Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Nader Issa

Activists praise Chicago Board of Ed’s push toward neighborhood schools

2023-12-14T18:56:00.258-06:00

The Board of Education passed a resolution Thursday that calls on Chicago Public Schools leadership to develop ways to reprioritize neighborhood schools instead of heavily focusing on school choice.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file photo

Leading Black community activists thanked the Board of Education on Thursday for its move to prioritize neighborhood schools, but they vowed to hold the school district accountable for its promises.

The school board passed a resolution Thursday that went public earlier in the week directing the school district to shift away from the current system of school choice where students compete for seats in selective programs and some 76% of teenagers don’t attend their neighborhood high school.

Many parents, students and public education advocates have long said the choice system creates “haves” and “have-nots” and leaves children competing with one another for resources and a quality education. Black communities in particular have called for better investment in their neighborhood schools.

Well-known activist Jitu Brown used to be a regular at Board of Education meetings, pushing for better schooling for the city’s Black children. He was one of several voices supporting the change of direction at Thursday’s monthly Board of Education meeting.

“I have not been to a school board meeting since 2014 when I swore off coming to a place where the voices of people impacted by public education policy were just not respected,” Brown told board members.

But he said he was optimistic for the school board’s vision — particularly because of the parent, educator and activist makeup of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s board — as long as it took a different approach by authentically listening to families and advocates in reshaping the district.

Brown said the “sustainable community schools” model that CPS will pursue can help address longtime systemic disinvestment and improve schools because it connects “community wisdom in partnership with academic expertise” by bringing community organizations in to complement curriculum. But communities need a voice in that future, he said.

In particular, Brown lamented the sort of inauthentic engagement process communities have long complained about, where district officials hold community meetings to inform parents about district policies rather than genuinely taking their thoughts into account in the formation of the policies.

“We cannot have a CPS that implements a policy in the way that it has historically done it, or you’ll mess it up,” Brown said. “This must be done in real partnership. No back room then coming to us refining it. We must inform, we must educate you.

“What we are explaining to you are real lived experiences. … That experience will not be shortchanged, or I will be one of the people to blow this thing up. It will not be shortchanged. If we are going to move in a new direction, Chicago Public Schools, you must do differently.”

Longtime community activist Jitu Brown, pictured in 2021, returned to a Board of Education meeting for the first time in nearly a decade Thursday to support the district’s move toward prioritizing neighborhood schools.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file

Not everyone is happy with the forthcoming changes.

Christian Feaman, an official with the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said charter schools have been serving as community schools since their inception and should not face an uncertain future.

“When we see the news stories and we read the resolution … we don’t understand,” he said.

“Attempts to claw back the basic rights of Black and Brown families to choose their child’s education goes against the inequities this board is committed to addressing,” Feaman said. “Every parent has the right to choose the best school for their child no matter the family’s income level.”

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed schools whose supporters tout as hubs of innovation without government bureaucracy that could produce better results with less money. Some 50,000 students attend charters at CPS. Dozens of these schools are up for contract renewals in January.

Charter growth has stagnated in Chicago, and critics say charter schools are effectively drawing resources away from traditional public schools that need investment.

The Board of Education reiterated Thursday that its resolution to reprioritize neighborhood schools doesn’t mean the imminent end of charters, selective enrollment or magnet schools, and that no schools are facing closure. But the whole portfolio of schools will be examined, leaders said, to find the best approach and give kids in every community access to a quality school near their home.

“Our current system of school choice sorts students based on test scores and other things,” Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said. “Research has demonstrated the harm that’s caused by this sorting.

“Students have consistently expressed how much this sorting has harmed their sense of self-worth, their sense of self-esteem, their confidence as learners, their feeling of belonging within whatever school community they might be in. … Parents have lamented the way we test 4-year-olds for school choice, the competitive nature of our choice system and have compared it to the ‘Hunger Games.’”

Todd-Breland said the board recognizes that charter schools are part of CPS’ fabric and is “not proposing blanket non-renewals of all charter schools.” But the board wants to hold charter operators accountable.

And she pointed out that magnet and selective enrollment schools, initially meant to desegregate schools, have more recently become more segregated.

“[This] is not about closing selective enrollment schools,” she said. “It is about a shift towards emphasizing supporting neighborhood schools, particularly in those communities that have been historically disinvested in and where young people are furthest from opportunity.”

Brandon Johnson’s Board of Ed looks to move away from school choice, toward neighborhood schools

2023-12-12T18:47:11.391-06:00

The Board of Education under Mayor Brandon Johnson is taking a first crack at making its mark on Chicago Public Schools by focusing on neighborhood schools rather than specialty programs.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file photo

In its first steps toward reshaping Chicago Public Schools, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Board of Education is proposing shifting back toward neighborhood schools and away from the current system of school choice where students compete for seats in selective programs.

The board has limited time to set new ideas in motion ahead of next year’s first school board elections, but any concrete changes made before then could shape the district for years to come.

A resolution up for a vote by the board on Thursday lays out a framework for a five-year “transformational” strategic plan that the CPS CEO will present to the board in the summer. It calls for a “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”

The ideas align with the education platform Johnson campaigned on — and, like his campaign material, the framework offers few details.

This would be a radical departure for a school system built around allowing parents to choose where their children attend. Some 76% of high school students and 45% of elementary school students do not attend their assigned neighborhood schools. Chicago used to be a neighborhood-based school system, but has moved away from that model over the last 25 years. Just six years ago, CPS officials set up a new application system where they said they wanted every eighth grader to apply for high school, rather than automatically go to their neighborhood school.

Leaders said they don’t foresee dismantling specialty schools such as selective-enrollment, magnet and charter schools, and families will continue to be able to choose those options. Some of the city’s selective schools consistently rank among the top in the state and the country.

But that expectation could change if people in the community say that’s what they want. Officials plan to hold meetings over the next few months for the public to weigh in on how they want this transition to take place.

“This plan needs to be guided and informed by the community,” Board President Jianan Shi said. “The goal is that we’re able to change [the] current competition model so that students are not pitted against one another, schools are not pitted against one another.”

If there is community buy-in to the plan, Shi said it would be hard for the elected board to abandon it. School choice, the future of charter schools and the fate of neighborhood schools are expected to be among the core issues that separate candidates in the first school board elections, slated for November 2024.

Fully funding community schools, as Johnson and schools leaders have put it, will be quite expensive. CPS is already set to face a $670 million structural budget deficit next year, and new funding to fill that hole has yet to emerge.

School Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland wants the district to create a “strong, high quality pathway from pre-K to high school” in every neighborhood. Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez wants families to tell him, “‘I have this great neighborhood option in my neighborhood, and at the same time there are some of these other magnet options, and it’s so hard for me to choose.’ … It shouldn’t be a competition between schools, it should really be families, knowing that, ‘Hey, my child can walk to school and have a great option.’”

The leaders said they want to target resources to communities such as Roseland on the Far South Side that are the farthest from high-level school options. But they acknowledged it will take time for parents to consider neighborhood schools as viable options if they have long looked elsewhere.

Todd-Breland questioned where publicly funded but privately run charter schools fit in the reimagined system. Charter school expansion has stagnated in Chicago after years of growth when they were heralded as hubs of innovation without government bureaucracy that could produce better results with less money. Some 50,000 students attend charters at CPS.

She said CPS is asking if those charter schools are taking public dollars away from other schools that need investment and “are not performing at a level that we find to be a high quality educational experience for young people, then why do you continue to exist in this system?”

The Chicago Teachers Union, where the mayor was an organizer, has been a long-time critic of charter schools.

To accomplish its goals, the board’s resolution calls for the district to move away from its student-based budgeting model, which ties funding closely to enrollment. The system lets principals decide how to spend the school’s money, but it also has been found by researchers to hurt schools that lose enrollment because of outside factors.

The board envisions a new budget system “based on student need, prioritizing communities most impacted by racial and economic inequity, and structural disinvestment and abandonment.”

This could be controversial, with the district facing a $670 million deficit starting in 2025. Redistributing funding could mean drastic cuts for some schools while leaving others unscathed, or even getting more.

One way the school district is looking at investing in these neighborhood schools is by making them “sustainable community schools,” where the school brings in organizations that provide services and supports, from health care to adult education to after-school activities. CPS is spending up to $500,000 on each of the 20 current “sustainable community schools.”

This has long been pushed as a solution by the CTU, and most recently, federal education officials. Some community schools have seen their enrollment rebound.

Johnson ran on a platform of expanding the sustainable community school program. His administration sees it as a way to make neighborhood schools more attractive and also to put empty classrooms to use in schools with low enrollment.

Shi said the community meetings will determine how many schools will get these programs and where they need to be.

The resolution also calls for the school district to confront its facilities problem. A recently released facilities assessment shows the school district has $3 billion in critical repair needs and would require another $11 million to modernize schools. CPS does not have a revenue source to fill these needs.

The resolution suggests that some “underutilized” buildings may need to be used for other purposes, along with previously closed school buildings that have remained vacant. It renews a long-standing call for communities to take part in a process that “reimagines these buildings as community assets, hubs, and resources.”

The school district is currently holding meetings as it also creates a new 10-year master facilities plan. The first one is at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Englewood STEM High School, 6835 S. Normal Blvd.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.

Nader Issa covers education for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Chicago schools’ troubled special education department gets new leader

2023-12-11T19:46:30.24-06:00

Josh Long, the longtime principal of Southside Occupational Academy High School, has been selected to lead the Chicago Public Schools special education department.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file photos

The longtime principal of a school for teenagers with disabilities and young adults has been chosen to lead the special education department at Chicago Public Schools, which has been through years of turmoil, accusations and investigations over its services.

Josh Long, who has spent the past 14 years as principal at Southside Occupational Academy High School, has been tapped to lead the district’s special education services for more than 52,000 students with learning, developmental and physical disabilities. Long announced his appointment in a letter to the school’s staff and families Monday.

CPS officials didn’t immediately comment. Long’s appointment is expected to go to the Board of Education for approval this week.

Long will be tasked with taking steps to better serve students in a district where special education services have been troubled for years. He’ll take the helm at a time when about 16% of CPS kids receive special education services, the highest percentage in at least a decade.

Long is a trained speech pathologist with a long history in special education. He won the prestigious Golden Apple Award in 2019. In his first job with CPS, where he started in 2000, he traveled from school to school delivering services. In an interview with WBEZ, he said he decided to become a principal after noticing disparities in special education services and support between schools.

He became principal of Southside Occupational in 2010. The school, which has locations in West Englewood and Bronzeville, enrolls about 360 students ages 16 to 22 with developmental disabilities and helps them transition into adulthood by teaching life and job skills.

In his note to Southside Occupational families, Long said the school has been his “second home.” He thanked teachers and support staff for their work and parents for “placing your trust in Southside Occupational Academy as the crucial last step for your children before graduation.” He said working with students there “has been the greatest gift of my career.”

“Together we have created high-quality educational experiences for students in a dynamic and supportive environment,” he wrote.

“Through community partnerships, innovative programming, rigorous curriculum and instruction, increased technology, arts-infused learning, and the addition of our Career and Community Connections Hub, we have become a model for the education of students with disabilities,” Long continued, perhaps previewing his vision for the district’s services. “Collectively, we have worked to transform the lives of students while providing them with anything and everything that they may need to be as independent as possible within their communities upon graduation.”

Ben Felton, CPS human resources chief, said the search for a new special education leader was the most robust in recent memory — other than the one for a new CEO — because it included parents, district staff, advocates for students with disabilities, the state monitor, the Chicago Teachers Union and board members.

“My hope is that that positions the chief to step in and be more ... successful on Day 1 because they went through that process and because they had the chance to engage with all those different stakeholders,” Felton said.

Board of Education member Mary Fahey Hughes’ son graduated from Southside Occupational last year. She and her son accompanied Mayor Brandon Johnson and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez on a tour of the school earlier this year, and she said, “The program here is amazing.”

Fahey Hughes, who chairs the special education advisory committee for the school board, said she would comment on Long’s appointment after the vote Thursday.

Long will have a tall task in his new role.

The CPS special education department has been overseen by a state monitor for the last five years because the school system was found to have regularly delayed and denied services to students. Those troubles remain.

Long’s predecessor, Stephanie Jones, resigned in June after years of parent and activist criticism of special education services under her leadership.

The department was most recently accused of violating state law by continuing to allow staff members to physically restrain students despite an order to pause restraints until staff were provided training required by law. The episode led to a vote of no confidence in Jones by the Chicago Teachers Union. CPS has since said it has met the restraint training requirements.

When Jones stepped down, CPS officials announced a national search for her replacement and this week landed on Long.

The district also has been trying to navigate a nationwide bus driver shortage that, until this school year, had particularly affected special education students, some of whom were enduring two-hour bus rides to get to school.

In an attempt to address long-standing concerns and new student populations, CPS gave 85% of its schools more money for special education this year, adding $126 million to their special education spending.

But hundreds of special education positions are unfilled amid nationwide shortages.

Also, outcomes for students receiving special education services lag far behind other students. Fewer than 6% of students in special education were proficient in reading or math on the latest state exam, and the graduation rate stands at 77% — 10 percentage points lower than students without disabilities.

Nader Issa covers education for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.

Teachers authorize strike at Instituto del Progreso Latino charter schools

2023-12-05T20:06:54.811-06:00

Instituto Health Science Career Academy is at 2520 S. Western Ave.

Google Maps

A few dozen teachers at two Instituto del Progreso Latino charter schools have voted to authorize a strike as contract negotiations over pay and staffing have dragged on more than a year.

Instituto educators represented by the Chicago Teachers Union voted unanimously, 48-0, to walk out if bargaining doesn’t yield progress soon, officials said Tuesday. A strike date has not been set.

The two schools around Little Village, Instituto Health Science Career Academy and Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy, enroll a total of 550 students.

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“Since bargaining began last year, the charter operator has refused to address educators’ concerns for special ed staffing, more bilingual resources for the school’s predominantly Latine students, and sustainable pay and benefits in order to hire and retain experienced educators,” the union said in a statement Tuesday.

The CTU said the charter operator has instead proposed concessions that would limit educators’ union rights, like the ability to file grievances.

“No one wants a strike — it is always a last resort,” Leah Jonaitis, a history teacher and union leader, said in a statement. “Management has left us no choice but to prepare for action because we are determined to keep fighting for what our students, their families and our school communities need.”

Instituto officials said the two sides are making progress, including tentative agreements on “nearly two dozen proposals.” The schools are looking to find more special education teachers but cited a national shortage.

Officials said they have offered to pay teachers a little less than Chicago Public Schools teachers at district-run schools because Instituto educators “receive more preparation time and have a lower instructional minutes requirement than CPS teachers.”

“Without CPS-level funding and without CPS-level working hours, we do not believe salary above CPS teachers is a good-faith demand,” Instituto officials said.

“What we can guarantee is that we remain committed to bargaining in good faith and in seeking a fair contract for all parties involved,” the charter operator said.

MORE COVERAGE: Read more Sun-Times education stories here

Boy, 16, shot, wounded walking to school in North Lawndale

2023-11-28T20:08:33.699-06:00

Chicago Police Department | Sun-Times file photo

Sun-Times file photo

Dana Pulliam rushed her youngest son out Monday morning so he could make it to school on time after the long holiday break.

Minutes later, the 16-year-old called his mom to say that he had been shot.

“I heard the shots like five minutes after he had left, and then he was calling me screaming saying he was shot,” Pulliam said. “I ran right across to the school, and when I got there they were applying pressure to his wound.”

The teenager was walking through Douglass Park and had almost made it to North Lawndale College Prep on the West Side when shots were fired from a passing black Ford Explorer about 9:30 a.m. near the 1200 block of South Albany Avenue, Chicago police said.

The teen had gunshot wounds to the left ring finger and right thigh, officials said.

North Lawndale College Prep officials said a group of students were in the area and fled when the shots were fired.

Most kids ran into the school, including the boy who was shot, officials said. Staff called an ambulance, police said, and he was listed in good condition at Mount Sinai Hospital.

The school went on a soft lockdown, and administrators worked with Chicago Public Schools officials to bring in more social workers and counselors to support students. The school also increased the police and security presence outside the campus.

Pulliam said this is the third time one of her children has been hurt in a drive-by shooting. Her oldest son, now 20, was wounded when he was only 7 years old and then again at 17.

“To have this happen to me for a third time, I’m emotional and I’m traumatized,” she said.

Pulliam said police told her they had a suspect in custody Monday night, but no charges had been filed.

Her son’s back was turned during the shooting, and he was able to describe the vehicle but not the shooter, she said.

“He’s hurt physically and mentally, but he’s OK,” Pulliam said.

The shooting is the latest in a spate of incidents near Chicago schools the past few years.

An analysis by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times showed a spike in fatal shootings near schools in 2022, when nine children were killed on a weekday in the hours that students head home — between 2 and 4:49 p.m. That does not count a 17-year-old Kenwood Academy student who was killed while on his lunch break or a shooting outside Schurz High School that left a teenager critically hurt.

The city reeled from a shooting on school grounds last December, when two boys were killed and two other teens wounded outside Benito Juarez Community Academy just after classes let out for the day.

Schools citywide have tried to help students deescalate conflicts and heal from the severe trauma that gun violence causes. At North Lawndale College Prep, a group of students called the Peace Warriors have worked to resist and prevent violence by learning nonviolence techniques to prevent fights, break them up and start peace circles to help students through difficult times.

With one year until Chicagoans elect the school board for the first time, here’s what’s still being worked out

2023-11-15T15:04:08.031-06:00

Chicago Public Schools Board President Jianan Shi presides over a meeting in August.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times (file)

Chicago education advocates landed long-sought legislation in 2021 to create the city’s first-ever elected school board.

With the elections now a year away, many details of this new board are still unresolved — including even a few settled points that now appear open to negotiation once again.

Springfield lawmakers opened up the structure and timeline of the school board elections during a legislative session this month that featured dueling proposals and boiling frustration.

Lawmakers will be back in session in January in hopes of hammering out details in time for a smooth election next November.

Here’s what you need to know on the issues and where things stand today.

Election schedule (still in flux)

The 2021 legislation created a 21-member school board. The first 10 board members would be elected in November 2024, with the remaining 11 seats appointed by the mayor.

Another 10 seats would then be up for election in November 2026, plus an at-large board president.

That schedule has long been set in stone — until earlier this month.

Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, threw a wrench in those plans by proposing to move elections for all board members to next fall.

His reasoning?

It’s too difficult to create a racially representative voting map that adheres to voting rights laws with only half the districts. He believes every model for transitioning from a partially elected to fully elected board has “glaring shortcomings.”

“If you are going to take 20 districts and consolidate them into 10, you really lose the ability to ensure people are represented in all corners of the city,” Harmon said, referring to a House plan for voting next fall. “The way to avoid litigation over disenfranchisement is to elect all members in 2024.”

Latest Chicago elected school board voting map emerges

Lawmakers traded several proposals this month in an effort to find a solution.

The Chicago Teachers Union, the leading proponent of a fully elected school board, hasn’t immediately jumped on board with Harmon’s plan and even criticized it, surprising some.

But after the initial shock, the CTU and key lawmakers have expressed some willingness to listen, though they worry about a dramatic change so close to the election. Other players, including the advocacy group Kids First Chicago and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, have yet to take a position.

Chicago Public Schools officials project $391 million deficit next year when COVID-19 relief funds run out

Jen Johnson, deputy mayor of education under Brandon Johnson, said the mayor wants to stick with starting with a hybrid board as laid out in the law. She said, as an organizer for the CTU, the mayor worked to pass the law, which took a lot of advocacy, pressure and compromise.

“Interjecting change at this stage is not super helpful,” she said.

In an interview, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said the union isn’t opposed to all members being elected next year, but Harmon needs to answer how he thinks that’s now possible when he previously argued it would be too complicated.

“The Senate president dropped this on everyone’s head without the benefit of stakeholder input or even understanding,” Davis Gates said. “So, no, the implications of this haven’t been weighed yet. We’re still trying to understand what just happened.”

Though the House passed a bill on the last day of its session that called for a hybrid bill, Democratic state Rep. Ann Williams (11th) isn’t opposed to moving all the elections to next year, but she said time is needed to consider it. She noted Harmon made the proposal late on Nov. 7, just two days before the end of the session and less than a year before the elections.

Community activist Dwayne Truss and the group Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting, favors moving all 20 elections to next year. Truss, a former Board of Education member under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said he’s suspicious of the CTU’s reasons for not supporting immediate elections.

“It’s no big secret that they went all in on Brandon Johnson’s [mayoral] campaign,” Truss said. “So they’re not politically, financially in a position to run 20 candidates [next year]. So, you know, that could be an issue.”

Davis Gates said she has no doubt the CTU will be prepared if all the elections are next year.

“That’s never the question,” she said. “You’re asking an organizing union is it prepared to organize? Well, that’s kind of what we do.”

CPS schools need $14.4B for repairs and modernization, report finds

Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said his organization is fine with either election schedule, but he urged lawmakers to “get the process finalized.”

“Either way, we’re preparing to run candidates and support candidates who have a reform orientation and who see our member schools as part of the tapestry of Chicago and an important part of dealing with the achievement gap,” he said.

State Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat who has been pushing for an elected board for years, said every version had pros and cons.

“Give me a model, and I will tell you the good and bad,” Martwick said. “It is frustrating because we can’t seem to reach an agreement. Let’s just pick one.”

New Education Board president Jianan Shi, 33, is praised for ‘thoughtful, insightful’ leadership

Election map (approved)

After punting on a deadline to get a voting map finished last spring, lawmakers finally seem to have found a deal this fall. Williams said it was a “big hurdle to overcome” after disagreements about racial representation.

The new map features seven districts where the majority of voting-age adults are Black residents, six majority Latino districts and five white districts.

Two remaining North Side districts have a white plurality, with one having a Latino population of nearly equal size.

But there are still concerns Latino students, who make up nearly half of CPS’ enrollment, will be underrepresented.

Kids First Chicago said focus groups with parents and a poll show most people want the board to reflect the make up of the student body — almost 90% kids of color — more than the city, which is about one-third white.

In a letter last week to the General Assembly, MALDEF, the nation’s leading Latino civil rights organization, said the citizen voting-age population, rather than the population overall or the voting age, should determine the majority in a district. With that methodology, the group said only two of 20 districts in the proposed map are majority Latino, and only one of the 10 districts in the House proposal. The group warned that disparity could lead to future litigation.

Non-citizen voting eligibility (no progress)

Advocates across the board support allowing non-citizens to vote in Chicago’s school board elections to give those communities representation. But to some chagrin, lawmakers didn’t find a solution in the original 2021 legislation.

State Sen. Celina Villanueva, a Chicago Democrat, introduced a bill last year to allow non-citizens to vote, but it has never come up for a vote.

“It is important for a school district with a growing Latinx population and with community members that have been here for 20 or 30 years to have a say over their children’s education,” Villanueva said.

Harmon said he is sensitive to this issue, but there are constitutional concerns. Several other state legislatures have tried to allow non-citizens to vote but have faced lawsuits. And even before litigation, few non-citizens have registered to vote for fear their information would end up in the hands of federal authorities.

Villanueva said she knew this would be difficult but she’s not giving up.

Ethics rules (approved)

Dueling ethics proposals during the veto session caused a small but ultimately temporary disagreement.

In the end, the Senate and House seemed to find agreement on new ethics language that would prohibit people from serving on the board if they had an ownership interest in a company or organization with a CPS contract. But workers at those places would be allowed to run and serve.

These would match the conflict-of-interest provisions for other school districts in the state.

There had been concerns some proposals opened the door for potential corruption, while other versions would have shut out working parents who are employed by an organization that does business with CPS but wouldn’t personally see any financial gain.

Board member compensation (no progress/non-starter)

Serving as a Chicago Board of Education member is an unpaid job that can be time-consuming and historically has been filled by retirees or those with full-time jobs whose companies see a civic benefit in having them serve.

Martwick and many advocates strongly believe members should be paid and proposed a bill allowing for it. They worry leaving them as volunteers will mean only rich people or those with flexible jobs will be able to run or serve. It would be difficult for working parents to find the time required.

“It defies logic that people do not want to lift economic barriers to running,” Martwick said.

But there has been no traction on this topic. Martwick said there’s concern from lawmakers that suburban or downstate districts will want to be paid.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Nader Issa is the Sun-Times education reporter.

Islamic school copes with fear, sadness after threat against kids

2023-11-08T15:37:19.612-06:00

Students go back to class at an Islamic school in Chicago’s southwest suburbs after a threat sent them home last month. They’re combatting hate at home while they worry for loved ones as Israel’s siege on Gaza continues.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Seventeen girls sit in a second-floor classroom at their Islamic school in Chicago’s southwest suburbs.

The whiteboard in their AP U.S Government class features notes about the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. They’re questioning whether these rights afforded to Americans apply to them.

Their teacher, Nadia Ismail, asks what in particular feels restricted right now.

“Freedom of speech,” a girl shouts. “Representation,” another says. “Religion” is next.

Students in Nadia Ismail’s AP U.S. Government class at a Chicago-area Islamic school discuss American rights.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

It’s been two weeks since they were sent home for a few days because a hate letter was mailed to the school that threatened, in violent detail and using slurs, to kill Palestinian American and Muslim kids. The letter celebrated the murder of suburban 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume. And it called his alleged killer — who prosecutors said had been listening to conservative radio about Israel and Gaza — a “national hero.”

Police in the suburb say they’re investigating the letter as one of several targeting religious and racial minorities in the area.

“It feels nerve-racking, and I’m scared most of the time,” said Mays, a student whose last name, like others’ in this article, isn’t being printed to protect her privacy and safety. “We can’t leave our school. We have to be watched by bodyguards just to walk to our parents’ car. The bathroom doors are locked. It’s difficult.”

The kids are navigating hate at home while they remain worried and devastated for loved ones in the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel’s siege has killed at least 10,300 Palestinians and counting — among them more than 4,200 children. A preceding attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis last month.

Palestinian refugees founded this school 37 years ago as Illinois’ first Islamic school with the mission to empower Muslim girls — from grades six and up, students are all girls — to be outspoken leaders and advocates. Students have advocated around social issues like climate change and school shootings. But they’re feeling alone as they face their own challenge and don’t sense much support outside their community.

“Everything I’ve taught them about speaking up, they’re now questioning,” says Principal Tammie Ismail, Nadia Ismail’s sister.

“We’re working to help them find ways to feel empowered,” the principal says. “We don’t want them to feel as Americans that their feelings, their voice is not valid, or because they are Muslim, or because they’re a Palestinian American, that their views don’t count.”

Principal Tammie Ismail says she went into “Mama Bear” mode to protect students when her school received a hate letter. She blames dangerous rhetoric spread by politicians and the media for endangering Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

‘School should be where you feel safe’

Tammie Ismail sits in her small, cozy principal’s office. She just got back from providing fingerprints at a police station — she was the one who had opened the letter — in an attempt to isolate a potential suspect’s prints.

“[I’m] hoping that providing that might get us a step closer to identifying who decided to send hateful letters and hateful rhetoric and threatening messages to my students in my school, my community,” she said.

Ismail has been the principal for more than a decade. But her responsibility to keep kids safe feels as urgent as ever.

She, like many, feels that dehumanizing rhetoric spread by U.S. politicians and media about Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs has inspired hate, threats and acts of violence like Wadea’s murder, the letter to the school and several other incidents in the area.

The school has hired private security. They’ve installed cameras. They’re keeping most window shades down. The Cook County sheriff’s office is helping patrol the area. Recess moved indoors for a couple of weeks. Teachers were keeping track of kids who headed to the bathroom in case of an intruder.

Ismail is joining national webinars to learn tips about school security. And she’s applying for grants because money for all safety measures so far has come from the school’s budget and from some parents’ fundraising.

“School should be where you feel safe. They can’t learn if they don’t feel safe,” Ismail said. “I think it’s going to take some time.”

The administration brought in grief counselors the day of Wadea’s funeral services, which were held in the mosque that shares a parking lot with the school. Just about every student went to the azza, which is what a Muslim wake is called in Arabic. Ismail said the boy’s killing traumatized her students.

Mourners pray during the funeral for 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume last month.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

But there’s only so much the school can do when kids feel scared outside the building, too.

“Going out as a hijabi is also scary,” said a student named Jana, using the word for a woman wearing a hijab head scarf. “I get more stares sometimes … It feels like I’m being watched by people whenever I go out for a walk.”

Another student, May, said her parents don’t want her to wear anything in public that indicates she’s Palestinian.

“Right now, I don’t really feel like we’re in the land of the free,” she said. “I’m only 16 and people are scared of me because I’m Muslim and I wear the hijab and I’m Palestinian.”

Mays, the first student mentioned in this story, wasn’t surprised by the letter. Her older sister was a student at the school when it was threatened two decades ago after the 9/11 attacks. So she expected to “get a letter that’s treating us like we’re not even human, like we deserve to die because we’re Palestinian.”

“When you look at the media, all this propaganda is put on the Muslim and Palestinian community,” she said. “And when you’re seen as these people who promote terrorism, or we stand with Palestine so we’re ‘animals’ … what were you expecting?”

‘They’re not in pain anymore’

The safety concerns at home are coming while kids are sad and angry over Israeli airstrikes in Gaza as well as settler and police attacks in the West Bank that have killed and injured thousands of Palestinian civilians.

“Many of our students’ families have strong ties to Palestine,” Tammie Ismail said. “They have relatives there, grandmas and grandpas, uncles and aunts, that have been killed or that they don’t know whether they’re safe … That’s a very real sadness, a very real deep experience that they’re having.”

Seven students from the school had moved to the West Bank in the past year with their families, but nobody has heard from them the past few weeks.

Emily, a fourth-grade teacher, said she was scared for her own family but trying to console students at the same time, like a kindergartner who came to school crying in worry for his grandparents.

“Even if I might be a little bit scared, I know I can turn to a colleague and talk to them and we can make each other feel better,” Emily said.

Students finish their midday prayers at the southwest suburban Islamic school near Chicago.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

May said students are leaning on their faith to remember that the Palestinians who have been killed — including Wadea — are martyrs, referring to the Muslim belief that those who have been oppressed and killed will go to heaven.

“It helps us to know they’re not in pain anymore,” she said.

That sense of shared grief and communal mourning has helped.

“It’s nice because we’re all people who understand what we’re going through,” Mays said. “I’m afraid that something bad might happen to me. But so is Jeanine, and so is Jana.”

A mother, Sarah, has two daughters at the school. She was thankful they were with classmates and teachers who could relate to their feelings.

“I think I would have been more worried if there was a potential of being in a setting where they may be exposed to bullying because of their backgrounds or the views that they hold,” Sarah said. “It’s a safe place.”

Principal Tammie Ismail shows off a mural created by a former student that shows a girl carrying a torch and embracing the world with Chicago and Palestinian landmarks on one side and the school on the other.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

‘We can’t even express our identity’

The kids want to advocate for their people like they’ve been taught, and like they have for other causes. But speaking up for Palestinians is drawing backlash.

“Just for even saying something like ‘free Palestine,’ it’s twisted,” Jana said. “So we can’t even express our identity.

“Palestine protests downtown are labeled ‘pro-Hamas protests,’” she said. “We can’t even breathe without being scared.”

May spent the past couple weeks rewriting all but one of her 11 college application essays to remove mentions of her ethnicity and religion in her answers to identity and diversity questions.

“We’re not even sure if we should state that we’re Palestinian or we’re Muslim,” she said. “I think we’re all kind of trying not to … We’re worried that the school might turn us away.”

That’s tough to hear for Tammie and Nadia Ismail, who want to empower girls at the school. They had to navigate those fears themselves when some in the community wanted to stay quiet about the hate letter.

“I think our community is, in some cases, so afraid of backlash, so afraid of the exposure, that they’d prefer to just keep it quiet,” Tammie Ismail said. “Just keep it between you and the police. Nobody else needs to know.”

Sarah, the mom, said her oldest daughter, a fifth grader, asks questions about Gaza and has been to protests.

“I want her to grow up knowing that it’s important to stand up for what’s right,” she said.

Bump in CPS grad rates hailed by mayor, education officials

2023-10-31T16:47:18.353-05:00

Chicago Public Schools Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova joins CPS CEO Pedro Martinez in announcing the rising district graduation rates Tuesday at Dyett High School on the South Side. Joining them were officials that included Mayor Brandon Johnson and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who joined through a video stream.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Chicago Public Schools students graduated at a slightly higher rate last spring than in previous years, once again reaching a record high.

The modest improvement from an 82% graduation rate in 2022 to 84% this year represents a continued increase since a decade ago, when the rate sat at 59%.

“Each and every one of these data points represents real students with real dreams and real achievements, and we could not be more proud of them,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said.

“This class of ’23, their freshman year ended June of 2020, and remember what happened March of 2020,” he said, referencing the start of the coronavirus pandemic. “Remember also how they started their sophomore year. I want you to take these results and put them in that context.”

Martinez announced the achievements Tuesday at Dyett High School on the South Side with a group of officials that included Mayor Brandon Johnson and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who joined through a video stream, as a few dozen educators and students watched in a crowded studio room.

Leaders said 65% of graduates this year enrolled in college, which is a slight increase from the past couple of years but still lower than pre-pandemic days. About 89% of CPS ninth graders are deemed “on track” to graduate based on their success in their first year of high school, a measure that researchers say is a telling indication of positive outcomes.

“CPS is raising the bar in education,” Cardona said. “Like many, this district has historically faced some real challenges. ... But the results we’re seeing here are promising signs for the future of education in Chicago even despite the impacts of the pandemic.

“In education policy, sometimes there can be a tendency to gravitate toward the shiny new initiatives that make a lot of noise but have little chance of being effective and sustainable for the long term,” he said. “In Chicago, you’ve rejected that mindset. You made a plan and doubled down on the investments we know work.”

Officials cited the hiring of more social workers and counselors; preservation and creation of specialty programs; early college credit programs; and career and technical education as methods that have helped student achievement. Many of those initiatives and programs have been infused with resources from federal pandemic relief funding, which runs out next school year, exposing a nearly $400 million structural deficit.

District leaders and Board of Education members have warned for more than a year the resources that have helped turn around these metrics cannot continue without more funding from state and federal officials.

Johnson said these gains “didn’t happen overnight. It happened with tremendous struggle.” He cited schools like Dyett, which was itself only saved from closure because of a parent-led hunger strike a decade ago.

Now it’s one of about 20 so-called “sustainable community schools” that have partnerships with community organizations and support both students and their families with resources. It’s a model that Johnson, the Chicago Teachers Union and many advocates have pushed to expand around the city.

“Data doesn’t tell the whole story,” Johnson added. “We know that these gains have not been felt equally across the entire city. And so despite today’s inspiring announcement, we know that too many of our schools are still suffering from the effects of historic disinvestment and disempowerment.”

Illinois reading scores have bounced back, but math scores remain below pre-pandemic levels

2023-10-30T09:38:29.306-05:00

Nearly 35% of Illinois third through 11th graders scored at a proficient level in reading and writing on tests given last spring. This doesn’t match the nearly 38% rate from pre-pandemic 2019, but is higher than the 30% proficiency rate of the last two years. Illinois’ proficiency standard is higher than in most other states, according to the Illinois Superintendent of Education, Tony Sanders.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file photo

Illinois public school students are continuing their slow recovery from the pandemic with improvements in English proficiency, a slight increase in graduation rates and more participation in advanced courses, according to state test data released Monday.

“This is a great sign for the state of Illinois that we are really back on track,” Illinois Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said. “We certainly always want to see greater growth than what we saw this year, but this was significant growth, specifically in English language arts. Math, we still have more work to do.”

But only 27% of students reached proficiency in math. The 2019 pre-pandemic rate was nearly 32%. Sanders said the state will likely start examining how it defines high-quality math instruction to spur improvement.

Many students have struggled to recover from the disruptions caused by the pandemic in math in particular. Schools shifted to remote learning starting in March 2020, and some, including Chicago Public Schools, remained remote for most of the 2020-2021 school year.

These results are featured on the Illinois State Report Card, released Monday. The report card includes numerous metrics about each school and district in the state and identifies which schools are performing well and which ones need improvement. Illinois third through eighth graders take the Illinois Assessment of Readiness exam, and high school juniors take the SAT college entrance exam.

About 1.86 million students are enrolled in public schools, a slight decline from last year and about 10% less than a decade ago. Nearly half of all students in Illinois are considered low income.

The state saw the biggest jump in students learning English, known as English Language Learners, in five years. Sanders said this might be attributed to migrants and refugees coming to Illinois from Ukraine, Russia and Central America. Chicago has received thousands of migrants mostly from Venezuela, and the increase in English Language Learners has helped stabilize the enrollment after more than a decade of steep decline.

While Sanders finds reasons to be optimistic, many student metrics remained lower than the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. A continued concern is chronic absenteeism — students who missed 10 days of school or more last year. State officials say this is an important figure because studies show a high correlation between performance and time in school.

Chronic absenteeism has shot up dramatically since before the pandemic in 2019. It affects 28.3% of students, up from 17.5% in 2019. State officials say this is “alarmingly high” and “more work must be done to ensure full academic and social-emotional recovery from the pandemic.”

Gaps remain amid stronger academic growth this year

Sanders noted progress among Black students, as well the need for more work. About 16% of Black students and 22% of Latino students in reading were deemed proficient, compared to 45% white and 63% Asian students. In math, 8% Black students were proficient and 14% Latino students.

But Black students demonstrated more growth on state tests in reading than any other racial or ethnic group, Sanders said. Student academic growth across the board accelerated more last year than it did in the year before the pandemic.

The state superintendent stressed that gaps in proficiency are because Black students historically attend schools with fewer resources.

“We educate Black students disproportionately in underfunded school districts with more teacher vacancies, higher teacher and principal turnover, higher chronic absenteeism,” he said.

But for the last five years the state has been increasing education funding and targeting new money to districts that are historically under-resourced under a new funding formula. Some $2.38 billion in new funding has been funneled to schools during this time, Sanders said.

“We lived for years under a funding system that was one of the most inequitable in the country, and now we have one that for the last several years has directed resources to the districts and the students who need it the most,” Sanders said.

He said school districts have used that money, along with federal COVID relief dollars, to target supports for students of color, including lowering class sizes and introducing high-impact tutoring.

But many school districts that have seen significant growth in test scores among Black students have small numbers and few low-income students, state data shows. Frankfort Consolidated School District 157-C saw the highest growth in reading test scores among Black students of any other school district in the state.

Frankfort serves about 2,600 students and is located at the tip of southwestern Will County. Superintendent Doug Wernet said it has become increasingly diverse in recent years. Since 2010, the percentage of white students has decreased by 10%, while the number of Black and Latino students increased. Its percentage of low-income students has stayed at about 5%.

“So as a district philosophically, we ensure that rigor doesn’t decrease based on any preconceived notion about performance or ability by any one subgroup,” he said. “And so by holding the best instructional lessons and ensuring that the kids that are in front of the teachers are getting what they should for their grade level, we help them rise to that challenge. So we don’t lower the expectations.”

Wernet said it also helped the district returned to in-person learning during the pandemic before many others in the state.

The quick return to in-person learning is one reason Wernet thinks the reading test score gap is so relatively small. The difference in performance among Black and Latino students and white students is less than 10 percentage points. As is the case in the rest of the state, Asian students outperform all other groups.

In math, however, there remain some significant differences. Wernet said math is skill specific, and students often only practice those skills in school. “Either you get it or you don’t,” he said. However, children are exposed to literacy in many places outside the classroom.

Promising signs for high school students

Illinois’ high school graduation rate reached its highest level in 13 years, at 87.6%, though that’s only slightly higher than last year. Graduation rates did not suffer during the pandemic.

Sanders said the ninth grade on-track rate also went up this year. Studies have shown that students who are on track with passing grades and no more than one F as freshmen are significantly more likely to get their diploma.

Composite SAT scores are about the same as last year but still below 2019 levels, according to updated data from the Illinois State Board of Education. This year, the average composite score for the state is 961. The average was 995 in 2019. All juniors in the state take the SAT, but it may be less important to students because most colleges and universities are now test optional.

Sanders said there are other highlights that speak to the experience students are getting in high school. The number of students taking advanced classes, such as AP or dual enrollment classes (college classes taken in high school) is going up.

Also, an increasing number of young people are participating in career and technical education programs, where they are trained in such professions as health care and manufacturing.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.

Nader Issa covers education for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Longest-serving Latina at Chicago Public Schools doesn’t plan to retire

2023-10-27T05:00:00-05:00

Mariana Myers is marking 45 years in various roles at Ebinger Elementary School on the Northwest Side. She’s been the school’s clerk for more than two decades.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Day after day, week after week, year after year, kids at Ebinger Elementary see the same face when they get to school.

“Good morning!” Mariana Myers tells them, greeting each student by name.

She’s often the first there, by 6:30 a.m. And she’s one of the last to leave — whenever her principal does — around 6 p.m or later.

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Myers has worked as the clerk at Ebinger on the Northwest Side for more than two decades. This fall, she celebrates 45 years at the school in various roles. And with 47 years overall working for the Chicago Public Schools, she’s the longest-serving Latina in the system.

“They ask — the staff, or even parents — ‘When are you going to retire?’ ” Myers said. “And I say, ‘I don’t know. Maybe one more year. And maybe one more year.’ And it keeps going.”

Myers preferred that her age not be published. Though she is past retirement age, her energy and wits wouldn’t say so. Parents and staff say she knows the answer to every question and keeps the school running.

She has seen students graduate and become parents and send their kids to Ebinger. Some even have grandkids at the school now.

Myers has worked with nine principals. She thinks she’s missed two days in her 45 years, both for doctor’s appointments that, despite her efforts, couldn’t be scheduled outside of school hours.

She loses unused time off every year but says she’d rather be at school. Her only family in the area is her son, one of her three children. They spend time together and go out for meals.

“But I don’t have any other activities,” Myers said. “The only place is my school.”

She started in 1976 as a cafeteria worker cleaning dishes in a school kitchen. That position was removed from the budget two years later, so she found a new job at Ebinger as a bus aide. After several years she became a school assistant. And about 25 or 30 years ago — she doesn’t remember the exact year — she took the job as the school clerk.

Along with greeting kids in the morning, Myers does payroll, internal accounts and purchasing, and sometimes she answers the main office phone. She’s been on the local school council for a decade — which she enjoys “even though sometimes I don’t say too much.”

Principal Michelle Nash is in her second year in charge and said she wouldn’t have made it through the first one without Myers. The clerk is “everything that everybody loves about Ebinger.”

“She just is this welcoming force that puts everybody at ease,” Nash said. “She just really takes the time to listen to what people need,” even with stressors in people’s personal lives.

“She’ll stop everything and just make them feel like the only person in the room,” Nash said.

Kathy Murphy, a sixth grade language and literature teacher, has worked with Myers for 32 years. The two share a hug every Friday. Murphy calls the clerk the “heart and soul” of the school and the “mother hen” — as evidenced by the door to the main office that’s decorated with notes of appreciation for Myers from staff and students.

When Murphy had her first daughter 23 years ago, she still remembers the “flowery and beautiful” dress Myers had waiting for her newborn.

“That’s how I see Ms. Myers, is just a flower that’s always blooming,” Myers said. “I can always count on her. She’s more than just someone I work with.”

Parents say they’re amazed by Myers’ ability to answer questions and the level of empathy and care she shows kids.

Lauren Walsh’s son is a third grader with special learning needs and diabetes. She’s always talking to the main office.

“Response time is really critical for us,” Walsh said. “She always has the information I need when I need it. Always very friendly, always very helpful.

“I get a lot of calls about low blood sugar, and those are things that are really dangerous,” Walsh added. “When you have low blood sugar for a kid, it’s really scary. And she’s very reassuring.”

Walsh’s brother-in-law, John Walsh, has three children at Ebinger, the oldest a seventh grader, so he’s known Myers for years.

“She knows every kid, even the kids who graduated and come back.”

The kids are the main reason she’s still here, Myers said. Staff and families treat her well. And she’s never thought of leaving Ebinger.

Being a clerk is not what she does, Myers said, “It’s who I am.”