We hope you and your family are well. Yes, this newsletter has a lot of content, including many articles. If you read and scroll you'll find many things of value. You can find the RYH COVID-19 resource page here- we try to update this daily. You can read more about what we are doing during this time here. Thanks for reading. Here are the ways to stay in touch with us. Stay well, friends.

~ RYH Staff & Board

Yeah, newsletter is long again, folks, but well worth it… Since last week’s RYH newsletter (sent Friday morning), COVID-19 or coronavirus has taken over the news. Note: this newsletter was completed at 11PM 3/11 and scheduled to send at 6AM 3/12. Below are some links to find updates, information on the virus, and the latest news on COVID-19 in our schools. 

UPDATE: On March 5, around 1:45PM, CPS announced that they are extending the LSC nomination deadline to Friday, March 13, 3PM. Everything you need to to apply for your school's LSC can be found at this CPS LSC Elections webpage.

LSC nominations are officially closed! We have created a LSC webpage where folks can learn about LSC 101, LSC Campaign Basics, LSC Voting and Effective LSC Practices. Please take our LSC survey, which will help us continue to grow our resources and LSC support!

The CPS LSC Elections webpage has a timeline of what to expect between now and LSC elections which are Wed, April 22 (elementary schools) & Th, April 23 (high schools).

First day of school is Sept 8, 2020. Last day of school is June 22, 2021. Chalkbeat Chicago: Chicago releases 2020-21 school calendar, says first day of school will be Sept. 8 and the Sun-Times: CPS releases calendar for 2020-21 school year have it covered. 

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. 

New! Whole Child Committee meets Monday. SQRP is the focus.

The first meeting of the CPS Board Of Ed Whole Child Committee will be held on Mon, Jan 27, 5:30-7:30pm, at Englewood STEM HS. You can register or sign up to receive updates here. Here is the letter that came from board member Rome: English; Spanish. And from an email:

The focus on our first meeting will be on SQRP [School Quality Rating Policy] as the CPS seeks to engage community members to create a policy that is more responsive to stakeholders.

Recommended SQRP reading before attending the Whole Child Committee meeting:

Chalkbeat Chicago June 26, 2019: Chicago school board approves new school ratings scale despite complaints and confusion and July 9, 2019 Chicago is changing its elementary school ratings. Here’s why educators are watching closely.

CPS SQRP web page | RYH resources from What Makes a School Great? Feb 12, 2018, including South Side Weekly coverage: Beyond the Levels

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.

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

Revised CPS calendar is here. 

We attended and spoke at the June 26, 2019 monthly meeting of the CPS Board of Education- the first one of the Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed BOE. Find the new appointed BOE members plus their bios here. 

Our prepared statements are below. You can watch video of our speakers here. You can find our live tweets from the meeting here. Follow #cpsboard as well. 

Here is the document we submitted about the CPS School Quality Rating Policy(SQRP) written by Cassie Creswell of Raise Your Hand Action.

The window for the IL Assessment of Readiness (IAR) opens Monday, March 11. Use this weekend to review our 2019 Toolkit for Standardized Testing and Opt Out to learn more about this “new” assessment and how you can #ChooseToRefuse #ZombiePARCC! 🧟 The three main resources are now translated into Spanish: Q & A, Notification Letter of Refusal (scroll to p. 2), and Refusal Cards- all three can be found in the Toolkit.