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School budgets are out and most schools we have heard from did not get the big bump in funding that CPS reported they would receive. It is great that our school day is going to be longer than the current 5hr45 minutes. In fact as we’ve said all along, most parents want an extension of time for their kids, but it is very sad for many of us that our kids’ schools will not even be able to pick up a half-time position with the funding we received. In the fall, most of us will still have schools without many basic programs.

All week the mayor has been asking the people of Chicago to hold him accountable, and parents of CPS students want to do that. Many of our schools, especially level 3 schools, lost positions due to CPS projecting severe under-enrollment – up to 300 students with a loss of 10 teachers in some cases. Can the mayor account for that? Most high schools lost many positions this year. Can he account for that? School budgets are all over the map and most people do not want to go on record with the cuts, because in the process schools will have to go through of begging CPS to return some of the positions, they do not want to be penalized for going public with information, especially if they are "Level 3" schools, which could easily be on next year's school closing list.

We would like CPS to publish information on how many positions were cut due to projected under-enrollment. As CPS just put out information that they plan to open 60 charter schools in the next five years, (Tribune story), it starts to make sense that they would cut so many positions from their Level 3 schools. What I once thought was hyperbole - that CPS would intentionally starve neighborhood schools of resources in an effort to expedite their closing – now seems pretty real, and quite disheartening.

It is unclear why we are opening 60 new charter schools, anyway. Did CPS and the mayor not see this report last December in the Sun-Times that actually looked at the data? “Chicago Charter Schools Produce Wildly Uneven Results:” (Sun-Times story). Charter schools are no different than traditional schools – almost all charter operators have campuses that are performing below the CPS average. So why expand them at such a rapid pace? Why not tout the excellent inquiry-based literacy curriculum developed at some of our schools, like Burley elementary, where my son attends as just one example.  Why not make it a point to share that kind of curriculum infused with some level of community control and content, with 60 schools, so that all kids have the opportunity to become critical thinkers and engaged learners? Perhaps because it is too difficult and is not a silver bullet-style approach that we are seeing with this administration. Move fast, try everything, hope something works.

The one positive that we are happy about is that kids will have recess restored after thirty years without at CPS. This is good news. Other than that, thousands of students will still have no music, no art, insufficient language programs, huge class sizes, inadequate PE, poor special education services, not great literacy curricula, and many still without full-day Kindergarten.

While CPS moved buckets of money around and created the “College Ready Fund”, they also cut many lines in school budgets and short-staffed positions at many schools.

I think that parents would love to take the mayor up on his offer and hold him accountable, but that would mean having an honest conversation with the mayor and School District 299. Tell us the truth – we don’t have enough money to give a proper quality education to all students in Chicago. We all know it’s true and we’ve found ourselves alone in Springfield year after year advocating for increased funding for children’s education when no one else is there. Show some leadership and change the culture at CPS. Bring parents and teachers in to help solve the problems together instead of the spin and rhetoric we receive. The biggest problem at CPS is total distrust of their stakeholders. We hope year two is filled with more honesty – so that we can truly embark upon fulfilling the quality school day our children deserve.

A week ago Friday, a group of dedicated, Spanish dominant moms from Albany Park Neighborhood Council hosted a meeting with CPS CEO Jean Claude Brizard. They politely and patiently assembled clear and concise testimony and recommendations for the district to better serve the 65,000 English language learners, 85% of whom are from Spanish-speaking homes.

I am one of many concerned parents who attended the Board of Education (BOE) meeting on March 28^th during the public input session.  In case you have not had the luxury of attending a BOE meeting, let me tell you what it takes. Parents get up around 5:00 am and must take the day off of work. Some of us must hire child care or ask our spouses to also take a day off work to prepare kids for school.  Many of us have jobs that do not have benefits, so we don’t get paid. Others lose a precious vacation day. We then wait to be issued a number at 9 am. I received a number of 58 and then waited to see what that meant. Turns out I was a “lucky one” who managed to speak for my 2 minutes, with 7 minutes to spare, before the public comment period expired

Suffice it to say, expressing concerns as a Chicago parent to the BOE it is extremely difficult to pull off and we only make these sacrifices because we care about and believe in public education. We believe that if we prepare our speech (limited to 2 minutes) with reason, logic, and facts, the CPS and the BOE will listen.  We believe that no matter what our differences, CPS and the BOE desire parent engagement and the best for our communities.  We believe that the 120 seconds is our only chance to be heard by the people who affect policies that impact our children.

As the saying goes, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Running for Local School Council (LSC) or CEL (Concilio Escolar Local) is an invaluable step you can take towards being ‘at the table.’

But you being at the table does not effect positive change in and of itself. For that, you need teamwork. So what makes a good governance team at a public school? No doubt you’ve heard of dysfunctional or moribund LSCs. This handful of Councils live in infamy as the only kinds that wind up in the media. I guess no one wants to read about how a school facilitated a really smart budget in a fiscally trying year, or how a new principal worked with school leadership to create a transformative SIPAAA (school improvement plan).

Scandals are sexy. Democracy is not.

I went to the north side LSC rally at Lane Tech High School on Monday. Not enough people were there. Hopefully more people will attend the other rallies. There's a West Side rally today (Feb 29) at DePriest Elementary, 132 S. Parkside, then South: Thursday, March 1 at Simeon H.S., 8147 S. Vincennes Ave. and Central: Friday, March 2 at Parent Resource Center, 4655 S. Dearborn. 

What should a good LSC look like? A good elected body should:

• Be Representative: reflect the school community;
• Be Inclusive: ensure the needs of under-represented groups (e.g., children with special needs, English language learners, etc. are brought to the forefront;
• Leverage Strengths: use your community’s social, intellectual and cultural capital to the benefit of your school;
• Encourage Independent Thinking: good teams don’t always agree-- in fact something may be wrong if your LSC always does. Schools don’t need group think or a rubber stamp;
• Support Community Engagement: communicate well, facilitate dialogue and don’t make decisions in a void;
• Advocate, Advocate, Advocate: councils can turn over every two years, but the team must always try to advocate for the long term benefit of the program;
• Make Mission-Driven Decisions: push to facilitate meaningful solutions, not hold ‘popularity contests’;
• Third Solution: If there’s two or more sides to an issue, try to see things from the opposing point of view. Is there any common ground?
• Be Honest: integrity is of the utmost importance in an elected leader;

On a personal level, when you get elected, know your responsibilities:

• Be On Time: Don’t be late to meetings, or worse, risk your team not getting quorum because you didn’t show up;
• Be Prepared: LSCs are the only elected body that undergoes training (18 hours) to serve – I recommend the independent trainings from Designs for Change and if still available, PURE;
• Brush Up: If you’ve been on an LSC for consecutive years, you are exempt from re-training. Go anyway;
• Don’t Overstep: First and foremost, your duties are tasked with responsibility for the school budget, improvement plan and principal evaluation/selection;
• Be Responsive: What, you got elected and now you’re too cool (or busy) to talk to the hoi polloi. Don’t be that guy;
• Be Realistic: Schools have issues. Solutions will never make everyone happy.
• Don’t Overshare: Don’t discuss school politics in front of your children. Filter what you say, and let your child focus on his or her studies.

If you’re not elected, remember that you can still be involved by volunteering to serve on an LSC commitee. Committing to run for LSC presumably means you want to be an active stakeholder in your child’s school’s visionl Just because you’re not elected does not you get to disappear into the school’s woodwork until the next election happens two years down the line. 

There has been much in the news lately about the Board of Education approving the closure of 10 schools and the turnaround/phase-out of 7 schools. Even after listening to the pleas from Reverend Jesse Jackson, numerous pastors, parents, teachers and most importantly, the students themselves, the CPS Board unanimously decided to go ahead with the school actions; they did not even allow a one year moratorium.

While this decision was not flattering to the Board and I know that many people think this is heartless, I am here to tell you that the Board does indeed have a heart. And they do not always displace children from their schools and neighborhoods.

Just last year, Tim Cawley, the Chief of Administrative officer for CPS, asked for a two-year waiver on moving to Chicago so that his daughter would not be uprooted from her new home and school in Winnetka. The gracious CPS Board approved the waiver for Mr. Cawley. Mr. Vitale, the Board President, defended the decision because Mr. Cawley has “done an exceptional job in the few months”.  They did so despite the Inspector General (IG) James Sullivan’s rebuke which said it was not fair to approve a waiver when the IG had to pursue over 246 complaints last year regarding employees living outside Chicago. The Board instead decided to respect the need for stability of Mr. Cawley’s daughter. Being uprooted from a Winnetka school - removed from one’s friends and support system - could be very disruptive. 

The Board may too have felt pressure to approve Mr. Cawley’s waiver. After all, experienced high-caliber AUSL executives don’t just drop out of trees; we have only managed to snag one other (David Vitale) to serve as our Board President.  Who better than AUSL executives to understand the AUSL contracts that CPS Board has to approve?

CPS and its Board do have a heart and they do listen to the wishes of parents. They can even do so when concerns about fairness, legality or propriety are raised. They certainly have shown a lot of kindness to one girl from Winnetka. 

To the Mayor and CPS board, I ask you, how many CPS students lives are worth the same consideration you have given to this little girl?  We know it’s not 7,000, give us a number is it 50,000, a 100,000 or more? How many Chicago parents’ voices are worth the same weight as Mr. Cawley’s from Winnetka?

CPS Board Members

David Vitale: A CPS parent and Harvard University graduate, Mr. Vitale is the executive chairman of Urban Partnership Bank, which was created in the aftermath of Shore Bank, a South Side community lender that failed last year. Vitale also chairs the Academy of Urban School Leadership board. He served as chief administrative officer for the city school system under CEO Arne Duncan. Vitale serves as board president.

Jesse Ruiz: The Illinois State Board of Education chairman plans to step down from his state post in May as he takes on his new position as vice president of the Chicago Board of Education. A Chicago attorney, Ruiz also serves on the U.S. Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission.

Henry Bienen: A political scientist and author, Bienen served as Northwestern University president from 1995 until 2009, one of the Evanston institution's longest-serving stewards.

Mahalia Hines: The veteran educator worked as a CPS principal and teacher for more than three decades. She now works with her son, Common — a hip-hop artist from the South Side — in the Common Ground Foundation.

Penny Pritzker: A businesswoman and philanthropist, Pritzker supports public schools as board chair of the Chicago Public Education Fund and co-director of the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, which invests in education and health for city children.

Rod Sierra: A parent of three CPS students, Sierra is the chief marketing officer of Johnson Publishing Co. and a former deputy press secretary to Mayor Richard Daley.

Andrea Zopp: The president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League also is a CPS parent and a former local school council member of Clissold Elementary School on the Far South Side. She previously served as general counsel for companies including Exelon Corp. and Sears Holdings Corp.