Chicago Board of Education Meeting May 23, 2024
Teacher cuts, Union busting, racism and Anti-semitism
The Chicago Board of Education Meeting May 23, 2024 heard during the public participation period concerns about teacher cuts, union busting, racism and anti-semitism.
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) VP Jackson Potter talked about the union’s trip to Springfield for full funding as massive teacher cuts at the schools has been lighting up the teachers facebook pages.
He then focused his ire on Corporate America whose titans prefer privatization, tax cuts and less public school funding.
“We know the schools (and) the city lose money to big corporations like Amazon on their state subsidies or bad bank deals,” he said. “We need to claw back some money from bad actors who have made a profit off students with exorbitant fees, over billing, lackluster products and services.”
Jen Conant, the CTU Charter Chair, then talked union busting. She said Perspectives Charter School teachers voted to unionize because they want to improve their school and have a seat at the table to work with management to address high turnover and student safety.
“But management has opted for union busting and tried to delay the union vote since teachers went public to unionize. Their management has been campaigning against the union holding one on one meetings with teachers, sending daily emails and fighting against these educators' choice to unionize.”
“It’s a shame the school is spending CPS resources to scare people away from being a part of the union rather than putting those resources into the classroom,” she added. “What a rough way for management to end the school year.”
Conant asked the Board of Trustees to have conversations with Perspectives about their labor practices and to not allow union busting from one of its subcontractors. She said Special Education and English Language Learner compliance is part of the reason teachers choose to form a union. She added that she was also disappointed that Namaste Charter rejected contract language for teachers to work in safe conditions and have appropriate staffing levels despite being a dual language school.
SEIU 73 VP Stacia Scott thanked the Board for a good contract for the custodians, teacher assistants, security staff, bus aids and other low income workers asked the Trustees to approve the tentative agreement that will increase everyone’s salary to a minimum of $40k (and they have to live in the city), a min. 6 hour work for bus aides, bilingual stipends for teacher aides, and a minimum of 1,000 custodians (before during the dark privatization days the level dropped to only 300 board custodians).
“So this is an incredible progression to make sure public sector jobs remain in the public sector,” Scott said.
They also won increased PD opportunities to know their union rights, a fair evaluation process, and contract language that ensures Special Education minutes cannot be compromised when they pull SECA’s to cover classrooms as substitutes. She also said their workers had not had a pay raise since 2022.
Dr. Angel Alvarez was once again the first speaker and he wanted once again to talk about transparency and accountability which he says Chicago Public Schools (CPS) lacks. He added there is misinformation about the school budgets which allows principals to escape accountability. He said he has only met with one board member so far.
Sabin Dual Language Magnet School speakers were upset with their school budget that has cut three teachers even though school enrollment jumped from 240 to 367 students (many migrant newcomers) and cut their dean who was responsible for implementing restorative justice that resulted in no suspensions. They have only $20 left in their discretionary budget.
Allison Jack from the IL Network of Charter Schools made her presentation about the importance of charters that make up roughly 15 percent of Chicago public schools, about 50k students in 119 charter schools. The Urban Prep contingent of young black men and boys in suits and ties were present once again to extol the virtues of Urban Prep Charter School after an appellate judge ruled that the Board was within its right to not renew Urban Prep charter contract because it was not protected by the state’s school closing moratorium., which ends next year.
An Inter-American Elementary Magnet School speaker said they are the oldest dual language school in the Midwest yet they are losing three teachers and two speciality teachers. Another speaker said their new Principal Sr. Juan Carlos Zayas withheld information and twice unsuccessfully tried to pass a budget that the Local School Council rejected. “He did what worked best for him, not the community,” said a speaker.
The speakers stated the Network overseeing the school helped to push ahead the budget with cuts that the LSC did not approve.
“The LSC and everyone approved a budget to save teachers. That is not how a democracy works, that’s what a dictator does. I’m here to restore the correct budget we voted on. Our principal needs to be held accountable who submitted an unapproved budget. (This) first year principal who has disregarded our community refused to collaborate with the LSC. (He) falsely wrote an email to the community that he worked with the LSC. He has failed to uphold transparency and accountability. This behavior warrants a response from CPS to address it and correct it.”
Natasha Dunn, who only identified herself by name, said that black residents pay into a tax based system that contributes to their ultimate failure and demise. They are getting pushed further and further away from opportunities even though they pay into the system.
“I am here to address the systemic racism with how neighborhood school boundaries are drawn in the Stony Island network,” Dunn said. “We have the largest number of black students who are forced to travel over an hour outside their neighborhood to attend schools.
“The city travel time has a ripple effect on our students and contributes to outcomes like attendance, graduation, drop out, and academic performance. Currently in South Shore we are paying taxes to half empty school buildings that children in the neighborhood cannot attend, and a fully empty building that was closed in 2014. These two buildings are surrounded by single family homes in an historic close knit community, inequity created by systemic racism.”
She said when South Shore International College Pres School was built, CPS drew neighborhood boundaries that pushed students out of the neighborhood, and that had a ripple impact on CVS, Bowen and Hirsh all of which have neighborhood boundaries that are “completely unjust.”
“CPS sacrificed these schools for a new building at South Shore that has been intentionally under-enrolled and underfunded,” Dunn said. “I say intentionally because my daughter sat on the waitlist to attend South Shore that never moved. South Shore has 540 students and has an incoming class of 150. There was plenty of room for my daughter and the neighborhood’s children who had the qualifications to attend.
“I am requesting an audit of the school’s spending and enrollment practices be looked into and again the reason I say this is because the school has a waitlist that has for years been wavering in the 500 number and we have students who have tried to transfer in who met qualifications. I would like to meet with the board to look into this and how the boundaries are drawn.”
A Jewish parent named Barbara, who has a ‘Jewish’ sixth grader at LaSalle II Magnet School, spoke out against ‘unprecedented levels of anti-semitism at CPS.’ She said Jewish students are being threatened at schools, Jewish staff are being intimidated by colleagues (apparently because of the Israel war on Palestine that has killed over 35k women and children mostly after a Hamas terrorist attack). She did not give an example.
She called for increased training on anti-semitism. “Please do more to protect Jewish students and staff from anti-semitism.”
The last speaker was the head of the Marine Leadership Academy (MLA) High School Board of Governors who was happy that the Board forced their Principal Kristin Novy to resign, but was upset she did not leave immediately in April when it was announced, but was instead allowed to continue until the end of the school year. Novy replaced the former principal who CPS said covered up reports that dozens of MLA staff members and teachers were sexually abusing or grooming students. What was amazing was CPS itself was involved in the coverup after the inspector general reported that DCFS for student protected was contacted 22 times since 2019 to report the sexual abuse of students yet district officials did nothing. This scandal broke right after an alarming Chicago Tribune series entitled Betrayed in 2018 that detailed the sexual abuse of students that CPS had historically covered up. After the Tribune series was published, teachers were everywhere being rounded up for the slightest suspicion of abuse, similar to the Jon Burge scandal when hundreds of innocent black men were tortured by the Chicago Police Detective Burge to force false confessions.
CPS Board Trustee Tanya Woods reported remotely for the meeting.