AustinTalks (http://austintalks.org/tag/chicago-public-schools/)
There are nearly 700 open seats on 267 local school councils across the city; five schools in Austin are still looking for members to serve. See the list AustinTalks has compiled of members currently serving on LSCs in Austin.
At a community meeting hosted last weekend by state Rep. La Shawn Ford, community members discussed concerns they have about e-learning and the opioid crisis, which is hitting the West Side even harder this year than in 2019.
Elementary school LSC elections are Nov. 18, and high school LSC elections are Nov. 19. In-person polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Local school councils — made up of parents, students and community members that can make school budget and principal hiring decisions — were once seen as a bastion of school-level democracy, according to Block Club Chicago.
VOYCE – a youth organizing collaborative led by students of color from six community groups – says the school resource officer (SRO) program criminalizes Black students. Instead, the youth want CPS to invest in a trauma-informed public health approach to safety. The board of education is expected to vote Aug. 26th on the issue.
James Nnabuihe graduated as valedictorian last month from Austin College & Career Academy. He will be the third sibling to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he plans to study math.
CPS will resume meal distribution Tuesday at more than 300 school sites – including about a dozen in Austin – after a temporary one-day suspension. No grab-and-go meal sites were open on Monday due to transportation and safety challenges that were anticipate for staff that hand out the meals. CTA buses and trains were shut down Sunday night and didn’t resume operating until Monday because of weekend looting across the city that followed peaceful protests over the police killing in Minnesota of George Floyd.
All but four Chicago Public Schools in Austin could see an increase in their budgets for the 20-21 school year. The Chicago Board of Education still needs to approved the school district’s $2.8 billion budget; that’s expected to happen sometime this summer.
Catalyst Circle Rock School teacher Nicholas Tomasso is one of 26 middle school teachers to be selected to participate in a national science teaching fellowship.
Five of the district’s Network 3 schools – including Brunson Elementary – will distribute food the week of April 6. Starting April 13, when e-learning resumes, free meals will be handed out at nearly 300 schools across the district, including 14 in Austin.
Half of Austin’s public schools are categorized as underutilized in a recently released report. Another report gave two of Austin’s 13 Austin elementary and high schools a higher rating than the year before, while four schools saw a drop in their ratings.