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Parents, teachers and school staff will be able to vote Wednesday at elementary schools and Thursday at high schools. In Austin, there will still be vacancies on 12 of the 17 LCSs, which will be filled before July 1 when all members begin serving.
The public is invited to testify April 11 at a public hearing, being held by Chicago Public Schools.
Randel Josserand, chief of schools for Chicago Public Schools in the Austin and Belmont-Craigin neighborhoods, talked Sunday of his decades-long respect for Linda Brown of the Brown v. Board of Education case and his belief that educational equity is the centerpiece of the civil rights movement today.
Randel Josserand, the chief of schools in the Austin and Belmont Cragin neighborhoods, will talk at 10 a.m. Jan. 14, followed at 11 a.m. by Brenetta Howell Barrett, who will discuss the lessons she learned from the civil rights movement.
The Chicago Board of Education voted this week to renew Plato Learning Academy’s contract for two years, giving the Austin school more time to improve its rating. Specific conditions for the contract renewal will be finalized with Plato’s operator early next year, officials say.
The Chicago Board of Education is expected in early December to take action to shutter Plato Learning Academy, a K-8 contract school that has two campuses in Austin, for failing to meet the district’s academic standards. Parents, students and community members plan to speak at the Dec. 6th board meeting in hopes of saving the school.
The idea of opening a new Austin high school was met with mixed reviews at a meeting earlier this month; parents and other West Side residents discussed ways to ensure the schools that are losing students remain open.
The focus should be on showing West Side residents that students can receive an equitable and well-resourced education at Austin’s existing high schools, writes resident Dwayne Truss.
That’s good news, though some advocates say West Side students continue to suffer from too little funding over the years.
Michele Clark Academic Magnet Prep High School will receive the grant over three years from SocialWorks, Chance the Rapper’s education non-profit.