Progress Illinois

Emmet Elementary School’s utilization rate is 66 percent, higher than a handful of other Austin neighborhood schools.

Even still, the Chicago Public Schools wants to close it at the end of the year, and that decision continues to puzzle some West Side community members and parents who spoke out against the action before Emmet’s final community meeting last night.

“Unfortunately we have an administration with this corporate ideology of privatizing education that uses our data to punish schools rather than use them as tools to go ahead and improve our children’s education,” said Dwayne Truss with the Austin Community Action Council. “And that’s wrong.” Read more »

Although the 47th ward appears to be safe from potential school closings at the end of the academic year, Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th ward) and other education panelists at a North Side forum last night said all Chicago communities would feel the impact of shuttered neighborhood schools.

It’s likely some schools in the 47th Ward, and others, would take in students from nearby schools that Chicago Public Schools decides to close, the alderman said.

Pawar cited one nearby public school, Trumbull, on CPS’ potential 129-school closing list. About 30 percent of students at the elementary school near Ashland and Foster avenues have special needs, he said. 

“I think some of the schools in the area will absorb those students, and we’re OK with that,” Pawar said. “I just think what makes this a little frustrating is we’re not moving cattle around. These are children, and whether they’re special ed or not, how we count them matters.”

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Recognition of the strides that have been made as well as the challenges that remain was the focus of a panel discussion held Friday regarding the role women with disabilities have played in the struggle for women’s rights.

Held by the disability rights organization Access Living in recognition of International Women’s Day, the event featured academics, caregivers and advocates who discussed the many issues facing women within the disability community, which according to UIC Professor Carol Gill have at times been overlooked by the rest of society.

“Women with disabilities actually have quite a long history of not being recognized as part of the population,” said UIC Associate Professor Gill. “We’re left out of programs for services, health initiatives, research, and policy, from domestic violence shelters to cardiovascular fitness programs to osteoporosis research to educational equity policy. We frequently don’t get counted, we’re not seen, and we’re invisible.”

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