Sunday, April 20, 2008
Best Of The Week (April 14-18)
Recruiters Reined In At Amundsen & Young
From Teachers for Social Justice: "As a result, they have stopped allowing military recruiters to run gym classes at Amundsen HS and have gotten military recruitment posters removed from Amundsen andWhitney Young. Now they are targeting posters at Senn." For TSJ-provided information on what to do if you see a violation of the new recruiting policy, click below.

Chicago Teacher Man To The Rescue
So a kid gets his laptop stolen from a CPS high school locker, having left it there despite repeated warnings from his teacher, Chicago Teacher Man. The computer was an award for young African-American scholars. No one saw it happen, and there's no camera recording that particular hallway. But now the good part. CTM and his readers are ponying up to replace the student's laptop. Yes, blogs do some good once in a while. Just not this one. Check it all out here. Thanks to a reader for making sure I saw this. (2) Comments

Best & Worst Parts of Report Card Pickup Days?
What are the best and worst parts of Report Card Pickup days (today and tomorrow) -- especially when they include LSC elections? Are your parent teacher meetings useful? Do you get anything else done? What do you do for daycare -- especially if you have one kid in elementary and the other in high school? Do more parents come during LSC election years? Is it fun or creepy getting pamphlets and flyers on the way into the building? (20) Comments

Last Chance To Tell Us Who To Vote For
There's all sorts of stuff flying around telling CPS community members who to vote for in tomorrow and Thursday's LSC elections, including this voter guide of sorts for Inter-American Inter-American(pdf). There will be even more literature handed out tomorrow at report card pickup day. Pass it along if you feel like it -- I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious to see how the various individuals and slates present themselves. Or, if you went to an LSC candidates' forum, tell us how it went. Or, tell us who's running and who you think we should vote for. Even if that means telling us about yourself. Who knows, maybe someone from your school reads this site. (5) Comments

Gage Park HS: "Crisis intervention is on everyone's speed dial now."From a reader: "For us at gage park tho, this is 4 in one month. of course the media will report it as two, since 2 of them were "former" studentss (recently graduated or dropped out). but when our students mourn all 4 in such a short time span, and tension flares as rival gangs seek out retribution, it seems to have no end...a very sad state of affairs for such a cool school, with great kids, a great place to work and call home, gage park, the hidden jewel of CPS, is having a tough month...crisis intervention is on everyone's speed dial now." Teen found shot to death in South Side alley Sun Times (8) Comments

Two Takes On Professional Development DaysTwo different perspectives on PD days -- read and feel free to share your own. (28) Comments

PLUS:  Daily News, Around The Blogs, & the ongoing sagas (Problems At Washington HS?, What Happened At The CTU House Of Delegates Mtg.)