RYH Statements + Press | CPS BOE 4.28.21
We hosted a press conference at 9:30AM with youth and parent leaders from Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Enlace Chicago, and RYH. You can watch it on BPNC’s Facebook page. Some live tweets are here.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago Public Schools urged not to use $2b relief money on debt
Block Club Chicago: With $1.8 Billion Coming To CPS, West And South Siders Want 'Seat At the Table' To Decide Where The Money Goes
Chalkbeat Chicago: 1 in 5 Chicago high school students absent in first week of reopening
At 10:30AM, the mayor appointed CPS BOE held their monthly meeting. It was live streamed on the CPS YouTube channel and you can watch it here. Our live tweets are here. Our prepared statements are below. For more thorough live tweets, please follow the #ChiDocumenter here. Here is the Chicago Documenters webpage of the meeting (scroll down for documents like the presentations and actions taken.)
You can submit Written Comments to the CPS BOE. Go to cpsboe.org & click on the link for “Board meeting Apr 28 Form” which will take you to a Google form. Comments are due by 5PM, Th, April 29.
Mary Fahey Hughes, CPS Parent & RYH Parent Liaison for Special Education
I’m here to speak about ongoing inequities for Students with IEPs in the GoCPS High School Application process. We acknowledge the changes for the Fall 2021 HS Application cycle, including:
the promised creation of school-level tasks forces for students with IEPs in Selective Enrollment schools;
the elimination of NWEA scores as a criteria for application eligibility;
that all 8th Grade students will take a High School admissions examination.
Still, with all these changes, as long as Principals have the permission from the District to set cut scores for acceptance into programs (whether those cut scores are from the NWEA or a High School Admissions Exam), students with disabilities will be disproportionately excluded from what could be completely appropriate CTE, Arts, and Academic programs because of arbitrary cut scores.
Systems are set up to create a desired outcome and this system is set up to save money at the expense of opportunity for students with IEPs. When CPS limits options for lower scoring students with IEPs, it can focus special ed services in general education programs of neighborhood high schools, rather than expand special ed services into speciality programs. The system is ableist, inequitable, discriminatory, and systemic and CPS shirks responsibility for this system by touting “Principal Autonomy.”
For the Fall 2021 rollout of GoCPS, we ask that:
CPS Commit to giving IEP Teams the power to place students into appropriate CTE, Arts, Academic, and Career Academy programs as part of IDEA Mandated Transition plans, based on student ability, strengths, and life goals.
We ask that cut scores for acceptance into CTE Programs be eliminated; and
We ask that acceptance into Arts Programs be solely based on student auditions and portfolio submissions.
In conclusion, students with disabilities have been wrongfully excluded from appropriate programs based on arbitrary cut scores for the last 5 years. Please take responsibility and act on your supposed goal of equity for all students now. Don’t let CPS Administration wrongfully lock out students with IEPs from appropriate programs for even one more year.
Thank you.
At RYH we’ve been pointing out the discrimination in the HS application process for students with diabilities (see this quickish video explaining the issue) and have been talking to CPS about this for some time- timeline here.
We still want to hear from parents who have children with IEPs who were denied CTE, Arts and other high school programs due to NWEA and Grade cut scores. If this is you, please fill out this form. HS program offers for 2021-22 will be available on 4.30.
Naoma Nagahawatte, CPS Parent and RYH Advocacy Director
I am here today to discuss the American Rescue Plan Act (or ARPA’s) 1.8 billion dollar allotment to Chicago Public Schools.
Over the past few months we’ve talked to hundreds of parents across the city about how they would like to see federal ARPA dollars spent. This is what they told us:
They told us that normal has never meant enough for Black and Brown CPS families.
We were told that CPS has an unprecedented opportunity to use federal relief funds to support trust, learning and care for all CPS students and families.
We were also told that now is the time for transformational change.
In part, transformational change means including parents and students in CPS decision making and creating trust through transparency.
Transparency requires local allocation of federal funding to be determined by school communities.
It requires parents & students to be included in their schools’ health and safety committees..
It also requires that CPS create a publicly accessible COVID complaint tracker and double the district’s contact tracing efforts.
Transformational change also requires CPS to wholly support students who need the most.
This includes providing all CPS students with a working device and functional WIFI;
Providing every IEP student with compensatory services; and
Doubling state funding for English Language Learners.
Transformational change also requires full CPS support for families and school communities.
This includes ensuring at least 1 school counselor and social worker per 250 students;
Providing housing vouchers for every CPS student experiencing homelessness; and
Expanding CPS’ Sustainable Community School Program to every district school.
With 1.8 billion additional dollars coming to CPS through ARPA funding, all of what I just mentioned can be done. I urge you to meet with CPS parents, students and community stakeholders to hear how CPS families want ARPA money to be used. Thank you for your time.
Natasha Erskine, CPS Parent & RYH Parent Organizer
When schools closed last year, at RYH we saw need and immediately began hosting Solidarity Calls with parents, caregivers, LSCs, and youth leaders on Zoom. We continued to host those calls across 16 weeks until the end of the school year.
At times we invited district leaders; the Equity Office came to those meetings and listened to first voice experiences and some pretty simple demands. But across those calls we curated relationships, shared resources and aid. Across thousands of people, across our neighborhoods in our city- and what we heard was a need for immediate attention around the equity gaps, around the opportunity gaps that has existed before COVID and have been exacerbated amid this global pandemic.
District leaders heard- or had an opportunity- to really take that information that they heard and do something with it. Unfortunately, a missed opportunity; we find ourselves here a year later still asking for the same basic things.
So, I’m curious, has the board and CPS leaders had an opportunity to read the Trust Learning Care or TLC Framework that was created by youth, parents, and community? If you haven’t, we shared that with you back in February. I hope that you’ll do that. In part, it does state that school communities should be able to determine how the $1.8B in the American Rescue Plan should be spent.
We asked last year, we’re asking now- that there are immediate needs that are needed at the ground level, at the school level. LSCs are grappling with the reasons why our schools, predominantly on the South, West sides, where our Black students are not returning to school because there are needs that are not being met financially.
So we are asking for the district to engage with parents as thought partners and decision makers, to pull in LSCs and really leverage their leadership and their experience to help make sure that all of our families have what they need going forward.
Thank you so much for this space.
Trust Learning Care (TLC) | #TLCMakesSense
Over the past few months, hundreds of CPS parents & students have developed community-backed demands under the Trust, Learning, & Care (TLC) framework. Now that CPS is expected to receive $1.8B in the American Rescue Plan (ARP), shouldn’t parents and students have a voice in how that money is spent? Please consider taking the following actions:
Take the TLC Community Survey: English | Spanish
Consider taking some TLC Action Steps at your school or in your neighborhood
Press Coverage of the BOE Meeting
Chicago Tribune: Almost 1 in 5 CPS high school students failed to attend classes
Sun-Times: 1 in 5 high schools students absent from class, CPS data shows
Sun-Times: CPS to allow in-person graduations for class of 2021 | CPS permite las ceremonias de graduación en persona para la clase de 2021
Chicago Tribune: Student vaccine benchmark sought by Chicago Teachers Union