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For the past three years, the Chicago Public Schools
(CPS) has closed and consolidated 12 schools! What communities
are now referring to as “April surprises,”
have become an annual ritual, and parents and LSCs are
crying to put a stop to this game of shuffling our children
from one school to the next without a clear, strategic
Facility Master Plan.
Over the past three years, CPS has used 3 primary
arguments to close schools:
- Declining student enrollment;
- Capital repair and facility issues (i.e. too costly
to repair, sinking foundation, closing schools to
renovate);
- “Failing” schools that must be transformed
to Renaissance Schools, “re-programmed,”
or transitioned.
NCBG’s Schools Task Force are calling on our
elected officials to help us combat school closings
and supporting an Alternative School Closing Policy
that includes:
- A mandatory six months’ written notice to
LSC’s that CPS is proposing to close a neighborhood
school
- A mandatory six months’ written notification
to parents of children in schools CPS is proposing
to close
- Mandatory inclusion of LSC’s in a required
“School Closings Impact Study and Alternatives
Analysis” -- with the full participation of
the LSC’s at schools under consideration for
closing and at potential “receiving”
schools
- A prohibition against CPS sending children to
an overcrowded or academically struggling school
in the event that a neighborhood school must be
closed
- A commitment from CPS to work with principals,
teachers, parents, and communities to improve each
and every neighborhood school, and
- The adoption of a Facility Master Plan that addresses
issues of facility repair and construction, school
closings, overcrowding, and creative use of underutilized
schools in a systematic, strategic, open, and fair
manner.
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