We are less than 1 week away from #RYHRaiseAGlass2020! We are slightly over 50% of our fundraising goal- can you support Raise Your Hand by buying a ticket? We are actively sending RYH swag! 

Welcome back! 2020 will be a year full of parent advocacy! 

At the December 2019 monthly meeting of the CPS Board of Education, five students from Kellogg Elementary spoke about the need for investment in their school's facilities. You can read their statements at the links below. You can watch them speak one after another here, starting at 1:05:00. Kudos to these students for their advocacy! #StudentVoice!

By law, CPS must announce any school actions for the following school year by December 1. On November 27, CPS announced the 2020 school actions. One district run school, Hope HS, will close at the end of this school year. Hope HS is one of the high schools in Englewood that CPS is phasing out (Robeson HS closed in June 2018; TEAM Englewood closed in June 2019; Harper HS is phasing out with a scheduled closure date of June 2021.) CPS opened one new high school, Englewood STEM HS, in September 2019. 

RYH Executive Director, Jianan Shi, shares his reflection below on this news in context of the public education landscape in Chicago. You can find a list of further reading at the very bottom of this post.

RYH spoke at and live tweeted the November 20, 2019 monthly meeting of the mayor appointed CPS Board of Education meeting. Our statement is below. You can also find the statement from Maguerite Baran, parent rep on the Hitch ES LSC as well as elected rep for the Northwest Region for the Local School Council Advisory Board, or LSCAB, here. You can find video of the full meeting here on the CPS YouTube channel where the meeting is now live streamed. The strike make up days were approved. Find the revised CPS calendar here.

Please note that December's meeting of the CPS BOE has been changed to Wed, Dec 11, 5pm, Curie High School, 4959 S. Archer. On this same day, there will be a BOE Workforce Committee hearing on teacher recruitment and development and on how to hire 3,000 teachers of color. Board member Todd-Breland said it will be an informational meeting. Keep your eye on the CPS Board of Ed website for details.

ACTION ALERT: At the CPS Board of Ed website, you can find links to provide feedback on upcoming CPS policy and rule changes (direct link) and to provide feedback on the CPS School Quality Rating Policy (SQRP) (direct link).  

This new, Lightfoot appointed CPS Board of Education is implementing all sorts of changes to bring greater transparency! We attended and spoke at the July 24, 2019 meeting. You can see our prepared statements below. Our thread of live tweets is here. You can find press coverage of the meeting far below.

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!