The unelected CPS Board of Education held their monthly meeting downtown during business hours on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. We live tweet these meetings (which are not broadcast live) and we try to consistently use the hashtag #cpsboard. If you search that hashtag you will see many tweets from this meeting and previous meetings.

Below are our 2 of the RYH statements from this meeting. You can also read a recap from Raise Your Hand Action's Sing-Along with the Elected School Board bill here. And you can read our BOE statement on CPS sex abuse here.

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...

Two Raise Your Hand board members spoke at the May 2018 unelected CPS Board of Education meeting. Their statements are below.

We live tweet every monthly CPS BOE meeting and use the hashtag #cpsboard. A tweet worth noting is this one: Watch the powerful performance of Lindblom HS's Varsity Singers. After the performance, their Choir Director delivered this joint letter to the unelected BOE on behalf of several CPS choir directors expressing concerns about the impact of expanded graduation requirements upon Choir programs and classes. It is worth a read.

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The state voted yesterday to appoint an independent monitor to oversee almost all aspects of CPS’ special education. Please read this entire email... We need you to Grow With Us for more wins in public education!

CPS held the first round of community meetings this week on their proposed school actions. We attended and live tweeted the following meetings: NTA, Hirsch HS colocation with a religious charter school, Ogden-Jenner merger (which was the one proposal guided and informed by the community), and Englewood HS closings (CPS plans to close the 4 neighborhood high schools in Englewood leaving a one year gap before the new high school is built which will start with only incoming freshman.)

We also created a Storify of some tweets from the two nights of community meetings. You can read our tweets from the meetings by scrolling through our Twitter page or by using these shortcuts:

• NTA meeting coverage starts with this tweet; search #wearenta.
• Ogden-Jenner meeting coverage is in this thread; search #OgdenJenner.
• Hirsch HS colocation meeting coverage is in this thread; search #HirschHuskyPride was used. (We’ve also submitted concerns about the charter school and spoke at the unelected BOE.)
• Englewood HS closing coverage starts with this tweet; #cpsboard and #Englewood were used.

RYH spoke at the NTA, Hirsch HS, and Englewood meetings. Below are two of those statements.

Find a full list of proposed school actions, transition plans, and details on the next round of community meeting at this webpage. Click on the "School Actions" tab.

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Other ways to stay in touch with us: 

Twitter... @CPSuccessCHI, @ILRaiseYourHand, @RYHAction, @MTAS_Chicago

Facebook... IL Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Hand Action, More Than A Score Chicago

Who are we? What do we do? What do we believe? What can you do to support us?

The below flyer is downloadable here. We are a 501c3 organization. Please donate to support our work here.

Thank you to our volunteer parents who planned our wonderful forum and who prepared these excellent resources, sample forms and advocacy tools! Thanks to all of you who came out to know your rights, get your resources, and share your stories. 

We will post the below resources and sample forms in our Special Education Toolkit for Parents which you can find here.

If you missed the forum, you can watch the video here.

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.