Loading…

Loading…

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Teachers, now more than ever, we parents appreciate all that you do! We see you teachers- your hard work and dedication PLUS all the extras you are doing right now to ensure your students and their families are healthy, safe, engaged, and connected to your classroom and school community. Thank you. You make a difference every day. 🍎

Attention current CPS parents! How is remote learning going? Take 5 minutes to do 2 quick tasks to help us build public accountability and transparency for how the district is doing during remote learning. We believe that parents and the community should be informed and involved during the pandemic, don’t you? The two tasks are:

CPS now live streams monthly Board of Ed meetings on the CPS YouTube channel. This meeting's video is here. You can read our live tweets from the meeting here. Our prepared statement and press leading up to the meeting and from the meeting is below- there's quite a lot of press. 

How are we supposed to trust our city government when the Lincoln Yards TIF report that was given to Alderfolks was authored by a Lincoln Yards lobbyist? What does it say about our priorities when the city is able to sweep this massive conflict of interest under the rug to give Sterling Bay $1.3 billion (almost $500 million less than what is being proposed for the Invest South West initiative)? Our schools are underfunded by $1.9B.

Chicago Tribune: Aldermen relied on a study to approve $1.3 billion for Sterling Bay’s Lincoln Yards. Turns out that Sterling Bay hired the consultant who wrote it.

We would love to see what the Lightfoot Administration has to say as they clearly believed that this conflict of interest should not exist (they quietly changed the policy in the summer; now City Hall can hire TIF consultants who will report to the city.) 

The Sun-Times reported this weekend that the CPS Inspector General (IG), Nicholas Schuler, was “under investigation” due to “accusations he allegedly berated employees.” On Monday, he abruptly quit. On Tuesday, Mayor Lightfoot said she accepted the IG’s resignation because “we need to go in a different direction.” Yesterday, there were new stories with Schuler responding to the situation. This is definitely a story to watch. 

WTTW: Outgoing CPS Watchdog Admits Some Complaints Against Him Were ‘Justified’

Sun-Times: CPS watchdog admits he drove employees ‘excessively hard,’ urges mayor to appoint another ‘outspoken IG’

Mayor Lightfoot and CPS announced yesterday that they will “...begin a community process to identify potential opportunities to further strengthen school funding.” They created a School Funding Working Group and will be convening public meetings in January and February 2020 so you can offer your thoughts and ideas on the way CPS funds its schools. Check out these articles from Chalkbeat Chicago to learn more:

Announcement, Working Group members, and public meeting schedule: Here’s who will be leading Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s charge to reexamine Chicago school budgeting

Background piece on the issue: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot promised to spend more money on students in need. Could change be imminent? 

And definitely related to Student Based Budgeting… class size: As Chicago’s class size crackdown begins, schools that are ‘overenrolled by choice’ could face admissions changes

Below is RYH's prepared statement. You can find our live tweets here. CPS now live streams monthly Board of Education meetings on their YouTube channel. You can find video of the fill meeting here, RYH speaks at 57:40. We've posted video of our statement on our YouTube channel here. Press coverage of the meeting is below.