Education Week - September 11, 2013 - 6

6 EDUCATION WEEK
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2013 www.edweek.org
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Budget, Security Concerns as Chicago Schools Open
Smooth start despite
changes, officials say
By Jaclyn Zubrzycki
Chicago
The financially strapped Chicago
district opened the new school year
with fewer schools and a diminished
staff, but with a massive security
presence meant to ease disruptions
from the largest set of school closings
in the nation’s history.
While safety concerns domi-
nated the district’s opening days,
students, parents, and teachers
were also grappling with other
major changes wrought by the
consolidations or closures of 49 of
the city’s more than 600 schools.
More than 12,000 students in
the city are attending different
schools from last year, and the
district shed roughly 1,600 teachers
and staff members earlier this
year in an effort to address a $1
billion budget deficit.
It’s the second straight year that
Chicago—the nation’s third largest
district with 403,000 students—has
returned to school amid tumult.
Last fall, a teachers’ strike upended
the start of the academic year for
more than a week. District officials
said that the first two weeks of
school this year had gone smoothly
and that a 93.5 percent student
attendance rate on the first day of
school exceeded last year’s.
But some parents, the teachers’
union, and advocates remain concerned
about how the rest of the
school year will unfold, especially
after the district’s recently approved
budget for fiscal 2014 signaled that
more spending cuts may be coming
down the pike.
Safety a Priority
Concerns that gang-related violence
in the city would be exacerbated
by the massive reassignment
of students from shuttered schools
to campuses in other neighborhoods
prompted district leaders to
expand its Safe Passage program.
More than 57 miles of streets are
now lined with yellow signs and patrolled
by some 1,200 new Safe Passage
workers to ensure students get
to and from school safely.
Those efforts to keep students safe
and in school are expected to continue
long after the start of school.
“We had a lot of support [on the
first days of school],” said Jadine
Chou, the chief safety and security
officer for the district. “We’re using
that support to get a real good
start and get momentum.”
The district’s demonstration of
safety measures, though, has not
quelled the controversy over the
wave of closings that has roiled the
city for months.
On the third day of the school
year, hundreds of parents, activists,
and students marched from
the district’s downtown headquarters
to City Hall in order to protest
the closings and consolidations,
which they said had disproportionately
affected African-American
neighborhoods. Protesters also
A Safe Passage worker
watches over a stretch
of Pulaski Road on
Chicago’s West Side
as two students head
home on the first day
of school.
“
We had a
lot of support
[on the first
days of school].
We’re using that
support to get
a real good
start and get
momentum.”
JADINE CHOU
Chief Safety and Security Officer
Chicago Public Schools
demanded an elected school board
to oversee the district controlled
by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, called
for the city’s school board to stop
requiring registration for its public
meetings, and decried budget cuts.
The district’s $6.6 billion budget
for fiscal 2014 includes some
$134 million less for regular public
schools this year and will entail cuts
to arts, music, and library services
as well as programs for autistic and
special-needs students, according to
the Chicago Teachers Union.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the dis-
trict’s chief executive officer, said
that the lack of public-pension reform
in the Illinois legislature has
put the district in an untenable financial
position.
“We can’t cut our way out of this
crisis. We need meaningful pension
reform that can generate significant
savings and prevent devastating
future cuts to our schools,” she
said in a statement.
The teachers’ union, however,
has criticized district leaders for
not advocating for additional local
funding resources for the school
system and for continuing to
support the expansion of charter
schools across the city.
Jeanette Smith, a parent and
member of the local school council
for Mollison Elementary School,
which was combined with students
from a school that was shut
down, argued that the closings
and other budget cuts have been
especially difficult for poor, African-American
communities.
“We’re worn out,” she said. She
added that she was skeptical about
how much the Safe Passage program
would actually improve safety.
Ms. Chou, the district’s safety of-
ficial said the Safe Passage program
is just the most visible part of a ho-
listic approach to safety being undertaken
by the district as it transitions
to fewer schools.
Community Support
The Safe Passage program was
started in 2009, and 37 schools,
most of them high schools, hosted
the program last year. But in the
wake of the closures, district officials
added 51 new schools, mainly
elementary, to that list. The Chicago
district touts the program’s success
so far. Attendance increased 7 percent
in Safe Passage schools over
the past two years, said Ms. Chou,
and violent crime in the areas surrounding
those schools decreased.
Philadelphia, Detroit, and other districts
also have patrols near schools
to help ensure students’ safety during
their commute.
Christopher T. Harris, the founder
of Bright Star Community Outreach,
one of 18 organizations acting
as vendors for the program, said
the district had done well to employ
neighborhood groups to help organize
the safety effort.
Maintaining a stable workforce
can be a challenge: In the first
weeks of the program, there were
reports that some vendors lost
as many as half their employees
to the summer heat or to betterpaying
jobs. The district said that
vendors were prepared for such
turnover. “All Safe Passage vendors
have instituted an ongoing hiring
process,” said Keiana A. Barrett, a
district spokeswoman.
At John B. Drake Elementary
School in Bronzeville, on Chicago’s
South Side, parents joined
their children in the hallways
on the second day of school. The
school building, which was called
Williams Elementary School last
year, has been renamed Drake and
hosts students from Williams and
the old Drake building, which was
a few blocks away.
Keshia Warner, Drake’s principal,
said that she knew parents and
students were anxious about the
changes this year and welcomed
parents to stay in the school in the
first days. Combined schools like
Drake received new air conditioning
and other improvements over the
summer.
To prepare for the merger of the
schools, students from Drake and
Williams “Skyped” with each other
last spring. Some older elementary
and middle school students joined
each other to watch “Remember
the Titans,” a movie about the integration
of public schools in Alexandria,
Va. “It helped start conversations
about leadership, about
getting along,” Ms. Warner said.
Ms. Warner said that last year, at
the old Drake, most of the teachers
taught split classes, with 1st and
2nd graders in a single classroom,
for instance. This year, with about
540 students, the school has two
classrooms per grade, she said.
By midweek, students were getting
used to being together. “I don’t
see the division,” the principal said.
Still, tensions around the city remained
high. The 2009 murder of
Derrion Albert at Christian Fenger
Academy High School following a
previous round of school closings
lingers with many city residents,
Mr. Harris said.
At Melody Elementary School on
Chicago’s West Side, public library
employees joined Safe Passage workers
and police in patrolling school
dismissal during the first week of
school. A 14-year-old boy was shot
just half a block away from Melody
the day before the start of school.
Philip Scott Andrews for Education Week
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - September 11, 2013

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