On Wednesday, we delivered a report entitled, “High School Application and Placement for Chicago Public Schools Students with Disabilities” to the unelected CPS BOE. This 18 page report shows major barriers to CPS HS access for the most vulnerable students. For example, 31% of high schools have a minimum NWEA score requirement to apply.

See the Key Findings & Recommendations and find a link to the full report here.

Read our statements to the BOE when delivering this report here.

Congratulations to the NTA community on their historic victory; NTA will remain open as an elementary school! For details see #1 in our "public ed news this week" list below.

On Wednesday, City Council's Committee on Education and Child Development finally had a hearing "to address issue of sexual abuse and safety of children in Chicago Public Schools." You can find our thread of live tweets from the 3 hour hearing here. We spoke at the hearing and you can find our prepared statement here.

Please join us tonight: Parent Training: Know Your Rights on 504 Plans vs. IEP Plans! Details and RSVP here.

Raise Your Hand had a second meeting with a group of parents, the head of Special Ed and the Chief Operating Officer to discuss major nursing compliance issues at the district. Many students are put in unsafe situations due to lack of coverage, untrained nurses from temp agencies, and lack of continuity of care.

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 hope you enjoy this long holiday weekend and that you spend some quality time with your family outdoors! So you can get on with your weekend, here are 5 quickish things you need to know about this week in education...

Public schools are central to strengthening our democracy and protecting the common good.

Numerous aspects of the application for the Arts in Motion charter school intended for the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood concern us.

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