Chicago plans 54 school closures to cut $1B deficit

Parents protest outside the home of Chicago's Board of Education President David Vitale, March 21, 2013, in Chicago. / AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

CHICAGO Chicago Public Schools officials said Thursday they plan to close 54 schools in an effort to address a $1 billion budget shortfall and improve a struggling educational system — a plan that drew the ire of parents and teachers.

District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say the closures are necessary because too many CPS buildings are half-empty. The nation's third-largest district, CPS has about 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000, officials say. But opponents say the closures will disproportionately affect minority children and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school.

The plan will affect about 30,000 students, CPS officials said. They say money being spent to keep underutilized schools open could be better used to educate students elsewhere.

"Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high quality education that prepares them to succeed in life, but for too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilized, under-resourced schools," Byrd-Bennett said.

23 Photos

Chicago teachers strike

"As a former teacher and a principal, I've lived through school closings and I know that this will not be easy, but I also know that in the end this will benefit our children."

Critics say the closings are unnecessary and will devastate communities, particularly poor, minority neighborhoods.

Sandra Leon said she got a tearful call from her grandchildren's kindergarten teacher saying their school was on the list to be closed. Her two grown children also attended the school, and Leon couldn't suppress tears as she waited outside the building for her grandchildren.

"It's been so good for our kids," Leon said. "This school is everything."

Chicago is among several major U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit to use mass school closures to reduce costs and offset declining enrollment. Detroit has closed more than 130 schools since 2005, including more than 40 in 2010 alone.

The issue has again pitted Emanuel against the Chicago Teachers Union, whose 26,000 members went on strike early in the school year, idling students for seven days. It has also put Emanuel and Byrd-Bennett at odds with parents, civic leaders and lawmakers, who have blasted the pair during highly charged community meetings throughout the city and at a legislative hearing earlier this week.

Danielle Horton, who learned her son's school is among those slated to close, called Byrd-Bennett the mayor's "hatchet man" and accused her and Emanuel of trying to "rob the community to further a political agenda" that includes expanding the use of charter schools.

Many of the schools identified for closure are in high-crime areas of Chicago where gang violence contributed to a marked increase in the city's homicide rate last year. The district plans to have community groups help students get to their new locations safely.

• Chicago schools CEO replaced after 17 months
• Thousands of striking teachers rally in Chicago
• Back to class as Chicago teachers halt strike

Among the critics is Eular Hatchett, who lives in the violence-plagued neighborhood of North Lawndale. She walks her 13-year-old nephew DaVontay Horace to school to ensure he gets there safely.

"Our parents know about this area," she said. "They don't know about those other areas. If they send him way north or way south, I'm not going to do that. It's too dangerous."

In addition to the 54 school closures, students at 11 other schools will be "co-located" with existing schools. Six schools have been targeted for academic interventions known as "turnaround.'

CPS says the plan will save the district $560 million over 10 years in capital costs and an additional $43 million per year in operating costs.

The district plans to invest $233 million into what it calls the "welcoming" schools, or the buildings that students in closed schools will be moving to. Those funds will be used for improvements such as air conditioning, upgraded technology and security and to ensure every school has a library.

District officials said they couldn't calculate how many teachers will be laid off as a result of the cuts because school leaders will make decisions about their own budgets.

Many teachers and parents expressed anger and frustration at how the news of the closures trickled out, leaving some to agonize over rumor and conjecture.

"In a word, the approach was brutal. It's certainly not deserved by these parents and these kids," said Mary Visconti, the director of the Better Boys Foundation, a youth organization in the Lawndale neighborhood.

At Lafayette Elementary, where 95 percent of its 483 students come from low-income families, teacher Rosemary Maurello said the principal read teachers a letter from the district Thursday morning saying the school is among those it plans to close. The letter said a final decision would be made in May after more community meetings are held and budget plans are reviewed.

But Maurello said letters and information packets were already being sent to parents and the district's message to teachers included a mention of specific plans to move the Lafayette students to another school about 10 blocks away.

"It sounds like a done deal to me," Maurello said.

[Ohio_Bill]

Newster9O2lO says: a plan that drew the ire of parents and teachers."

Too bad, I got a better plan- start billing the PARENTS of those love-spawns on a per seat per day fee system plus transportation @ $5/ day and we'll see how enthusiastic they are about having MORE of them!
_______________________________

I thought this post deserved to be at the top!

Excellent comment!

"Love spawns". I love it!

[dieschwalbe]

The fiscal problems of the United States are largely due to the fact that Wall Street pays no taxes.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/demand-wall-street-sales-tax/Wdq2Rz2Y

[Ohio_Bill]

Nonsense!

[Donnie_G]

Suck it up Chicago! This is the exact kind of government you voted for, so quit your whining and suck it up. You happily sold your votes in exchange for freebies. Well guess what? You voted for stronger unions instead of better schools. You voted for expensive, wasteful, useless, feel good policies, like gun bans, instead of more police to patrol your troubled neighborhoods. Meanwhile, those freebies that you crave have run out and there's nothing left to tax. So suck it up Chicago! Things are about to get worse.

[havefun11]

They didn't vote for this. Well, maybe they were bamboozled by Rahm. The Democrats and the Republicans are both committed to destroying the public schools. They want for-profit charters where kids sit in front of a computer all day with nothing more than a proctor passing as a teacher. It's disgraceful. In many ways we are moving backwards.

[chipmonk13]

Radical change is necessary in failing districts. I believe the kids in schools where less than 50% graduate should attend " Certificate Schools". Schools that award certificates as the children reach milestones. The certificates would allow any over 16 to apply for various jobs they have learned about. The implied success for having been granted a certificate should have enough community support , coupled with a work training salary to enable the kids to start on a road to independance and with a work ethic. Later they could do evening work for a GED and enroll in evening or day clssses at a community college. A simple well thought out program would train for all types of entry level and a few life skills. The pride gained would go a long way toward uplifting the chrildren. Call them vo -tech if you will but all manner of skills are needed in America and certificates would help the situation. Each speciality could have age levels and multi year programs. If eleven million illegals are working here----why can't that work be done by certificate carrying Americans.

[havefun11]

Certificate schools? Are you kidding? What a patronizing idea. This isn't the deep south during slave times where people need to be "uplifted." I have a better idea. All children should have access to the same education as the children of our political leaders.

It's such a joke that our dear leaders pretend not to know how to fix the school system while their kids are getting a great education at National Cathedral School, St. Albans, Andover, the Brearley School, etc Go to those websites and see what those kids get to learn.

The 1% want an uneducated population that is easy to control. That's why they refuse to fund the schools.

[Aussiebobbie]

he talks about resources, why can't the schools share them and rotate them

[1notrub11]

Fine, but why retain 100,000 empty chairs across the district?

Consolidate and reduce overhead.

[Aussiebobbie]

with the amount of their childhood kids spend at school, I think it's better for them to have smaller schools than large, because the larger, fuller the school is, I can imagine the more the troubled kids are able to go under the radar, and with the current teenage culture being in so much trouble, I don't think this reduction in supervision is such a good idea.

[retmw1]

Wonder if the superintendent and school board are taking a pay cut, since closing 54 schools means they'll have less responsability and fewer employees to supervise.

[1notrub11]

Works for me

[phoenixh]

Perhaps some schools are being closed because of poor performance, but can this be said of Calhoun North? Its performance is MUCH better than that of Cather. However, Calhoun has the distinction of its site being desired by the nearby charter school which helped to lower its enrollment. Yet that school hasn't done as well as Calhoun. So children from a higher performing school are being sent to a lower performing one in this case. Welcome to Chicago politics.

Reply