Submitted by sskcorn on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 12:22am
I spent my Wednesday evening at a CPS budget meeting. This is one of three CPS budget meetings planned. Wednesday night's event was held at Lane Tech H.S. you have two more opportunities to see the presenation.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Westinghouse High School
3223 W Franklin Blvd
7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Simeon High School
8147 S Vincennes
7:00 p.m.
This meeting was not a 'Let's get together work on the budget', it was more 'Here it is and it's going to get worse.'. The format was a brief PowerPoint presentation that you can also download from the CPS website, 2011-12 Budget. And then speakers were allowed two minutes to ask a question or make a statement. There was not much discussion since the budget seems like a done deal. The gist of the budget is that once again there is a huge deficit of $712m that will be filled by leftover funds from last year, money from CPS reserves, cuts to Central Office and a property tax hike.
Submitted by jillwohl on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 11:31am
As a Chicago Public School parent for the past eight years, I've felt more and more disenfranchised from decisions that affect public school children on both a federal and a district level.
No Child Left Behind has destroyed more about what's good about public education than any other single force today. Schools have cut their arts, music, physical education, recess, time enough to eat and digest lunch and anything doesn't pump up test scores. Critical thinking? Not on the test. Little wonder the dropout rate is so high.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 9:50am
I got a chance to meet with
the guy in charge of my kids’ education, Jean-Claude Brizard. If my kids
are troops, I their sergeant, their teachers their lieutenants, their principal
their captain, then Jean-Claude is their General.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Mon, 06/06/2011 - 7:35am
My father hated vacations. He needed to be working on something, not
sitting around relaxing. He just wasn't that kind of man. He spent his
days off stripping and refinishing the baseboards in our home, or
taking every single slat off of our venetian blinds and washing them by
hand.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 2:19pm
I used to work with a group who taught self-defense
techniques, street fighting, to women.
It wasn’t an art form. Its
goal was to train woman how to disable an attacker and get away. It also stressed not becoming a target
in the first place. One of the first things we taught was how to listen to your
gut. If something, a situation or
the actions of an individual or group, does not feel right in the pit of your
stomach, it’s not.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Sat, 05/14/2011 - 2:59pm
I don't know about all of you, but with regards to my kids education,
this has been one L O N G year. As my kids get older, the projects and
papers get ramped up. As the projects require more research and pencil
lead, my input as a parent actually gets harder to assess.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Sat, 04/30/2011 - 4:12pm
Parental involvement! We need parents to be more involved! Sign a
contract! Be more active! It's not the politics, not the teachers, not
the schools, it's you slacker parents!
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Thu, 04/21/2011 - 8:13am
Mayor Elect Rahm Emanuel has tapped Jean-Claude Brizard, former CEO of
Rochester City Schools, to be the next head of Chicago Public Schools.
Well, let's see, I like his name! I'll have to continue my reading
about him, but so far, for the past couple of days, all I'm seeing with
very few exceptions, is that this guy comes with little endorsements,
from anyone. The people of Rochester are not thrilled that he broke his
contract to come to Chicago, but not exactly sorry to see him go. Like
the guy you want to break up with, you want to be the one saying "This
isn't working out". Although the outcome is the same, he's out of your
life, you are still a little pissed that he broke up with you first.
This makes me feel Chicago is getting sloppy seconds. Rochester is more
or less intimating "We were not a good fit, but who knows Chicago, you
two could be a great match". I've been out of the dating scene for a
long time, but as memory serves, these "he was a jerk to me but maybe
won't be to you" never, ever work out.
Submitted by Claire Wapole on Mon, 03/28/2011 - 7:04am
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she had to walk into mine”. A variation of that line has been running through my head lately. It goes more like this “ Of all the issues in all the schools in the public education system, CPS has to mess with breakfast.”
Submitted by sskcorn on Sun, 03/27/2011 - 11:13pm
I'm sure by now you have heard about a program that CPS is implementing in
all schools this Spring, Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC). This is a
program where the current Universal Breakfast served before school in the
cafeteria will be discontinued and breakfast will instead be served in
the classroom after school begins.
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