When news got out Mayor Richard Daley had 50 schools on the west and southside of chicago slanted to be closed. Fear spread thorough out Black communities across the city, parents worried about the safety of their children. The announcements of school closings cause anxiety in our communities at the time my children was off to college. School closings was the first sign of disinvestments in communities, community schools stabilizes communities. It creates lasting relationships, it unifies communities. Community schools are safe heavens in the community, Parents know each other and therefore look after the children in the area. Teachers become a part of the village members of the community. It was a frequent sight to see teachers from the local school at community gatherings, or at a neighbors house. Adding more pain to the trauma majority of the 50 schools slanted for closings were elementary schools…
Students walked maybe three blocks to their community schools, with the proposed school closings students would either be bused or walked more than five blocks to school. This cause a even more dangerous threat to students safety. Chicago is s segregated city witch causes environment for gangs to thrive. If parents opt for their children or child to be bused to a school outside the community, they was provided with a designated corner for the student or students to catch the bus. This was a dangerous situation as students would have to be at a designated corner two hours before school started. We stop seeing the community children hanging out with each other after school. The students would hang out with the students in the area they went to school. This caused conflict among in the community as different communities had different gangs. Students tend to hang in the community they attend school in as they than would be protected and could attend school without conflict.
Parents no longer knew their children’s friends or the parents. This caused a lack of communication and knowledge of the students where bouts. Working parents lost their support system with community schools closed, no longer was the neighbor at the school to walk children home whose parent was working. Buses dropped students off at designated corners some two hours after school let of for the day. This is how Black communities and families lost control of it youth.
The most notiable student death due to school closing was Darrion Albert
Even in the cold rain, Danielle Jones would rather stand on the street and wait for her father to pick her up from her high school on Chicago’s South Side than walk or take the bus, fearing the fights that start in school will be settled later on the streets.
That violence has increasingly turned deadly — including the vicious fatal beating of her classmate, 16-year-old Derrion Albert, whose after school death was captured on a cell phone video. Albert, an honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School, was attacked on Sept. 24 when he got caught up in a mob of teens about six block from school. Video shows him curled up on the sidewalk, as fellow teens kick him and hit him with splintered railroad ties. So far, four teens have been charged in his death. Students and prosecutors say the fight was part of an long-running dispute between neighborhood teens and those from Altgeld Gardens, a public housing complex about five miles away in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and where Obama got his start as a community organizer in the 1980s. When the high school closest to Altgeld Gardens was converted to a military academy several years ago, many area students transferred to Fenger. Chicago police have acknowledged that Albert’s slaying was related to the mixing of students from different neighborhoods, but they didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about whether the violent deaths were related to school closings (NBC 5 Chicago 2009).
City officials would never admit the closings of schools in Black communities on the south/westsides of the city was the driving force behind Alberts death.
Activist working in violence prevention knew violence among young children was the direct result of schools closings. Yet public officials would never admit
Over 20,000 Back teachers lost jobs under Daly’s school closure plan these some were rehired most was left to seek employment is other sectors. Students are faced with enrolling in new schools, and neighborhoods losing the safety nd security of their community schools while communities loose a important stable institution,
Today Chicago Public Schools had a operating budget 6 billion dollars, most of this revenue is paid in salaries for top administrators and school board members all hand pick by the Mayors office.
No longer do Chicago Public Schools have a Superintendent of schools, we now have a new CEO …
The Peoples News Of Chicago 