Blocks Together and RYH hosted Schools As Anchors: Communities Planning for Their Schools last weekend. We learned about best practices in planning for school facilities and programming from local experts and from national expert Mary Filardo, Executive Director of the 21st Century School Fund. You can find all of the resources from the event- and more!- here.

Check out Chalkbeat Chicago’s coverage: Are there alternatives to closing schools? Chicago parents consider options.

We are grateful to Crossroads Fund who supported this event! We also want to thank Alexios Rosario-Moore for all his work organizing the agenda, materials, and workshops!

Blocks Together and RYH hosted a 1 1/2 day event on Friday, July 12, and Saturday, July 13. We learned more about best practices in planning for school facilities and programming from local experts and from national expert Mary Filardo, Executive Director of the 21st Century School Fund. Below are the resources shared during the event and many more. 

We are grateful to Crossroads Fund who supported this event! We also want to thank Alexios Rosario-Moore for all his work organizing the agenda, materials, and workshops!

Below is the prepared statement of Joy Clendenning, CPS Parent, LSC Member, and RYH Managing Director. You can watch video of her statement here.

You can watch a video here of Laurel Henson, a CPS mom working with RYH to bring attention to the widespread nursing issues within CPS. 

This is a new post which UPDATES the information shared in our original post: CPS "Outreach" Meetings for the 2018 Preliminary Draft Educational Facilities Master Plan (EFMP).

You have all likely seen the horrific reports out of the Chicago Tribune by now, documenting hundreds of cases of sexual assault and abuse that have been reported to CPS over a decade but have never been made public before. The Trib said they had to threaten to sue CPS to get them to reveal the data they possessed, and it turns out CPS lawyers have investigated over 430 cases of sexual assault or abuse by CPS employees since 2011. These are just incidents that have occurred in CPS school buildings that have been reported. CPS acknowledged in the Tribune that they had no formal policies or procedures in place to deal with this, or to give schools firm direction on what they needed to do in the event that a student made a report.

We have a NEW, UPDATED POST published on June 11, 2018, 9:20pm. Please read that post instead or go to it after reading the below. CPS did change their meeting schedule and posted it online at 2:00pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2018.

Does it often feel that there is just no overall facilities plan for CPS? 

Many parents, students, teachers, and community groups have felt the same way over many decades and many fought for a law passed in 2011. This law (PA 097-0474) requires CPS to provide plans for capital spending and to have a 10-year Educational Facilities Master Plan (EFMP).