New schools chief has thrown out agreement with parents, months of negotiations, hundreds of thousands of dollars at expense of community needs and public accountability, charge parents.

CHICAGO, June 28, 2011 — Parents of students at Whittier elementary school in Chicago’s Pilsen community have accused new public school chief Jean Claude Brizard of bargaining in bad faith with their project and abandoning months of negotiations by reneging on a deal worked out with local elected officials and the previous school administration.

Parents, students and community supporters have been struggling for months to convince top administrators to hold up their end of a bargain to build a library for students in the school’s field house, an effort that grew so contentious earlier this year that parents and supporters occupied the field house for more than 40 days. School officials had moved to demolish the field house, despite months of negotiations to win a library for the school, which like many other public schools, currently lacks a formal library. In the fall, then school chief Ron Huberman agreed to the parents’ appeal, in no small part because the parents had leveraged a commitment of TIF funds and thousands of dollars in in-kind support to make the library renovation possible.

But this month, Brizard moved to create a library space on the second floor of the school — displacing students with disabilities from existing classroom space, and neglecting previous promises to renovate the field house.

Brizard’s unilateral decision undercuts months of good-faith negotiations by parents and supporters and puts the future library and surrounding play areas at threat, at the same time sacrificing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding originally designated for the renovation. Parents also argue that the administration’s new ‘plan’ for an in-school library eviscerates valuable classroom space for students with disabilities who already confront second class services system-wide. More broadly, they charge that Brizard’s unilateralism represents an even more autocratic and unaccountable central office bureaucracy — one that puts the concerns of parents, students and teachers last, at the expense of arbitrary senior administration decisions that fail to put students’ needs before expediency or development imperatives that don’t serve local communities.

Parents have re-occupied the field house to prevent any renewed threat of demolition, and have vowed to step up their resistance to the new administrative regime’s unilateralism.

Photo by Claudio Gaete-Tapia

The Whittier Parent Committee had a press conference on Wednesday, June 22nd, to inform the public that the Struggle Continues.  Currently, parents and allies are occupying La Casita 24/7 to prevent CPS or the Chicago Police from denying the Whittier Parent Committee access to La Casita.

Please call Alderman Danny Solis at 773-523-4100 to make sure the TIF money allocated for Whittier is used for the renovation of La Casita as he committed to. Solis stated the following during a meeting at La Casita on October 21, 2010: “…the money from this district’s [Pilsen Corridor] Tax Increment Financing that would have been used to demolish the community center will be used to renovate it.” (Hoy Newspaper)

Please stop by La Casita (1900 W. 23rd Street) if you can to volunteer for security shifts or to see what supplies are still needed.

For background info, please see the article from Radio Arte’s  Zé Garcia below.

Originally posted on Radio Arte’s website:

Before 10am Wednesday morning construction workers and CPS officials arrived at Whittier Elementary School to begin construction of a new library inside the school, not to renovate the community library, La Casita. As of press time, CPS officials on the ground refused to answer questions from the community or Radio Arte’s First Voice. It is understood that CPS is planning to construct a building inside the main building of Whittier Elementary despite an agreement reached late last year to work with legislators to allocate some $364,000 in TIF dollars to renovate what is now known as La Casita Parent Youth Center and lease the space out to the Whittier Parent Committee. La Casita is a field house that sits next to Whittier and is home to a community center used as a library, and a space for ESL and immigration classes among other activities for parents and school kids. $200,000 were allocated from the Board of Education by State Representative Eddie Acevedo (D) bringing the total sum of La Casita renovation money to $564,000 dollars. The Whittier Parent Committee is currently in talks with architects from a non for profit to turn the space into an environmentally friendly green space.

Whittier Elementary first received national attention back in the Fall of 2010 as mothers of Pilsen staged a 43 day sit-in inside La Casita to prevent its demolition and promote its renovation. In essence, for the mothers and community activists of Pilsen, the issue was about being involved in the decision making process with CPS regarding the fate of their public spaces. For CPS the issue is about the $712 million deficit yet the Whittier Parent Committee has called out the fact that the $364,000 dollars they had secured for La Casita with the previous administration was originally intended for its demolition. Corresponding via email with HuffPost Chicago, a CPS spokesperson said ‘construction was actually scheduled to begin Monday, the spokesman said, but heavy rains caused a temporary delay. The plan to put the library inside the school’ “has been thoroughly vetted over the past six months, and any additional delay could ultimately cause a delay in construction and availability of the library to the students it is meant to serve.” Yet, the community contends that overcrowding is already a problem inside the building and the space inside the school where CPS plans to build the library is already being utilized by special needs students.

Text messages and Facebook updates have been circulating all day in en effort to get the word out to the community that the struggle for autonomy and democracy over Whittier continues. The latest update from the Whittier Parents’ struggle was “the police have left and the parents have re-entered La Casita. Security from CPS are still on the premises watching our activity. We are going to stay at the casita to strategize next steps and actions. We still need physical presence to show CPS and the CPD that the parents have support and wil not be intimidated. Please stay tuned for further updates. Thank you for your continued suport and solidarity” via Facebook.

Dear Friends and Allies,

Many of you stood with the Whittier Parents this past fall when we spent 43 days and nights in the fight for the parents’ demands to save La Casita and to have it renovated into a school library. Some of you heard about the struggle and joined us more recently. The fight continues to keep CPS accountable to its agreement with the parents, and we need your continued solidarity and support.

We are currently facing a new CPS Chief Executive Officer as well as a new Board of Ed. While the Whittier Parents wish to work with the new administration to implement their agreement with CPS, the latter has made decisions regarding the future of the library at Whittier without the parents’ input. They have overridden the parents’ unequivocal dissent and decided to construct the library inside the main school building, something the parents have vehemently opposed due to the already overcrowded conditions. Such a plan would require the demolition of special education space, resulting in the displacement of students. This action threatens to throw everything the parents and allies have worked and fought for out the window. The Whittier Parent Committee in conjunction with students, community members and a design advocacy group has created an award winning design proposal to renovate La Casita into an accessible and green building for a library, but no one in the new CPS administration or Board of Ed has given the parents an opportunity to present their proposal. CPS may start implementing their plan to demolish the special education space in the next few days, and we must act quickly to ensure that students are not displaced and that the Whittier Parent Committee has their voices heard.

Here are two immediate actions you can do to support the Whittier Parents.

1) Call CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard TODAY at 773-553-1500 and tell him to support the Whittier Parent Committee’s award-winning plans for a library and to halt CPS’s plans to remove the special education space in Whittier School. We need to get as many calls in as possible so CPS knows we are serious and have support.

2) Come out to La Casita (1900 W. 23rd St) today (Thurs 6/16) for a day of sign/banner making. There will be two sessions: 11am-3pm and 6pm-10pm. This will also be a good time to ask questions and to get caught up on what’s been going on at La Casita.

If you have any questions, please call Gema Gaete at 773.431.1431.

If you could spread the word on the two calls to action to your listservs and FB groups/walls, we would really appreciate it. As always, thank you for your continued solidarity and support.

Jean-Claude Brizard
CPS CEO
125 S. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60603

June 13, 2011

Dear Mr. Brizard:

We are writing to inform you of the current status of the ongoing matter with the Whittier Parent Committee and CPS. As you may have already been informed the Whittier Parent Committee has been advocating for more than 8 years for improvements at John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary School. Although the persisting advocacy of the parents at Whittier elementary has lead to some improvements at the school there are still a handful of issues that have been left on the table that your predecessors did not get a chance to attend to before their departure.

The Whittier Parent Committee was formed because of major concerns by parents of the facilities at Whittier Elementary. The main mission for this committee is to get the best possible quality public education for their children as well as the rest of the children from across the city of Chicago. We stand behind the concept of fairness and transparency when it comes to making decisions for facility improvements and the quality of education for children. Since most of our families at Whittier Elementary are low income we understand the concept of spending smarter so that we can get the best value for our money. Therefore, we ask that you please pay close attention to our following statement.

In the fall of 2010 the CPS administration decided that it would be a good idea to take $364,000 from Tax Increment Funding that the Whittier Parent Committee had manage to secure from their Alderman for facility improvements to the building and use it to demolish a well used community center housed in the Whittier elementary field house. The former CEO of CPS Ron Huberman had made a decision without getting the thoughts of the parents, students and community members from Whittier Elementary. But after much advocacy and a 43 day sit-in Mr. Huberman finally met with members of the Whittier Parent committee. After a series of three meetings between the Whittier Parent Committee, district representatives and Mr. Huberman we came to some commitments which are the following:

1.      The Whittier Field house will not be demolished.

2.      The Whittier Field house will be leased to the Whittier Parent Committee.

3.      The $364,000 will be reallocated for the renovations of the Whittier Field House.

4.      $200,000 from State funding will also be use for renovations of the Whittier Field house.

5.      Whittier Elementary will get a library (the location was not determined).

In addition, the Whittier Parent Committee declared an end to their sit-in because of these agreements. After the declaration by the committee, the former CEO of CPS Mr. Huberman left his position at CPS and had a temporary CEO replace him which was your predecessor Terry Mazany. The Whittier Parent Committee never had an opportunity to meet with Mr. Mazany to finalize arrangements for the commitments made by Mr. Huberman. Therefore, CPS administration made an informal decision without the Whittier Parent Committee and district representatives to house the much needed library at Whittier in the main building.  This decision is something that the Whittier Parent Committee never agreed upon do to the lack of space in the main building at Whittier Elementary.

Moreover the Whittier Parent Committee never had an opportunity to showcase their proposal for the location of the library and renovations to the Whittier field house to the CPS CEO and board members. As you might be aware CPS plans to move forward with their plan to house a library in the main building of Whittier Elementary. But these plans will only cause more problems to the students, parents and community at Whittier Elementary because it is displacing children and wasting money on a plan that is not well thought out for the future and causes more problems rather than solutions.

In contrast the Whittier Parent Committee has been working with a nonprofit design advocacy organization that provided probono architecture services and together we have an extraordinarily eco-friendly design for the renovation of the Whittier Field House. This design has also been awarded for being educational and environmentally friendly. This design was a collaboration of ideas from students, parents and community members from Whittier Elementary. We are prepared to present this design and budget to you Mr. Brizard and the rest of the CPS board members.

Furthermore, we ask that you please give us an opportunity to sit down with you and the new administration at CPS to form a dialog that has disappeared since the departure of former CEO of CPS Ron Huberman in order to better serve our children at Whittier Elementary and to save money. We also ask that you please put a hold on the plans for the construction of the library inside the main building of Whittier Elementary until you have had a chance to hear our proposal.

We look forward to hearing from you and your administration by Wednesday June 15, 2011.

Sincerely,

The Whittier Parent Committee
1900 W. 23rd St.
Chicago, IL 60608
(773)431-1431

Dear Public, Press and Supporters,

To remove any confusion since our October 20th and 29th 2010 meetings with CPS:

• We never agreed to have the library inside of the Whittier School building
• We did not agree to any plans with CPS
• We will present our plans at a later time

- The Whittier Parent Committee

However, the letter delivered  by CPS today and signed by Ron Huberman does not reflect all the agreements and concerns raised by the Whittier Parent Committee.

Some of the points of contention include:

1) The location of the library has NOT been determined or agreed upon by the Whittier Parent Committee.  The parents DID NOT agree to the library being built inside of the Whittier school as the letter from CPS states.

2) We also want to note that the Whittier Parent Committee DID NOT agree to be responsible for all the repairs or other maintenance issues mentioned in the letter.  During this meeting we made it clear that as the leasing agent, it is CPS’s responsibility to ensure that the building is up to fire codes and safe for the children.

3) We want to make it clear that we are ONLY ending the sit-in portion of the struggle. The Whittier Parent Committee remains in control of the fieldhouse and the programming that is currently taking place in the fieldhouse. We ARE NOT abandoning the fieldhouse nor are we ending our fight for the library. The negotiations will continue!

We want to ensure that CPS and our elected officials give us, the community, the student body, and the parents, what we deserve!! The fight continues so that we can ensure that we have a quality education for all children!!

Please watch this video update and call to action by Araceli from the Whittier Parent Committee.

The Struggle For La Casita at Whittier Continues!

We Need Community Support!

After over 40 days of the sit-in for a much needed library at La Casita, the Whittier Parent Committee is close to victory.  However a final push is still needed to hold CPS CEO Ron Huberman to his verbal agreement and solidify the demands of the parent committee. To assure a successful end to this struggle, a strong showing of support from families and allies of the community is needed. Stand in solidarity at the upcoming CPS Board meeting on Wed. Oct. 27^th, 2010 to pressure board members to sign into agreement the parent committee’s final demands:

• No Demolition of La Casita
• No Bid Process For Leasing La Casita (Pending Legal Review)
• Remove Storage Container From Playground
• CPS to pay for a detailed inspection, assessment and cost of work need for La Casita to comply with fire and building codes
• CPS will work with Whittier Parent Committee on design and final plan for Whittier School Library

What Can You Do?

Call Mayor Daley and officials to pressure the Chicago Board of Education to pass the resolution containing the verbal agreement between Whittier Parent Committee and CPS at Wednesday’s meeting:

• Mayor Daley                            312-744-3300
• CPS CEO Huberman             773-553-1550
• Chicago Board of Ed              773-553-1600
  

Come support the Whittier Parents at 9am on Wed. Oct 27^th at the Board of Education meeting, 125 S. Clark St.