This Week in Ed 11.11.20: 🗳️ LSC Elections Next Week | Remote Learning Continues | IL School-Level COVID-19 Data
It has been a challenge trying to figure out the 2020 LSC Elections. We have some info & links below. We will also discuss this at our 2020 Local School Council Candidate Meet & Greet.
Join us! Sat, Nov 14 | 10:30AM - Noon | Register here
Read moreThis Week in Ed 11.5.20: LSC Elections Update | CPS 2nd Quarter Starts Monday
We're keeping it quick with a few things we think you need to know today. Thanks for reading!
Read moreRYH Statement: Friday Night's Protest
July 20th, 2020
Raise Your Hand Statement Regarding Friday Night’s Protest
For Immediate Release
Read moreRYH Statement at the Dec 2019 CPS Board of Ed Meeting
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.
Read moreThis Week in Ed 12.5.19: 😍 THANK YOU! Plus, Chicago education news!
Thank you for your #GivingTuesday support and closing out a strong 2019 with us! Thank you for considering Raise Your Hand in your end of year giving if you have not yet donated. We are looking to bring on more staff in early 2020 to address significant LSC parent rep shortages. If we can raise $2,000 more by the end of the year, we would be able to start right in January. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 😍
Read moreCPS School Actions 2020 - RYH Reflections
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.
Read moreThis Week in Ed 11.21.19: Strike make up days + CTU/SEIU contracts approved by CPS Board of Ed
Teachers voted to ratify the contract last week which officially ended the strike. The CPS Board of Ed approved the strike make up days and the CTU and SEIU contracts yesterday at their monthly meeting.
Some more press coverage on the strike & contracts below:
WBEZ: Teachers Strike Remakes 25 Years Of Bargaining in Chicago
Chalkbeat Chicago: Budgets, school ratings, charter schools: Side agreements to Chicago teachers contract reach for big changes
Read moreResources from Schools as Anchors: Communities Planning for Their Schools
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!
Read moreThis Week in Ed 5.23.19: Rahm’s gone. Lightfoot’s in. RYH persists!
It was a huge relief to hear CPS Board of Education president Frank Clark announce at Wednesday’s meeting that it was his and the entire Rahm appointed board’s last meeting. There will be a whole new unelected CPS BOE seated at the June meeting!
Chalkbeat Chicago: ‘It’s our last meeting’: New mayor Lori Lightfoot moves to disband Chicago’s school board, setting up major shift
Sun-Times: All 7 members of the Chicago Board of Education step down
And, in case you are wondering about the CEO position...
Chalkbeat Chicago: Lori Lightfoot makes it official: She’s keeping Janice Jackson as Chicago schools chief
Read moreYes to Ferris Wheels, No to School Social Workers: The Legacy of Rahm Emanuel
We were surprised that back in February no media picked up this op-ed from former CPS parent Lori Barrett. Awash in Rahm legacy articles we provide this parent perspective on our former mayor.
Read more