CPS expected to announce closing of 50 schools in Black Neighborhoods?

by | Mar 21, 2013 | News | 0 comments

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, John Byrne and John Chase,Tribune reporters

After months of hearings and debate, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is ready to announce plans to close about 50 elementary schools, sources said, a number that quickly drew fire from aldermen and community leaders in the mostly African-American neighborhoods that will be hardest hit.

school closings2“Rahm Emanuel, I’ve been a supporter of yours since day one, but you’ve done us wrong this time,” said Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th. “He’s forgetting about the people who helped put him in office.”

An announcement on school closings is expected Thursday. In a statement released late Wednesday, Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett said she will make her recommendations on closings soon “so we can get those students safely into a higher performing school that will have all the things they need to learn and succeed.”

Austin said she had not been told which schools in her far South Side ward are in line to be shut down. But most of the schools targeted by the district are in predominantly black neighborhoods on the South and West sides

“I don’t think anything is a done deal in this city. I’m not going to let them do this to us, not again,” she said. “Every time the whites get to screaming and hollering, they back off and steamroll over black and brown folks. Not this time.”

Thursday’s expected announcement follows weeks of debate between CPS and City Hall over how many schools to close. The district, which says it needs to close underenrolled schools to address a looming $1 billion deficit, has been working from a preliminary list of 129 schools released in mid-February.

In addition to closing about 50 schools, sources said the district will consolidate or overhaul staff at a number of other schools, bringing the total number of school actions to about 70. Urban districts around the country have been forced to close large numbers of schools, but if the number in Chicago holds it would likely be the largest number of schools shut down by a city in a single year in recent history.

CPS has never closed more than a dozen or so schools in one year. Emanuel has pushed to close a large number of schools all at once, and in return has offered a five-year moratorium on closures.

“The main tension is driven by this (five-year) moratorium that requires the city going as far as they can in a responsible way because they won’t have the opportunity to close schools for underenrollment after this,” said Tim Knowles, director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute.

Bishop James Dukes of Liberation Christian Center in the West Englewood neighborhood has been working with Byrd-Bennett on safety plans for school closings, but he nonetheless questioned how the district will be able to move so many kids to new schools.

“In Englewood, that could be eight or nine school actions that may affect 2,000 to 3,000 kids. How are you going to ensure kids are going to be in the right class and have the right information? That’s a plan I would love to see,” Dukes said.

Ald. Willie Cochran, 20th, said he hasn’t had any conversations with mayoral or CPS officials about school closings in several days. “It is just unfortunate they don’t show more respect for the alderman in any of the decisions that they make. There should have been briefings before it became public,” Cochran said.

Cochran said Emanuel’s administration has failed to listen to black aldermen who have been generally supportive. “If you look at the city’s investments in the communities, it speaks for itself,” he said.

As the school year started in September, officials were looking at closing 80 to 120 schools, sources said. In December, CPS officials said utilization would be the only factor considered for closing schools, reporting at the time that 330 of its 681 schools were underenrolled.

The district’s Commission on School Utilization this month said it had determined the district could safely close, consolidate or overhaul up to 80 schools.

While district officials said they are closing a large number of schools to address a budget shortfall, they have not released details on how much it will cost to shut down schools, provide extra security and safety programs for students, and equip receiving schools with promised upgrades like science labs, libraries and air conditioning.

District officials said they’ll pay for the investments by “redirecting resources from underutilized” schools, which will be closed.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-cps-to-announce-school-closings-foes-say-they-will-target-minorities-20130320,0,3068820.story

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