollment crisis posed by declining enrollment in some neighborhoods and population booms in others — and that they want local communities to support changes.

“As part of the district’s commitment to engaging school communities and addressing concerns of overcrowding, district representatives have been informally soliciting feedback on potential solutions at a small number of schools,” a spokeswoman, Emily Bolton, said in a statement.

“No policy decisions have been made or proposed and when it comes to issues impacting parents and students, the district’s highest priority is community engagement,” Bolton added.

Controlled enrollment would target longstanding dynamics. But the city faces new pressure to manage crowding because of financial penalties for oversized classes that are baked into its new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union.

The city previously used the approach in some places before discontinuing it because of transportation costs, but it would be new to the neighborhoods where it is currently being discussed.

Under the approach, the city would no longer guarantee admission to a particular school to every student who lives in its zone. Instead, once the school is full, students who seek to enroll would be offered choices of other nearby schools.

Audubon and Burley would appear to be ideal candidates for controlled enrollment. They sit just blocks away from another school, Jahn Elementary, where more than 40% of space went unused last year, according to the city.

The differences among the schools get at the heart of the city’s challenges, which include segregation and inequity on top of a changing and uneven student population.

Audubon and Burley both have student populations that reflect the neighborhood’s increasing affluence. Two-thirds of students are white, while just 2% or less are black — and only about 10% are eligible for subsidized lunch because of their families’ low income. Both schools have enrolled more students each year and now fill their seats exclusively with students who live in their zone. Burley has gotten so crowded that it eliminated its pre-kindergarten program.

The situation is very different at Jahn, where most students last year traveled from other zones to attend. Nearly two-thirds of them were from low-income families, and white students made up just 20% of enrollment.

If some students zoned for Audubon and Burley instead enrolled at Jahn, all three schools’ enrollment challenges could be addressed.

But Jahn is also considered lower-performing, causing many families living in its zone to enroll elsewhere. It has a lower rating from the city, lower state test scores, and higher teacher turnover than Audubon or Burley.

Do those data points reflect subpar teaching at the school? Or do they reflect the fact that Chicago’s population dynamics and enrollment rules sometimes cause needy students to be concentrated in certain schools?

The district’s top demographer, James Dispensa, might have offered a response to that question in his presentation to Burley’s Local School Council about controlled enrollment. He had been scheduled to appear first at a meeting that was canceled because of the teachers strike last month and again Wednesday night.

But in the days leading up to the meeting, anxiety-ridden emails circulated among parents in the community about what the presentation would contain. And on Tuesday, Principal Catherine Plocher told community members that the meeting agenda would no longer include enrollment policy and that the district had assured her that no enrollment changes would happen for the upcoming school year.

“After gaining insight and community feedback at Audubon School’s Local School Council meeting, the district has determined that they are still in the early stages of development needing more time and thought towards policies that would impact neighborhood school enrollment and overcrowding issues,” Plocher wrote.

“I understand that waiting for information without a clear timeline can feel unnerving and create worry, assumptions, and rumors that are not fully accurate,” she added. “The only real solutions and decisions will come from the district itself.”

Some in the Burley community have been pressing for their preferred solution, for the city to build an addition or annex to their school. That has happened at other overcrowded schools, and minutes from the March 2019 Local School Council meeting suggest that Plocher was optimistic about the idea. “Ms. Plocher is continuing to work with CPS headquarters and officials for a possible addition, but is in a holding pattern until the mayoral runoff in April,” the notes read.

But Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who prevailed in that runoff, has emphasized that the city needs to watch its education spending. Already, the school district is the second-most-indebted in the country because of its spending on new buildings. Controlled enrollment, if it worked, could even out enrollment disparities without construction costs.

But changes could also backfire and propel families with means to leave Chicago, adding to the exodus that is already putting extreme pressure on the city’s schools.

Lisabeth Weiner, a former Burley parent, hinted at that possibility during her comments at the school board meeting Wednesday. She said Burley parents and community members want to work with the district to “develop long-term, sustainable solutions while continuing to be part of a stable, unified community.”

Weiner added, “Congruent with that goal is keeping families in the city and enrolled in CPS.”

There are also pockets of the city where controlled enrollment may be less practical. At Wednesday’s board meeting, several speakers from Sauganash Elementary on the Northwest side petitioned for an addition to their school, which has grown more crowded as new home construction in the neighborhood has drawn families. The library has been closed, musical instruments are going unused, and art and science rooms could be converted to classrooms next year, Marikay Hegarty, a member of the Local School Council, told the board.

Planning for new space was a main agenda item at the school’s September Local School Council meeting, where meeting minutes show that Principal Christine Munns reported that the district’s CEO, Janice Jackson, had visited the school early this year and encouraged her to documenting the crowding there.

They may have a point. Sauganash was so crowded last year that its kindergarten classes had 36 and 37 students — but a nearby school, Edgebrook, is also at capacity and had 30 children in its kindergarten classes.

“A change of school boundaries or a cap on enrollment,” Hegarty said, “is not an acceptable solution to our problem.”