We would be honored if you would join us and Raise a Glass for RYH on Tuesday, October 2, 5:30-8:30 in the “basement” of Lagunitas Brewery, 2607 W. 17th St.

Buy tickets here. Buy an ad in the program book here. You can still join the host committee here.

Our Facebook event page is here: please share on your Facebook page and invite your friends! We’ll see you there!

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

Wednesday, October 25, was all about special education advocacy and action in Chicago!

Parents and elected officials joined together for a press conference before the unelected Board of Education meeting. Then, parents attended the BOE meeting and several spoke. A link to the video of the press conference is below as well as text of the BOE statements.

On Monday October 17, WBEZ published an explosive report about CPS' secret plan designed by politically-connected consultant firms to systematically reduce and restrict provision of federally-mandated special education services. You can find a petition demanding the removal of CEO Forrest Claypool and release of funds to cover special education cuts to sign here written in response to WBEZ's story.

Dear Mayor Emanuel,

We are CPS parents and concerned citizens who are deeply outraged at the WBEZ report that came out this week, WBEZ Investigation: CPS Secretly Overhauled Special Education At Students’ Expense, detailing the implementation of a secret special education manual designed by contractors with no education experience who were paid $15M to create barriers to access to services for special education students.

Many parents have brought these concerns listed in the report to the Chicago Board of Education and have been dismissed by CEO Forrest Claypool and called “factually inaccurate” by Board of Education President Frank Clark.  

Public comment statements from Raise Your Hand at the unelected Board of Education meeting on July 26, 2017.

We have many questions about how the proposed cuts were determined, and why schools receiving Title 1 and SGSA funds received disproportionately higher cuts. While we agree strongly that the state must do a better job of funding education equitably, and should provide pension parity, CPS has to improve their practices of funding schools equitably within the district and creating policies that impact schools fairly.

On Wednesday, October 13, 2015, right before former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett's arraignment, community organizations and elected officials came together for a press conference demanding an elected representative school board in Chicago.

Cassie Creswell, Raise Your Hand Board Member, spoke about the many questionable contracts that our current unelected BOE has approved. Her press conference statement is below. Attached above is a list of some of these contracts.

Raise Your Hand maintains that current per pupil funding levels are inadequate to provide a high-quality, well-rounded school day in an equitable manner across the city of Chicago. We are providing suggestions for the Board of Education to help put dollars back into the classroom where they are most needed. These suggestions combine a mix of cuts to Central Office and citywide offices and revenue suggestions for the local and state level.  View the Memo

24 June 2015 - Testimony from Wendy Katten

Good evening. Regarding the horrible CPS fiscal situation we are in, RYH created a document with a list of multi-pronged solutions, as we know there is not one approach to fix this mess. The state, city and CPS all need to be part of the solution.