Chicago school closings: Students, parents, and teachers reacted to Chicago closing down a number of its schools.
Chicago students, parents, and teachers on Thursday panned the city’s move to close down some of its schools.
By the end of the day, Chicago school officials will announce which of the 129 schools will be shut down. School officials began the process of notifying teachers and staff members of the schools on Thursday morning, reported The Associated Press.
News of which schools will be shut down began seeping out to parents and students on Thursday.
The Raise Your Hand Coalition said in a statement that it is “deeply disappointed” with the “current plan to close 52 additional schools after over a decade of other closings,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“The decision to close schools under the auspices of underutilization and budget savings lies in sharp contrast to the simultaneous plans to spend millions of dollars opening new schools in the same neighborhoods. We believe that this decision is short-sighted,” it added.
Parent Natasha Norment, 28, told the Chicago Tribune she is “very disappointed” that her daughter’s elementary school is being closed down.
“It seems that they’re targeting the African-American schools,” Norment said. “The majority of these schools are in black communities. I feel it’s not right.”
Clarice Berry, head of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, told the paper: “I’m angry. I’m upset. I’m shaking to the core. I didn’t think they’d actually go through with this, the largest number of closings ever. There’s been no real planning.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said Chicago Public Schools needs to close down schools to help with a $1 billion budget shortfall. They have argued that the school system has 500,000 seats for 403,000 students in the district, and said that closing some of them down will allow students in low-performing schools go to better ones, according to AP.
“For too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed in the classroom because they are in underutilized, under resourced schools,” Byrd-Bennett said in a statement on Wednesday.
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