CapitolFax: Fine lines and massive layoffs

The school closings that occurred before the end of the last school year were controversial. The controversy continues as this post by Rich Miller discusses the charter school angle, then the layoffs, the justification for closing schools and sending them to a better performing school.

Certainly there's a lot going on here. I do want to add that many schools are facing financial pressure because now many schools are under a student based budgeting formula. Some of the schools are rejecting their budgets as this will impact the jobs at their schools but also the programs for their students. In some cases their doing so even after agitating enough to get $100,000 worth of TIF funds from the city.

Anyway it's obvious that there's still a fight over the school closings and concerns over student safety as they must transfer to another school. Most of the closed schools are elementary schools and it's sad that there are people who would engage in an assault over who goes to which elementary school.

Sadly, I do believe the actions CPS took this past spring was necessary academically and financially. Noise is going to be made about the various things that must happen as a result. Especially sorting out the finances of these changes and insuring the safety of the students. Hopefully it's all be sorted out with the students in mind because the goal essentially is to ensure that they are educated!

Another principal change...

I haven't attended any LSC meetings at all the past year. Not entirely certain why although I could blame the fact that I never knew the schedule as I'm certain that the schedule could change year-to-year. Another reason why is often because of work.

All the same I ran into an LSC member the other day and learned that Bennett-Shedd will go through another principal selection process. Ms. Teresa K. Anderson served only a year as principal having replaced longtime teacher/counselor Roberta Fields who herself succeeded Ms. Barbara Ellis the long-time Bennett-Shedd principal who passed away in January 2011.

I heard that Ms. Anderson wasn't getting along at Bennett-Shedd at all with teachers or parents. Although I made sure to note that there are some elementary school principals here in Chicago who are leaving the CPS system due to the turmoil after school closings and what not. In this case it was personal.

I did tell this person that I plan to come around more in the future. Hopefully the next person they select to be principal will prove to be a good fit!

Bennett School song

If you graduated from Bennett at least within the last 20 years or so if not very recently you may have sung this song. My time in elementary school well when teachers had to make copies they didn't always use a xerox copier they may have used a facsimile device that might give off a strong aroma because of the chemicals used to produce copies. The image I'm going to show you is of the song, however, some parts of it are cut off.

In the fourth line off to the side that should be halls. All other cutoff words should be easily determined.

Also when I graduated from Kindergarten there was a song for Shedd School that we sung. Not sure where to start to even find that. It was TOO long ago and long lost like my KG diploma. :(

Are you interested in the weather?

I was in the third grade when my parents first got cable TV. Back then it wasn't Comcast, however, even then my eyes was on The Weather Channel. It was the first time I learned about tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. Most of the time it had me scared and my parents wasn't worried.

Then one day The Weather Channel offered products weather instruments that would allow young people to learn more about weather. Today the products are more digital in nature. One of the instruments that caught my eye was the rain guages which are used to measure the amount of precipitation.

Sometimes I still think about getting a rain gauge but I never quite pull the trigger. There are other instruments to buy that will allow anyone to check out the weather. We could all just find a thermometer to determine the outside temperature at your home. Then there are much more expensive weather instruments that could check anything from wind, temperature, precipitation, to even humidity.

When I started this blog one of the things I did here was place a weather widget in the sidebar. Weather will affect the young people in someway especially the snow and school could be closed due to snow. And today's weather well I'm sure that affected a lot of people in addition to school students.

Still I wonder if there's a young person out there who is as interested in the weather as I had been in the past. Even then one need not be a meteorologist - even the TV variety - to remain interested. The weather is interesting even if you aren't professionally trained!

At least I know Home Depot provides some of these products, especially rain gauges!

Ward Room: Why Elites Don't Think Public Schools Important To City's Future

I find this article from our local NBC affiliate quite depressing. It's an opinion, but it's quite sad that we see CPS graduates as nothing more than lower level workers and that's where they'll stay!

In this city divided between a small overclass of lawyers, consultants and IT professionals, and a large underclass of cashiers, dishwashers and landscapers, the local elites see the public schools as a training ground for service jobs that require little education. Chicago’s status as a regional hub enables it to poach college graduates from surrounding states, thus allowing the city to maintain an educated class with no public investment.

Close 54 public schools and cram the dispossessed students into overcrowded classrooms? Emanuel, who is Chicago’s quintessential global citizen, knows it won’t affect Chicago’s standing as a global city. Today at 4 p.m. in the Daley Plaza, thousands of students, parents and teachers will rally to keep the schools open. Their voices won’t reach the top of the Richard J. Daley Building. 

This was published on Wednesday and I apologize for not providing more coverage of the school closings that have occurred within the past week. However you can check out the coverage over at The Sixth Ward to see what's going on.

BTW, most of these closings involve mostly underutilized schools and Bennett would've been one of them but Bennett isn't slated for closing. Although I did hear from one of the neighborhood groups that Shedd will close next year.

Another holiday is upon us!

While all CPS students are currently on spring break we run right into a holiday weekend Easter Weekend! If spring break hadn't coincided with this more or less religious holiday then CPS students would likely be off today.

When I first starting going to high school (GO FALCONS!) CPS attempted to eliminate Good Friday as an off day but went back to business as usual the next year. The teachers weren't playing that! In fact my World Geography teacher already said he's taking that day off!

All the same, I hope everyone who reads this blog is having a happy and safe Good Friday and Easter. Hopefully you're taking this time to eat some tradition Easter treats in addition to any other activities you may enjoy!

Come see "The Curators of Dixon School"

It will be shown on the west side at ICE Theater's Lawndale 10 cinemas on Wednesday far from both Bennett/Shedd and Dixon School on the south side. The Lawndale cinemas are located at 3330 W. Roosevelt Rd. I also posted about this documentary last year as it was part of an independent film fest held at the Art Institute of Chicago. Refer to the flyer below for more details.

Also check out the doc's official website @ http://curatorsofdixonschool.com

Remember last year when I posted about a summer movie promotion for kids at ICE Theaters alas since October they no longer operate and since December no longer own their former Chatham 14 location near 87th & Dan Ryan.