Progress Illinois

Energy was high outside the Chicago Board of Education meeting Wednesday morning as education activists, union members, teachers, students and parents gathered in anticipation of a vote that could close a staggering amount of schools across the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district.

“All I keep hearing is ‘we’re doing this for the kids,’ but there’s not been one iota of a discussion about the educational plan,” said Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), said as she arrived for the meeting.

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The West Side leg of the Chicago Teachers Union's (CTU) three-day march against school closings saw dozens of parents, teachers and education activists blocking traffic throughout the area's streets Monday, chanting “Save Our Schools!”

“We are marching to keep our schools open,” said Jesse Sharkey, vice president of the CTU, at the launch of Monday’s West Side march at Elizabeth Peabody Elementary School, at 1444 West August Blvd.

Peabody is one of 54 schools slated for closure under a CPS proposal to shutter, consolidate and turnaround a record-breaking number of schools at the end of this school year. The district says it is attempting to address a $1 billion deficit and “utilization crisis” of more than 100,000 empty seats. The proposed plan has incited massive protests and outrage throughout Chicago.

“If some of these schools don’t come off the closure list, there’s going to be a ton of outrage and moral indignation from people all across the city,” said Sharkey in an interview with Progress Illinois. “But how do you do get your point across to a board that doesn’t really listen? This thing is being driven by the mayor, and the mayor doesn’t care.”

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Vowing to keep up the fight to stop a Chicago Public Schools’ proposal to close more than 50 schools, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis unveiled plans Monday for protests that will include three days of marches beginning this weekend.

Lewis, who was joined by parents as well as neighborhood and labor activists, held a press conference in front of William & Charles H. Mayo Elementary School on the city’s South Side.  Mayo is one of 54 schools slated for closure by CPS, but was one of 13 plans rejected last week by an independent panel of hearing officers.  

A final vote by the Chicago Board of Education is still needed for CPS to move forward with its plan, which if approved would be the country's largest number of closings by a single school district at one time. The Board of Education will vote on the proposal May 22.

Lewis, who has called for a moratorium on all school closings, said it is not too late for the Illinois General Assembly to intervene, adding that the CPS proposal would be detrimental to the education of many of the students the district claiims to be helping.

“They’re bad public policy,” Lewis said. “We have been looking at school closings for over 10 years, they have not improved education, will not improve education, and even though they say it over and over and over again, there is no proof.”

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