An estimated 150 parents, Local School Council (LSC) members, teachers, local school reformers, civil rights activists and community leaders expressed their outrage at a rally and press conference held before the CPS board meeting.

CPS’ decision making process has been highly controversial and secretive. This process includes a strategy of announcing school closings late in the school year, denying parents and LSC the chance to examine CPS’ data and arguments, develop viable alternatives to school closings, or even find alternative placements for students to transfer. Shirley Burton, who has been teaching at Raymond Elementary School since 1992, told me that the school received its closing notice on June 21, the day before the end of the school year, a measure that raises the question of the legal requirement for such notices. By resorting to such underhanded tactics, CPS has, for the fourth year in a row, completely left parents and the affected children out of the decision making. In addition, receiving schools are also left with little time or resources to plan for the new students’ arrival. Teachers have been forced to look for jobs. Mabel Orange, a public school teacher for 33 years, showed me the pink slip she was handed just yesterday. (which was the last day of the school year)

Representatives of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless joined in with the community activists in calling on the CPS Board members to reject their staff’s school closing plan, or table the matter until a “School Closings Impact Study and Alternatives Analysis” is done for each school and CPC on Arne Duncan’s “hit list.” Rene Heybach, Director of Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, had a simple and clear message for the Board members: “Do the right thing - don’t approve these school closings.”

What are the motives behind CPS’ school closings? The Neighborhood Capital Budget Group (NCBG) has provided research and technical support to schools affected by the plan, and found that CPS’s plan is arbitrary at best. These foundings include:
1. There are 95 schools around the city with enrollment at less than 50% of each building’s particular design capacity -- the threshold at which Arne Duncan suggested that CPS should consider closing down school buildings.
2. Of these 95 schools, Duncan selected eight for closure citing “low utilization.” NCBG found that 50 schools have lower utilization rates than Byrd, also on the closing list (Byrd is located in Cabrini Green). Such findings raise the question: What other criteria did CPS use to choose which schools to close?
3. All eight “underutilized” schools on this year’s school closings hit list are in the path of the CHA Transformation Plan, and serve nearly 100% African American students.
4. There are at least six schools around the city with comparable or even lower rates of building utilization than those slated to close, where Caucasian students make up 10% or more of total enrollment. None of these schools has been threatened with closure. This is a clear indication of disparities in impact on racial groups.
5. CPS failed to provide racial impact studies, enrollment projections or any cost/benefit analysis to the public prior to its school closing hearings, but entered these secret documents into the hearings records.

Let’s look a bit closer at points 1 and 2. If small schools and smaller class sizes help children succeed academically, why are these small schools being closed? Arne Duncan initially called these schools “cost prohibitive to keep,” then later stated that closing schools is “not a financial issue” for CPS. Well, which is it, Arne? Duncan based his arguments on percentage of enrollment vs each building’s capacity on the TOTAL number of rooms, including teachers’ lounge, washrooms, nurses’ room and social workers’ rooms! At Raymond Elementary School alone, out of a total of 62 rooms, fifteen are administrative offices that CPS put there!

Point 3 is a clear indication of CPS’ sellout to Chicago developers, and the Board members’ complicity in facilitating the speedy gentrification process that has been the city’s top priority, with complete and utter disregard to minority groups and all who are lower on the socioeconomic ladder: the closing schools are in the South and West side communities, and are comprised of 95% low-income students.

Gloria Crite, a parent and teacher at Sojourner Truth School, spoke about the schools that are being closed in the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) developments, underlining the CPS Board’s excuse that these schools are in such bad shape, they “need” to be closed. The question is, why did CPS neglect them to the point of being condemned? “What’s next?” she asked. “Take children’s lunches away? What happened to the money allocated to the maintenance of these schools? Where are the millions upon millions that the state lottery brings in daily? Do our children’s self-esteem, self-respect and determination to succeed mean anything to the Board? We are tired of excuses. No more lies!” To note: Arne Duncan NEVER visited the school, in spite of all the promises he made to do so.

I am particularly concerned by the prospects of Spalding Elementary School, built over 70 years ago. The closing of Spalding will displace 600 students with special needs, who will be “integrated” into schools that are not even equipped with needed ramps and elevators. What would happen in case of fire? Addressing the concern that Roberto Clemente School has seven floors, the CPS board has responded that personnel will have the task of carrying the students with physical impairments outside safely.This is the most far-fetched scenario I’ve ever heard. Has the City learned ANYTHING from the fire that took lives in the Cook County building? Apparently not! A Spalding student pleaded with the Board: “I don’t think it’s fair to close my school because I have friends and teachers there who care about me, who help me. IT’S NOT FAIR THAT YOU CLOSE MY SCHOOL!”

I asked Deborah Lynch, President of the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU), what the CTU's grievances and demands are. "CTU is here to protest the Board of Education's budget cuts," she said. "While the Board is cutting the budget on school children, it shifts the money to its bureaucracy." In a statement at the Board of Education meeting, she insisted that any Board of Education reductions (should) begin by "Chopping from the Top" and (with) the elimination of the 24 Area Instructional Officers. "Building a larger bureaucracy while at the same time dismantling Early Childhood, regular classroom and Special Education programs and reducing security in the schools is no way to run a school system," Lynch insisted. The union president also reiterated that the union's position that a 5+5 retirement incentive for veteran teachers would save the Board hundreds of millions of dollars and eliminate the need for any reduction in services to students. "Weeks ago we presented Arne Duncan with an Early Retirement plan that would have saved the Board nearly $100 million each year while costing tax payers nothing. Instead of working with us to pass that Early Retirement legislation, Duncan has chosen to meet his supposed budget gap, not by cutting the nearly $200 million he has spent in the last year on 25 new administrative area offices, but by cutting staff that serve Chicago's neediest students -- Special Ed and preschools. This is an unconscionable move that we will fight with every means at our disposal," she said.

In response to CPS' inconsistent, discriminatory and unfair policies, the following demands have been put forth:

1. CPS' Board of Education REJECT THE PLAN OR DELAY THE DECISION to close ten schools, eight Child Parent Centers, and freeze enrollment at two high schools which will affect not only the the 8th graders but the freshmen at those schools. Provide the public with a Comprehensive School Closings Impact Study and Alternatives Analysis with data that justifies the closure of these schools instead of any of the 95 other schools that also have less than 50% building capacity are measured against the same standards.
2. Call upon the Illinois General Assembly to act. Call on our State Representative Ken Dunkin to hold public hearings as soon as possible to investigate the effects of CPS' school closings on children of color, and their impact on the integrity and viability of out elected Local School Council system.

For the entire duration of the Board meeting, Arne Duncan's face was so void of expression, I was not able to tell the difference between the real person and a wax sculpture. Was your mind there, Arne? I doubt it. It is again up to THE PEOPLE to bring about justice. May they succeed in their worthy efforts!