• School Improvement Plans. The battle lines right now are over using discretionary funds to minimize loss of teachers and unmanageable increase in class size due to CPS budget cuts.
  
• Probation: Kozminski, Reavis, and Shoesmith were placed on probation, and Canter Middle School may be. This is very controversial because meaning and consequences of probation have been changed by CPS, essentially saying the school and its students are not moving ahead enough when comparing the average of various standardized test scores over the past two years with the average of the two previous years. Only a few measures in some of these schools shows a clear decline trends. "Stalled" or "Insufficient Progress" might be a better term for what has happened. Probation can also occur if a school has less than 95% attendance and non-tardy record. These schools are all above 94%. Still, the school staffs and LSCs are taking the matter seriously and putting improvement programs into effect, involving parents and impressing on parents and students the importance especially of being at school on time and every day possible-- studies have tied attendance to school performance and graduation. Perhaps more serious are 1) re-enforcement of a perception and possible reality that Hyde Park has two sets of public schools-- elite and performing well-- or not, which 2) could affect whether parents choose to enroll their students in the probation schools, creating a downward spiral.
  
• Laboratory School expansion. This is almost certain to take place both at its present campus and the Drs Hospital site (for pre-2nd grade). Lab School/Drs Hospital.
  
• Problems with student drop off and pickup at nearly every school, and auto traffic safety and speeding-both schools on heavily trafficked streets and those on side streets.
  
• Poor physical condition and upkeep of many schools and for some serious lack of ADA compliance--Bret Harte on the latter especially was in the news including loud complaint from Ald. Hairston. Ray complained strongly in recent years about poor plant. Many schools have trouble with timely snow clearance. Canter and Kenwood received funding for major
  improvements (the former with TIF help), both getting press coverage.
  
• State and local policy. Laws get passed and rules put in place repeatedly that those on the ground say disrupt and discourage rather than help. Examples: probation, tying test scores to teacher evaluation and school closures. This includes skewing rules to promote the private education business.
  
• Cutbacks in staffing and resources for the public schools; cutting art, music; and inability of some schools to stay open to take advantage of partnering for programs.
  
• Uneven afterschool and school partner programs. What are the impediments? Outside the school, what are the barriers to child and participation in programs and activities, and are there sufficient opportunities for community service credits?
  A frequent complaint is sparcity of affordable sports, fitness and recreation space for youth and insufficiency of the Neighborhood Club to serve as such.
  
• Alleged weak parental involvement. Many schools have strong involvement or programs to entice it. Studies have certainly shown it is critical. The wide perception that most of our schools have a non locally resident student body (so parents supposedly are hard to reach and get to participate) is only partly true. Perhaps there should be a study in our schools to see what's the level of parental involvement and of impediments to more involvement and what might work to break down the impediments.
  
• Allegations that CPS changes programs, strategies, and tests too often with neither teachers nor parents fully understanding changes despite training and development, that there is too much teaching to tests and not enough consistency in grading or grading criteria. Many also allege too much decentralization lack of inter department coordination within schools--and not enough joint action and sharing of ideas between schools.
  
• Poor performance and "school culture" in several schools outside the neighborhood proper, especially high schools, and school violence especially as students are moved from one closed school to another, not much better school.
  
• And a perception that the schools in Hyde Park are generally poor and not making progress-- this comes up in broad generalizations at every neighborhood future forum, where it is countered with a litany of what's right (including Freshman On-Track and other successes at Kenwood) and how many students excel, earn scholarships and get into college. Still, those knowledgeable say that several schools had better get their scores up fast.
  
• University of Chicago approach. It does much in and for the schools. But there is some alarm that the University's emphasis on: a major expansion it its elite Laboratory Schools (for 60 years a source of concern in the community); shifting resources to Woodlawn as with the Promise Zone; surrounding the neighborhood with a charter school system (although these do not draw from Hyde Park). Do these together mean weakening of Hyde Park Schools?
  
• Perceptions that many schools are aloof from their neighbors and don't serve as centers and assets in the neighborhood and not doing outreach and informing the public.
  
• Perception that there is a lot of violence, sometimes done by students outside the school, in the neighborhood, and problems of rivalries between schools. This seems to have died down since an upsurge and public uproar in 2005, but incidents continue to occur, reinforcing hostility to schools by some residents. Fortunately, Hyde Park-Kenwood have not had the problems with gun violence and the need to provide students with escorts and safe-routes-to-school-- but Woodlawn and other nearby areas do, and sometimes this spills over into the crimes in South Campus and in Hyde Park.
  
• Ongoing disagreement over whether charter schools as a whole have higher levels of success and are either skimming the cream of staff and students while others poorly run or just hire newly minted teachers and drive them into the ground.
  
• Finally, and possibly most serious, perception that Hyde Parkers (an aging community) and maybe its stakeholding organizations, do not engage with or place much priority their schools. If so, why? Conversely, educators sometimes express disappointment that businesses don't provide more jobs and opportunities for high school teens (there are many legal barriers to such hiring).

Herald, others call for schools help, improvements after talk by Jacqueline Edelberg (Nettelhorst turnaround book How to Walk to Schools)

THE RESULT WAS A MEETING NOV. 7- FORMING A HYDE PARK SCHOOLS COALITION AND CONVERATION.
hydeparkschools@googlegoups.com, join at hydeparkschools@gmail.com. More about in School News. View raw ideas.

(The talk was at a Southside Parents Network event at Shoesmith. Ms. Edelberg talked last February at the HPKCC Schools Awards Dinner. Her model was drawn partially from her experiences with Ray School and applied to Nettelhorst on the North Side. After the October talk, the Herald took it upon itself to invite everyone and organizations to a convocation at the Neighborhood Club November 7, 3 pm. Here is the Herald's follow up October 27. For wish lists sent by schools, see News of Schools.)

"Rallying for schools a job for everyone.
Our announcement last week of a forum to discuss the state of our public schools -- an our public elementary schools in particular -- sparked a number of calls to the Herald offices expressing support for the idea. Our assertion that the community should step up in our efforts to support public education in Hyde Park seems to have resonated with parents, local education advocates and other members of the community. We expected no less from a community that so values its cohesiveness.

On the other hand, Hyde Park being Hyde Park, we were not surprised to hear some grumblings. Why now? Why haven't community meetings been held in preparation for the event? Has this been cleared with the various organizations in the community that work with the public schools?

We don't want to overstate the significance of these grumblings; we do not want to ignore any community members who feel they have a stake in the schools already. The fact is that this is part of a conversation that has been going on at least since our parents, teachers and administrators marched last spring in protest of proposed drastic expansions of class size and budget cuts at schools. Even though -- and in a sense, precisely because -- those cuts proved to be a political ploy [Herald interpretation], the buzz among parents and many community members has been around protecting our schools to the best of our ability from having such uncertainty arise in the future.

At the forum, to be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 7, at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, 5480 S. Kenwood ave., we will make concrete suggestions as to how the community might gird our public neighborhood schools. We will announce a preliminary list of those suggestions -- influenced, in part, by wish lists we are soliciting from local schools and publishing as space permits. (Last week, we published a list from Shoesmith; this wee, Bret harte has submitted a list to be found on page 8. E-mail g.piemo@hpherald.com or d.phillips@hpherald.com to have your school's wish list published next week; deadline is this Friday, noon.) We are also seeking suggestions from the community -- write in and have your say. All suggestions will be published here in advance of the forum. Our suggestions will also be the outgrowth of conversations we are having throughout the community regarding ideas to strengthen our schools.

Meanwhile, the momentum for the event continues to build. The South Side education advocacy group Southsiders United [Organized?] fo Unity and Liberation stopped by the Herald offices last week to discuss involvement in the forum, and the event is officially on the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club's Facebook page. As mentioned last week on this page, the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference's Schools Committee is interested in participating in the event and the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce has expressed support as well. We encourage additional groups and individuals to sign on.

Given the vast potential resources our community has if we come together as local store owners, other professionals with areas of expertise, community organizers, concerned citizens, parents, teachers, members of community institutions an really all Hyde Parkers with our diverse array of backgrounds and abilities, our public schools -- all of our public schools -- should not want for local support as they struggle to provide the best possible education for our children.

Let's get together Nov. 7 and hash our how we translate this abstraction into action.

________________________

Crisis meetings at Kozminski over leadership change, scores drop

According to the Herald, Kozminski LSC meets this Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011. But the time was not given. The school number is 773 535-0980.

The LSC had a meeting and CPS presentation aka part shouting match, according to the Herald, last Thursday January 6. Leonard Moore (a 30+ year principal and chief area officer who is now an urban education consultant at DePaul) is ACTING principal and Bordelon is "indefinitely removed" do to an ongoing investigation into (Herald quoting Monique Bond) "based on allegations of improper oversight and reporting mechanisms of corporal punishment." The latter is related tot he April 2009 removal of a security guard and music teacher for allegedly beating students-- all still under investigation.

CPS sent a minimalist letter to parents, saying the principal was replace because of personnel issues, which certainly got parents' attention--they are naturally concerned about a mid-semester change just a few weeks before ISAT testing.

The Thursday meeting had a double agenda-- Ms. Coates made a presentation to parents on Kozminski's declining scores and probation, a presentation she said Bordelon had prevented her from making. The other agenda was the leadership change, but the two got mixed together, and went together in the change decision Coates said. Lots of shouting ensued, including by the Ms. Chantelle Allen, LSC vice chair who said at parents that their focus should be on preparing students, not on change in leadership-- the LSC is supporting CPS because that's the leadership is what's in place.
Mr. Moore said that only a week convinced him that the school needs lot of changes, well beyond scores having gone down from 65% meeting standards to 59%. Others defended the school as "not a disaster school."

CPS breakfast rules one of the touch points of parent concerns. See separately concerns raised in "Race to Nowhere" screening and discussion.

Locals balk at CPS food rules [but not all- suitability of BIC varies school to school. Main concerns are kids getting double breakfast and or picking among foods-- and in some cases this replaces a hot breakfast with a cold one--, loss of classroom teaching time, difficulty of preparing and delivering to discrete classroom esp. in schools without elevators but multiple floor, mess in the classroom, childhood allergies. It also raises structural issues about the large district and its funding when CPS sets policy based on maximizing federal subsidies and on convenience of centralized one-size-fits-all. The decision was partly made because for 3 years CPS was getting money for breakfasts it didn't deliver and was faulted by the feds for it.

By Daschell M. Phillips. the Breakfast in the Classroom program, which was once being offered as an option [but generally before classes] for Chicago Public Schools with a high number of students from low-income families, is now mandatory for all schools. Some local parents have concerns about its enforcement. On the basis of the nutritional and psychological benefits of breakfast improving intellectual, emotional, social and physical development while in school, in January CPS approved the mandate for Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) for all schools.

Parents from schools across the city are speaking out about their concerns. Schools areas with a low number of children who receive free or reduced lunch where the breakfast seems wasteful; nutrition and allergy concerns adn cutting into teaching time in a school district with the shortest school days in the nation are all concerns that have been raised by parents.

Parents suspect that CPS has made the program mandatory because it receives federal money to cover the cost of th program and not for the nutritional concerns of children from low-income families. Last year, CPOS got $33.6 million from teh U/S. Department of Agriculture but only had to spend $23.7 on the progam. This left $9.8 million in additional revenue, according to CPS reports. With the program now being enforced for all schools, those revenue figures are expected to double.

Eva Neilson, parent and member of teh Shoesmith Elementary local school council, said last summer Shoesmith was part of th BIC pilot program, and the school decided it wasn't a right fit. "We already had a hot breakfast program that 80 percent of our students were participating in," Neilson said "between the two options, we decided we liked our hot breakfast program best but now [BIC] is a district-wide mandate.

The loss of instruction time, the use of training time that wil be required from teachers, classroom cleanliness and the possible loss of lunchroom staff are all concerns of Shoesmith, according to Neilson. "[There are] different needs for each school, and the program should have remained optional," she said.

Karen Macklin, LSC chairwoman at Ray Elementary School, said although CPS hasn't presented th program to Ray yet, she can see the benefits and challenges of the BIC mandate. "It could potentially be a good fit because eating at school sometimes is the only food students get," said Macklin, who said a significant amount of students who are on free and reduced-lunch come to school early for breakfast. "Having the food in the classroom may also take the pressure off the teacher having to take kids back and forth to the lunchroom." Macklin said she's not advocating that the program would be a perfect fit for all schools, "but if the principal brings it to us, we will find a way to make it work." "Although it's a district-wide mandate, I'm sure there would be a way to tweak it to fit each school," Macklin said.

Cynthia Brown, LSC chairwoman at Kozminski, said she also sees the pros and cons of the BIC program. "It's not so great that it takes away from learning time but it's a good thing the kids eat in smaller groups so that they can be monitored, Brown said. "Parents think their kids are eating but they are outside playing."

The BIC program is already offered in 199 district schools and will be rolled-out to an additional. 299 elementary schools this month.

Herald Editorial April 6, 2011. What's behind CPS's new breakfast program? Children in Chicago Public Schools are learning a life lesson this semester that many of us discovered a little later in our lives: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Or breakfast as teh case m ay be.

A mandatory breakfast program has been introduced to some Hyde Park public schools as part of a new policy that is intended to eventually cover the entire school district. About 40 percent of schools are covered now.., and parent's concerns about such issues as wasted resource, lost teaching time and potential dangers to students with allergies seem unable to slow this latest CPS juggernaut.

Sure, it's a "free" breakfast (assuming we n o longer take account of where our tax money is spent), but are kinder angels inspiring COPS bureaucrats to suddenly ensure that public school children are well fed? In a school system that won't allow kids to eat organic veggies that grow in school gardens because of deals cut with cafeteria food providers, we are more inclined to see dollar signs as a motivating factor at CPS than nutrition.

CPS is getting millions from the federal government to implement this program, which eats into teaching time-- about 45 hours a hear, according to one estimate. Meanwhile, we are being told by parents that a lot of these breakfasts are left uneaten. Given COS' recent track record of putting the bottom line ahead of children's education (remember those inflated classroom sized threatened last year?), we believe that parents' concerns should be addressed before this plan goes any further.

So far, CPS has said nothing substantial in response to parents' criticisms, and we are told that the program is intended to become a mandate in every single public school. Parents need to push back against this apparent indifference. In this period of transition, as one mayor exits and another takes the stage, now is th e time to set the tone for how far CPS can go in implementing policy without parent input and without a clear internal decision-making process. Grabbing at any bucket of federal dollars that comes along will not correct the wayward course our public schools seem stuck on.

It nutrition is a concern, ask parents, teachers, and -- hey, here's an idea-- the children what healthy foods they want and how they should get them. Hastily prepared, mass-produced, mandated breakfast will not go very far in improving educational outcomes and is just another slap in the face to beleaguered parents of students at our public schools.