Citywide day of action on Friday

Really got wind of this on Wednesday via an email from Mrs. Banks-Pincham forgot them got reminded in another email. A post about this will be posted at SixthWard.us in the morning but this blog will post about it first.

• Subject: ASKING FOR YOUR SUPPORT FOR CITYWIDE DAY OF ACTION: FRIDAY APRIL 1, 2016
  
  Below is the plan of action for Harlan.
  
  This plan is being conducted in concert with many other unions who are being effected by the political onslaught of Governor Rauner and Mayor Emanuel to dismantle the union structure in the name of "balancing the budgets"
  
  Over the next few days, you may be hearing about the actions on April 1st taking
  place across the City that emphasize the disrespect and disregard for;
  
  • Students from Pre-K to PhD by not providing a fair funding formula for all students in Illinois to the withholding of MAP grant monies to state run university students.
  • Fair wages for the workers at McDonalds,
  • Moving of jobs from the United States to Mexico (Nabisco)
  • The building and expansion of prisons instead of schools in Illinois as well selling off public education to the private sector.
  • The lack of pension funding because City and State governments did not pay their portion and used the taxes to fund those pensions with the promise to pay it back......over more than 20 years.........and never did.
  WE NEED EVERYONE TO COME OUT AND SUPPORT THIS DAY OF ACTION. IT EFFECTS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US AND WE NEED TO STAND UP NOW!!!!!
  
  The current plan for Friday April 1, 2016 is: teachers meet at 8 a.m. at Harlan to picket for an hour; at about 9 a.m. teachers who are physically able will walk to Chicago State; teachers who are unable to make the walk will drive to Chicago State at 9:30; we will converge at the Student Union Building at 10:00 a.m. for a rally at CSU; a teach in will be conducted from 10:00 a.m. until just after 12 noon; CTU, CSU faculty and community organizations (West Chesterfield, Rosemoor, etc.,)will rally at noon and march back to Harlan; Harlan teachers can get their cars and drive downtown (actually) the lot near Cermak and Wentworth is recommended with a Red Line ride to State and Lake; others may elect to catch the 95th Street Red Line with CSU faculty to go downtown; CTU and other unions will gather at the State of Illinois (Thompson) building located at Randolph and Clark.
  
  By the way, the Thompson building is a public building. There is a food court on the lower level offering a variety of foods.
  
  If you arrive a little early, grab something to eat. The food court starts shutting down around 3p.m. The downtown "Shut Down Chicago-Fund Our Schools" rally at the Thompson building will run from about 3 or 4 until around 6.
  
  All are welcome to call or email - sherry8750 @ yahoo.com - if there are questions or concerns.
  
  Sharon Banks-Pincham
  Harlen LSC Member

Community Job Fair - April 8, 2015

Found out via email from the office of State Representative Elgie Sims

CSU Presidential Library Support Requested

We were aware of some meetings regarding the future Barack Obama Presidential Library as it pertains to Chicago State University. While Mayor Rahm Emanuel is encouraging a single bid for the city to become home to a library many sites in Chicago are seeking one especially the President's former employer University of Chicago.

You can check out Curbed Chicago's coverage of Obama's Presidential Library Chicago State's bid for the library. The contents of the e-mail you will see below.

AP: Multiple groups vie for Obama's Presidential Library

President Barack Obama

The AP has a story about the many groups here in Chicago who are vying for their particular insitutions or neighborhoods to become home of the President's future library. Those sites include Bronzeville, Chicago State University, University of Chicago, Pullman, and even that former US Steel site on the southeast lakefront. In the case of Chicago State and Pullman:

There are also two potential bids on the Far South Side, one led by Chicago State University and the other by a group promoting the historic Pullman neighborhood. It was in those areas that Obama established his earliest roots in the city as a community organizer in the mid-1980s, setting up job training programs and defending the rights of public housing tenants.
...
The Far South Side is a longshot given its distance from downtown, lack of transportation options and the gang violence that persists there.

And presidential libraries aren't guaranteed to lift the local economy.

So far the main competitors are:

The main point of tension is between the University of Chicago, where Obama spent 12 years as a constitutional law professor until his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate, and a group advocating for Bronzeville, the city's historic center of black culture, business and politics.

"They think that they can get whatever they want," Bronzeville organizer Harold Lucas said of the university. "If you compare the cranes in the sky and that opulent growth of this university to the surrounding, predominantly African-American community, it's a travesty. It's a clear tale of two cities."

Lucas and other critics of the university's bid say the school has been secretly working its White House connections at the expense of a plan that would benefit more of the city and honor the black community's role in electing the nation's first black president.

For its part, the university says it wants to work with neighbors on a plan to build the library off-campus in a part of the South Side where it can spur development. A university spokesman declined to comment beyond the school's previous statements. 

We already know that Mayor Emanuel wants to submit only a unified bid for Obama's Presidential Library so the various groups need to come up with a good bid. And bear in mind one point of this article, "presidential libraries aren't guaranteed to life the local economy". That being said the library could easily either go to Hawaii where Presient Obama was born or to New York so time will only tell if Chicago will eventually succeed in its bid.

Shedd School a satellite location for Chicago State...

Shedd School in Spring 2012

Back in September I wrote about my ideas about what to do with the closed Shedd School building. As of the current school year Shedd branch was closed and all students will be attending class at Bennett School.

A persistent report from the Roseland Heights Community Association (RHCA) was that Shedd School could ultimately become an annex for the nearby Chicago State University. So at least plans are being made to utilize this building, but I do need to ask some questions so I may have to get back to the RHCA about them.

For example will Chicago State own the building or will it remain a CPS owned property?

A question that no one could possibly answer is whether or not in the near future could Shedd School be used for the neighborhood children if enrollment changes for the better. That is if Bennett School exceeds their expected enrollment (and as stated in that earlier post Bennett School had been experiencing enrollment declines) could it re-open for students.

All the same stay tuned for any updates on this development.