Thank you so much to our Raise A Glass 2020 sponsors for making our work possible!!!

Missed our opening event? You can watch it here.

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! 

As part of our annual fundraiser, Raise Your Hand is curating a virtual art show and auction asking artists to creatively reimagine education. We want to take this moment to reframe the dynamic and dream about the education we want for the future. Proceeds from art sales will support the advocacy work of RYH!

We are 20 days away from Raise a Glass! Thank you to everyone who has bought a ticket, become a sponsor, bought an advertisement or given an in kind donation for our auction- over half of our support comes from donors like yourselves. As we continue our work on remote learning, school funding, local school councils, and special education, we cannot do it without your support! We are 35% of the way towards our goal. We are shipping out our swag so this week, can you support Raise Your Hand by buying a ticket? Thank you for supporting our work!

Our statements from today's meeting are below. The meeting will be live streamed on the CPS YouTube Channel starting at 10:30AM. Sometimes they are a few minutes late so keep refreshing the page until the live feed shows up. You can follow us on Twitter for some live tweeting: @ILRaiseYourHand. For more live tweets, please follow the #ChiDocumenter assigned to the meeting: @_KellyGarcia_. Press coverage is far below. 

When school facilities were shut down and the IL Stay At Home Order was enacted, RYH mobilized to bring parents together, virtually, for discussions, problem solving, and action. One way we did this was to host a weekly LSC-Community Solidarity Call via Zoom from March 26 - June 18, 2020. Below you will find some videos & notes from the calls. In addition, these calls guided the RYH Remote Learning Survey (results linked below) & a CPS Stakeholder Letter (linked below with a summary of results.) We've also included some CPS communications to LSCs during this time. COVID-19 keeps us physically distanced but we are so grateful to those of you who virtually connected with us & one another to push for solutions while navigating uncharted waters.

Actions & Results

CPS Stakeholder Letter, May 20, 2020

CPS Official Response, May 26, 2020

Results: The Office of Local School Council Relations (OLSCR) hosted LSC Bi-weekly Chats with OLSCR Assistant Director Myra Winding starting July 9. The last Bi-weekly Chat was held on Sept 3. On Sept 16 we received an email stating that these Chats will now take place monthly on the first Thursday of every month beginning October 1st at 4:00 pm. Dr. Willy Montes De Oca will continue to host his LSC Monthly Chair Meetings.

Please see far below for some Bi-weekly Chat presentations from the Summer.

RYH Progress Report Survey, May 2020

Results: Please see the Parent Survey Results on Remote Learning published here. 

LSC Resource-Share on CPS-CPD School Resource Officers, June 2020

Results: Reimagining Public Safety in Schools webinar and extra resources. | Please see this webpage (coming soon) for more results.

Highlights from a few of the Solidarity Calls

CPS Responses to LSC-Community Questions May 7, 2020

Budget Awareness Training, RYH LSC-Community Solidarity Call May 13, 2020 (video)

Office of Local School Council Relations Responses from 5/21 meeting

Notes from LSC-Community Solidarity Calls with highlights of call in parentheses

RYH Notes #1: LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 3/26

RYH Notes #2: LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 4/2 (CPS OLSCR Listening Session, 41 questions asked)

RYH Notes #3: LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 4/9 (CPS Chief Equity Officer Listening Session)

RYH Notes #4: LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 4/16 (Discussion on what's happening at schools and with families; Actions begin to be formulated)

RYH Notes #5, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 4/23 (Director & Co Director of OSLCR: Briefing, Q & A; Draft of Stakeholder Letter shared; CIWP Awareness Training)

RYH Notes #6, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 4/30 (LSC-Community Testimonies with CPS Board of Education & CPS personnel; reponses; RL Survey & Sign On Letter shared)

RYH Notes #7, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 5/7 (LSC-Community Listening Session with CPS FACE, OLSCR, Board of Ed Member; responses

RYH Notes #8, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 5/13 (Budget Awareness Training)

RYH Notes #9, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 5/21 (Testimonies; OLSCR Director & Co Director Briefing & Responses; students join re: RL grading policy concerns; PAC funds)

RYH Notes #10, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 5/28 (Sign On Letter & CPS Response discussed)

RYH Notes #11, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 6/4 (Racial Equity, Social Justice, Restorative Practices, Initial discussion of LSC role in upcoming SRO votes)

RYH Notes #12, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 6/11 (Racial Equity, Social Justice, Restorative Practices)

RYH Notes #13, LSC-Community Solidarity Call Agenda 6/18 (CPS District Brief and Q & A: LSC Elections moved to Nov 2020; as result of CPS Stakeholder Letter, OLSCR Co Director will host BiWeekly LSC Chats; Draft of RYH RL Survey results shared)

CPS Documents, Emails, & Presentations

Toolkit for LSCs During COVID19 Closures (Google Drive Folder)

• General LSC Guidance Email- March 17
• Virtual Guidance Email- March 31
• Hot Topics FAQ

LSC Elections Communications

• Email sent May 28
• Email sent Aug 28

BiWeekly LSC Chats

• Slides from Session II- July 23, 2020: LSC Elections, Filling LSC Vacancies, LSC Virtual Meeting Guidance, SRO Updates
• Slides from Session IV- August 20, 2020: Meeting slides (LSC Elections, LSC FOIA Guidance) & Chicago Connected slides 

Chicago Connected (One Month Update) presentation slides, Sept 22, Local School Council Advisory Board (LSCAB)

Join us in toasting parents & caregivers at our annual event, Raise a Glass! We will be mailing out our RYH swag next week so get your tickets today!

Welcome. Our work around Special Education has spiked since the Covid-19 shutdown and subsequent remote learning! For that reason and more, we are creating this Special Ed Parent Resource Page for Remote Learning (which is a work in progress) where you can find the latest additions to our RYH-developed Special Education parent supports, as well as links to other resources we have collected for Remote Learning.