A Show of Support For Embattled Gunsaulus Academy Principal
Parents and staff at Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy praised and defended Principal Amy Kotz at last week’s Chicago Board of Education meeting. School representatives brought letters of support for Kotz, who’s been under fire for making changes at the school since taking over in 2008. They say some teachers are impeding Kotz’s attempts to improve the [...]
Student Asks You to Help Calculate Columbia’s Carbon Footprint
For Columbia College students, staff and faculty only… for now. Columbia College student, Ashley Badgley is a Senior Journalism major is asking for your help as she examines the campus’ carbon footprint. Her final independent project is focusing on how to make Columbia a more sustainable campus. In order to calculate the carbon footprint of [...]
Career Academy Bemoans Teacher Layoffs
Teachers at a South Side vocational school last week accused Chicago Public School administrators of creating chaos for students by shifting teachers around weeks into the school year and preventing students from taking courses in their majors. Carol Caref, a math teacher at the Chicago Vocational Career Academy on the city’s southeast side, told Chicago [...]
Fenger Seeks Mentors for Life Lessons
Joseph Walker does not want the death of his grandson, Derrion Albert, to be in vain. He made that clear last week to the Chicago Board of Education as he spoke about Derrion, a 16-year-old honor roll student fatally beaten Sept. 24 on his way home from Fenger Academy High School, 11220 S. Wallace St. [...]
Pilsen Parents Keep Pushing for School Improvements
Parents of Whittier Elementary School (1900 w. 23rd St, Chicago) students and members of the Pilsen Alliance thought it was strange when they saw school officials start to fix up the De La Cruz Academy public school, 2317 W. 23rd St., in Pilsen last spring, even after they’d been told it was going to be [...]
Teens Making News This Week with Words, Not Weapons
Teens are making news in ChicagoTalks, owing to a couple of journalism-related efforts that combine news know-how, education and the voice of teenagers about problems they face. At Marquette School, located at 6550 S. Richmond St. in Chicago, they are kicking off a new curriculum focused on news literacy. In the loop, Columbia College Chicago’s Links program [...]
YouTube – I Wonder What I Could Be
YouTube – I Wonder What I Could Be. Columbia students who need financial aid are getting squeeed because the Monetary Award Program was slashed. Students who got money for Fall semester tuition stand to lose their aid for Spring semester. A group of Columbia College Chicago students produced this video in about 24 hours to [...]
Money No Longer a Motivator for CPS Students
A controversial program that paid over $2 million to students for good grades has been quietly scrapped due to lack of funding, said Michael Scott, president of the Chicago Board of Education. “The goal was to add additional donors as the Green for Grade$ program progressed over the years,” said Scott. “Unfortunately, due to the recent state of the [...]
Northwest Side Students Affected By Lack of Busing
Five weeks into the school year there is still no sign of a yellow school bus for some students on the city’s Northwest Side attending the Coonley Regional Gifted Center, forcing many working parents to find another way of getting their kids to school. Coonley Regional Gifted Center is fighting back against the new busing [...]
Pasteur Elementary Parents Outraged at Overcrowding
Dozens of parents from Pasteur Elementary School in West Lawn voiced their outrage about school overcrowding at the Sept. 30 Chicago Board of Education meeting. Everado Mares, chairman of Pasteur’s Local School Council and parent of a sixth-grader there, brought a petition with more than 300 signatures from people pleading for a solution to the [...]
Program Teaches Science and Alternative Energy, Offers Job Training For Chicago Youth
By John O’Neill, LISC Chicago’s New Communities Program Most of the year, Michael Harris Jr. is a mild-mannered student at Austin Polytechnical Academy on the West Side. But this summer, Harris was transformed into “Solar Mike” — thanks to Youth Ready Chicago at the Science Institute at Columbia College. Harris was one of 20 students, [...]
WTTW Speaks With Rev. Jesse Jackson About Fatal Beating at Fenger High School
WTTW’s Chicago Tonight interviewed the Rev. Jesse Jackson about the mob beating of Fenger High School student Derrion Albert, who died as a result of the attacks. Jackson spent time with Albert’s family this week. The segment includes interesting comments from Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis’s press conference. Watch the video here:
Englewood Pastors Excluded From CPS Anti-Violence Plan, Millions Go to Out-of-State Group
In an effort to push a $30 million anti-violence plan, the Chicago Board of Education has decided to partner with a national advocacy organization based out-of-state, upsetting a group of local pastors who see no need to give the work to the Pennsylvania organization. The board last week approved a $5 million contract with Youth [...]
Parents, Faculty Desperate For New Addition To Jam-Packed Edgebrook Elementary School
When students at Edgebrook Elementary School need help learning English, they report to an unlikely spot — a table tucked behind a partition on a stairwell landing. They buy their hot lunches from folding tables set up in the hallway, and without a cafeteria, they eat their food at their desks. Their music teacher, who [...]
Northwest Side to Get Another Library As West Side Fights to Keep Branches Open
One of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago will start work on a third public library next year, while two aldermen from the struggling West Side fight for funding to keep their library branches open. Recently retired Ald. William J. P. Bank’s (36th) seven-year effort to bring a third library to his ward moved one step [...]
Mural Brings Students Together For Colorful Collaboration
By Ed Finkel, LISC Chicago’s New Communities Program The West Haven “Phoenix Rising” mural on the back wall of Victor Herbert Elementary School facing Touhy Herbert Park looked faded, chipped, warped and slumped over earlier this summer, but soon it will rise again and look just like new. That’s because it is new – the [...]
Finally: Groceries, Fresh Produce for Chicago’s Near West Side
By Ed Finkel, LISC Chicago’s New Communities Program Residents of Chicago’s Near West Side will be able to shop at a full-service grocery store for the first time in four decades when Pete’s Fresh Market opens in 2011. The Chicago Reporter and Chicago Matter’s The Color of Money helps provide more context for this issue.” [...]
LGBT Youth Seeking More Support in Chicago Public Schools
By Curtis Black, Newstips Editor, Community Media Workshop A grassroots organizing campaign led by LGBT youth has won agreement from CPS chief Ron Huberman on a new advisory council to promote the school district’s policies against discrimination and harassment. The agreement comes weeks after another youth-led campaign won an expanded anti-discrimination policy from the Board [...]
