Chicago's Dyett High School campus will be converted into an arts-focused neighborhood high school plus an "innovation technology lab," school officials announced Thursday.
Senior citizens from Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood plan to hold a sit-in and prayer circle outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office at City Hall on Wednesday morning in support of the Dyett hunger strikers.
Chicago youth organizers are set to protest outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office Tuesday morning in support of the Dyett hunger strikers and against school privatization.
Health professionals are urging Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to intervene in the controversy over Dyett High School so the hunger strike over the school's future can end.
Twelve supporters of revitalizing Chicago's Dyett High School campus began a hunger strike Monday morning as they continue their call for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system to adopt a long-proposed community plan to turn Dyett into a "global leadership and green technology" high school.
The Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School, which created the plan to re-open Dyett as a global leadership and green technology school, spearheaded the hunger strike. The 12 hunger strikers, including community and faith leaders, education activists and public school parents, held their protest outside the now-closed school, located in the Washington Park neighborhood at 555 E. 51st St.
"We are tired of our voices not being heard," said hunger striker Jitu Brown with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, one of many groups behind the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School. "There has to be accountability to the public for the destabilizing of schools in our community and the sabotage of our children's education."
Chicagoans interested in the future of the Dyett High School campus will have to wait another month for the school district's public hearing on the issue.
Three groups have submitted competing proposals to the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to open a new high school at the now-closed Dyett site, located at 555 E. 51st St.
CPS' public hearing on Dyett's proposals was supposed to be held at the start of this week. However, the district announced on Friday that the hearing was pushed back to September 15.