Heated School Board Meeting Expected
CHICAGO--With various local education organizations planning to scream, march and protest, Wednesday’s School Board meeting promises to be anything but quiet.
The organizations—including the Chicago Teachers Union, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators and Parents United For Responsible Education—are raising their voices against a proposal to close or reorganize 22 public schools across the city, which the Board of Education is expected to vote on at the meeting.
The uproar is not just about the closings of public schools, but the opening of charter schools in their place as part of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Renaissance 2010 initiative, which many tie to gentrification plans in Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods.
“They want to move poor people and working-class people out of neighborhoods, even if they’re schools are successful, and replace them with schools that will attract more affluent people,” Don Moore, executive director of Designs For Change, said at a Grassroots Education Movement meeting.
GEM, a coalition group including the teachers union, CORE and DFC, is organizing a protest following the meeting. Five hundred protesters demonstrated outside the CPS’s downtown building last month. Teacher and CORE organizer Jackson Potter said he is “confident” at least 1000 protesters will turn out this time, though he is still trying to arrange bus transportation.
Before protesting outside, the disgruntled groups intend to be heard inside. Potter is encouraging his fellow teachers to take Wednesday off to address the Board during the meeting’s public hearing.
The Bronzeville Education Advocacy Movement—BEAM—is planning to appeal to the board on behalf of Abbott Elementary, one of the schools slated for closure.
“It is about them really displacing way too many families and breaking up communities too quickly … and without a plan,” Andrea Lee, BEAM’s education coordinator, said Wednesday.
Lee, like Moore, sees Renaissance 2010 as a gentrification initiative. But CPS school advocacy coordinator Kenneth Gilkes said they have “Ren10” all wrong.
“A lot of people have misconceptions that we are the ones closing schools,” Gilkes said about Daley’s initiative. “Our main objective is opening high-quality new schools.”
But the CPS line is not going to keep protesters away from Wednesday’s meeting. They will be marching out front of 125 S. Clark St., dressed in all black “to mourn the slow death of public education brought on by programs like Ren10,” according to Potter.
CPS spokesman Malon Edwards said that despite the likely high turnout—and higher emotions—the district is not planning to ramp up security.
“We’ve had protests the last few board meetings and security at the building know how to handle it,” Edwards said. “They’re used to it.”
Wednesday’s School Board meeting starts at 9 a.m. GEM’s protest is set to begin right after the meeting ends around 3:30 p.m.
