Chicago students take a seat and a walk

PUBLIC SCHOOL students' discontent boiled over in Chicago in two separate actions on May 3.

At Williams Elementary on the South Side of the city, as many as 100 middle-school students were joined by parents for a sit-in to protest the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) plan to close Williams--along with 53 other schools on the chopping block, with the final word expected at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, at Lincoln Park High School on the North Side, nearly all of the 2,000 students walked out of classes in a stand against the firing of eight teachers. The teachers got the boot in another move by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his handpicked team at CPS to tighten their grip over the system and weaken the power of teachers and their union.

THE WILLIAMS sit-in is the latest in a series of demonstrations at schools slated for closure or other punitive "school actions." Almost all of the schools are on the West and South Sides of Chicago, in predominantly African American or Latino neighborhoods.

Jitu Brown, education organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, emphasized that the Williams students organized the protest themselves, and parents came out to support them.

"It was their voices," Brown said in an interview. "I think students know that these actions by CPS only destabilize their education, not help it. The children know neighborhood boundaries, school rivalries, gang issues. As adults, we're not supposed to do everything our children say, but we are supposed to hear them when it comes to what they say is safe and not safe."

CPS officials claim their list of schools to close includes only "underutilized" facilities, and that students will be diverted to consolidated schools with more resources. But the students and parents at Williams know this is a straight-up lie.

CPS had already co-located a charter school--Urban Prep Academies' Bronzeville campus--in the Williams building. And the plan for what will happen to Williams students is bizarre: Williams Elementary and Williams Middle School are to close, with their students transferring to Drake Elementary--and Drake will then relocate into the Williams building.

This twisted process could allow Urban Prep to take over more space at Williams. But it's a certainty that Williams teachers and staff will be fired, and the lives of students and parents at both Williams and Drake upended. "It's one of those musical chairs closings that makes no sense," said one CPS parent involved in the struggle against the closings.

Brown said the CPS network chief for the area, John Price, met with Williams students at the end of the day. Brown said he was at an earlier meeting between Price and parent supporters, where parents pleaded for school officials to take account of concerns about closings that will force students to cross gang boundaries to go to new schools, at a time when the city is enduring an epidemic of violence. Brown described a parent telling the network chief:

The one thing we had was our neighborhood and neighborhood school, but now you're destabilizing neighborhoods and taking away that one stable place our children have outside of their home in many cases--their schools. And Price couldn't respond, he just put his head down.

Brown says to expect more protests. Students and parents at Williams and other schools, he says, are "recognizing this is going to have to be a battle of endurance--and that we're going to have to say: 'You can't have these schools.'"

THE STUDENTS at Lincoln Park High School aren't facing a looming closure, but they are angry about a CPS maneuver that will cost at least eight teachers their jobs.

Though located in a well-to-do neighborhood, the school draws students from around the city, with some attending a demanding International Baccalaureate (IB) program. For this and many other reasons, Lincoln Park is respected as one of the best high schools in the system. But as the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky wrote, that "didn't stop our mayor from trying to fix it."

Last December, Emanuel announced that Lincoln Park would undergo a transformation to become a "wall-to-wall International Baccalaureate" school. People familiar with the existing IB program doubt all students would be subjected to the rigorous curriculum. More likely, as Joravsky suggests, is that CPS wants to put "the IB brand name" on roughly the same curriculum that already exists for the rest of the school.

But in the process of changing the "academic focus," CPS can force teachers to re-apply for their positions--and eight Lincoln Park educators recently learned they were getting the boot. "We want to show that we do care about our education, and we wish to have a say in it," reads a letter from students explaining the motives for the walkout. "We have been informed that many teachers are being fired so that newer teachers can be hired, and we don't want to sit back and let CPS make a business of our education."

According to a news report from the National Public Radio station WBEZ, the Chicago Teachers Union had reached an agreement for teachers to stay on under the new program, and all 128 teachers got letters telling them they would have positions next fall.

Reportedly, however, CPS officials objected to the arrangement, and eight teachers received letters rescinding the offer of a position next school year.

Kylie Kahn, a sophomore at Lincoln Park, told CBS News that her chemistry teacher was one of the eight. "She has a big family, she has an autistic son, and she was originally told she was re-hired, and then was sent a rescinding letter," Kahn said. "She didn't deserve to be treated that way. She's been here for a very long time, teaching for 20 years."

All but a few students in each classroom joined the walkout that spilled out onto Armitage Avenue, outside the school. Several students told reporters that they wanted to show supporter for teachers who went on strike last September to defend public schools from Emanuel's attack.

"We're doing this for them," said junior Bitanya Gevrekristos. "They did this for us...by striking, and we're going to do this for them by walking out."