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Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
By: Sarah Karp / October 25, 2010
Another North Side elementary schools is poised to extend into a high school. On the agenda for the October School Board meeting is a proposal to expand Audubon Elementary School in Roscoe Village so that it will now include a high school. The Audubon High School follows behind Alcott High School for the Humanities and Ogden International High School, both of which opened in fall 2009. Alcott Elementary and High School are in Lincoln Park and Ogden Elementary is on the Gold Coast, although the high school is located in West Town.
Another North Side elementary schools is poised to extend into a high school. On the agenda for the October board meeting comes the proposal to expand Audubon Elementary School in Roscoe Village so that it will now include a high school.
The Audubon High School follows behind Alcott High School for the Humanities and Ogden International High School, both of which opened in Fall 2009. Alcott Elementary and High School are in Lincoln Park; while Ogden Elementary School is on the Gold Coast, but the high school is located in West Town.
These three high schools are among new public schools in the city, although they serve students in areas that were not identified as needing performing options in a 2004 report done by the Illinois Facilities Fund. That report was supposed to set the stage for the Renaissance 2010 initiative, which was Mayor Richard Daley’s project to improve education by opening new schools.
There are no South Side schools that serve children from kindergarten through 12th grade. On the West Side, Spry School has an elementary and high school.
Audubon Principal John Price says when Alcott and Ogden won approval, his school was already working on its proposal. “It let us know it could be done,” he says. “That the board was open to it.”
Like Alcott and Ogden, Audubon has far more white students (about 50 percent) and fewer low-income students (about 45 percent) than the district’s average.
They also receive a lot of support from the community and parents. Starting in 2006, the parents at the school created Friends of Audubon, specifically to raise money to better the school. According to the group’s annual report, in 2009-2010, they raised $140,000, most of which went to buying extra teachers.
Groups for Ogden and Alcott also raise big money for their schools. Their 2009 tax returns show that Friends of Alcott raised $419,000 and Friends of Ogden raided $159,000.
Price says CPS officials supported the Audubon high school proposal because it expands the school’s unique inclusion program for children with autism and related disorders. The program receives outside financial support from the Gust Family Foundation.
“The inclusion model has worked for special kids and for those who are not,” Price says.
The other selling point is that Price was able to secure $5.9 million—a big chunk of which comes from the Gust Family Foundation—to rehab empty space in a private school and keep the high school sustainable for 10 years. “It won’t cost the school district anything,” Price says.
Price says the new high school will also be small, something that is needed on the North Side. Lake View High School, the neighborhood high school where Audubon students would otherwise attend, has 1,500 students.
Only in recent years has Audubon Elementary School become one of the city’s better elementary schools. In 2010, 85 percent of students met or exceeded standards, compared to just 64 percent in 2005.
Eighth-grade students from Audubon will automatically have a reserved seat in the high school, Price says. But whether they will take advantage of it is another story.
Kenneth Staral, principal of Ogden High School and Elementary School, says he pushed for the high school as an alternative for “good” students who didn’t get into selective enrollment schools. Otherwise, Ogden’s elementary school students are lost to private high schools.
For many of Ogden’s students, Wells would be their neighborhood high school. And Staral says few of his families want to send their students to Wells.
As of yet, it is unclear whether Ogden and Alcott are retaining their elementary school students. Staral says about 40 percent of those that attended Ogden Elementary came back to high school.
The demographic makeup of Alcott and Ogden elementary schools also has so far been different from the high schools. Alcott is 60 percent white; the high school is only 13 percent white. Meanwhile, Ogden’s elementary school is 48 percent white, double that of its high school.
The district is about 9 percent white.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
What is the physical location of the proposed Audubon High School? Will it open the Audubon Elementary School in Roscoe Village in 2011?
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
For all those who could not get into Lane! The GT building is really state of the art, NOT. CPS-taxpayers will pay a heafty lease for this space and GT will get the new digs paid by the taxpayers.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
This important topic suffers from a disjointed, hard to follow piece. Facts, rather than an obvious political agenda, would have been more helpful understanding the proposed expansion at Audubon.
"Price says CPS officials supported the Audubon high school proposal because it expands the school’s unique inclusion program for children with autism and related disorders. The program receives outside financial support from the Gust Family Foundation."
Please do some research on the topic of inclusion (or lack thereof) on the part of CPS before you try to cast this as a have vs. have not issue.
Try again, Sarah. You jumped the gun without much info and too much speculation on this one. Dig and get the story first, please.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
we pay six millions dollars to lease and we lease cps properties to charters for $1.
what a scam!
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
well this will save Gordon Tech. But if it is $$ raised by private donors and will provide another altenative, I don't see a problem.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
they will need taxpayers money to run the school. Robs Peter to pay Paul.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
The idea of an inclusive high school for students with autism is very nice, but how does CPS tell students with learning disabilities not to apply if the school is inclusive? The Hope Institute School located in the old Spaulding building, an inclusive elementary school focusing on students with autism has been struggling with this idea for several years now. It has not been easy recuriting non-disabled students who are not related to the students with Autism. They have been doing their best and yet the school is still 19% students with disabilities. I also have a great deal of respect for the staff who are trying to make this school work for both disabled and non-disabled stuents.
As of March 2010 73% of students at Hope were performing below grade level on assessments of reading (NWEA, DIBELS) and 69% of students were performing below grade level on assessments of mathematics.
If the scores at the Audubon high school end up like this there will be very real recuritment problems. It would be far, far, better for the foundation to spend its money on building an inclusive education program for all students with disabilities, including autism, at any CPS general high school. Given a choice how likely is it that parents of high performing students would opt for Audubon High School as opposed to Payton. Not likely I would suspect.
It is very difficult to create a disability specific inclusive high school, it is what could be called an oxymoron.
Rod Estvan
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Yep dear grandad you are sooo correct. There were so many children "kicked out of that school"........they said they could do it and THEY CAN NOT! No they should not get time......children deserve the right to be educated from day 1! they should not have to sit and wait until the school figures out that they have NO IDEA what they are doing when it comes to children with AUTISM! it is so sad! they have even taken the word "autism" off their website for the school......cause guess what they can not teach children with autism......at all ....and that is why we are picking on them. And if you think that their punitive behavior and the screaming that the staff does in the halls of this school is SHOWING LOVE and care- then i question what you feel caring looks like.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7745293
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
I am aware that there are parents of students on the autism spectrum who have been unhappy with services at the Hope School and two have contacted me over the last two schools years. I personally had major reservations about the funding CPS planned on providing this school as early as when the school was in its proposal stages.
I also am not sure CPS has provided the CVCA program the funding it needs either. Here is the problem, if the Hope Institute had not accepted the deal as it was presented in terms on dollars on the table for services CPS would have likely brought in a for profit firm they maybe could have contracted with for less money.
What the future may bring in terms of education of students with disabilities is far from clear. It is clear that there is a developing consensus among school administrators that they are spending too much money on students with disabilities. That is a big part of the problem we are seeing for the provision of high intensity services for students on the Autism spectrum.
The Manhattan Institute a very conservative goup, promotes special education vouchers as a method to reduce the numbers of special education students. Voucher programs allow disabled students to pay private school tuition using taxpayer dollars and for profits have seen this area as an opening for school development. Unlike Hope School here in Chicago, students taking vouchers for private special education schools lose all due process rights because they have opted out of public schools and are now legally considered to be parentally placed students.
While many of the schools taking special ed vouchers in Ohio and FLA are not for profits, I unfortunately expect them to get pushed out of the market by large firms like Alternative Behavioral Services, Inc, or Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. over time. I expect to see a special education voucher bill in the IL General Assembly at some point. Hopefully, the private not for profit special education schools in Illinois will realize the Trojan Horse of such a voucher bill and will oppose it. But only time will tell.
Rod Estvan
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Today's release of by ISBE indicates that at the only grade tested for the ISAT at the Hope school, 3rd grade, that 51.9% of these students were reading at state standards with no students reading above standards. Which I think does indicate that Mark Schmidt's comment that the school has improved is correct. But the school did not make AYP because that number now requires 77.5% of 3rd graders to be reading at or above standards.
However, the data I got from the CPS office of Performance on the percentage of students with IEPs at Hope appears to have been too low, ISBE claims 25.7% of the students in the school had IEPs in 2010. The school is showing a very high mobility rate of 26.4% and a Chronic Truancy Rate of 32.7%, which is higher than the rate for some high schools, could that really be correct for a school that only goes to 3rd grade? Scores for students with disabilities were not included in the report card because there were fewer than ten in third grade.
Rod Estvan
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Yeah let's not talk about HOPE they are failing miserably! They have failed the students with autism! it is so sad how much money the district put into this school. No one ever talks about this? there are so many students who parents pull their children out. THIS IS NOT AN INCLUSIVE SCHOOL. ALL OF THOSE STUDENTS ARE IN (WHAT THEY CALL ) STRUCTURED ENVIRONMENTS- WHICH IRONICALLY HAVE NO STRUCTURE. the students run around those rooms with no supports in place. it is a sad excuse for providing services to students with disabilities.
Ron go there and then while you are at it....stop by their satellite program at CVCA - wow even worse.....unless you believe that 19 year old students should be doing art projects every day. what a great job our money is doing.
someone else made a good point....why the heck are we NOT using what schools we have and making those better? why do we have to build new? then people will go to new leaving the others and then these fail. they do not need a new school.....there are plenty in the area.....CPS should be using its money to fix and improve current- not turn a cheek and open an other new one and maybe no one will notice the not so good???
Hope Institute Learning Academy's Efforts
We want to thank our friend and colleague Rod Estevan for calling attention to the fact that it is difficult to create a truly inclusive environment for children with disabilities in any school. Here at The Hope Institute Learning Academy (HILA), our focus has been to create a learning environment where all students are accepted in a diverse and caring learning community. As Rod pointed out, that task is not without its challenges. We have been gratified that parents of children with an without disabilities have made HILA their school of choice. Our status as a Pearson Innovation School, and the presence of programming not available at all CPS schools - such as a library - has allowed us to attract a student body which falls within the guidelines of the Cory H consent decree.
Still, there is much work to be done. The assessment results which Rod quotes are correct. However, readers must realize that the assessments quoted reflect student achievement before the end of the first year of operation of the new school, and do not represent the progress which has been made since that time, nor the goals we are working hard to achieve.
Mark Schmidt
The Hope Institute Learning Academy
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Mason Elementary School on the south side also expanded their K-8 program to a K-12 program. They are in the second year and will continue to expand.
Yvonne Womack
Give me a break!
Why is everyone picking on Hope. At least they are TRYING to make things better. As a grandparent, I've seen too much of what passes for education at a typical CPS school. Nobody cares. Not the teachers. Not the administration. You can't walk into Hope and not know that people care. They are only in their second year. It's a tough job, but we need to give them a chance.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Hope needed to get it together on the mark-right as they opened. They promised much, got big $$ put into their building that they got for free and kicked out all the students who were already there who were in a building for years, needed major work. They cannot keep a leader and the board disagrees with themselves and it leaders. This dose NOT help or support children and their students should NOT be an experiment. Hope should not have made promises it cannot keep. Sorry, it is waste and fraud.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Rod, you are knowledgeable on many issues. Until I read your comments on S.E. admissions, I admit that I didn't know its history -- that magnet and s.e. schools were set up to provide an opportunity for a diversified, quality education, at a time when the city was often divided. If I had, then I think for me at least the debate would have been put in proper perspective, I would have understood what CPS is trying to accomplish, and been supportive.
Chicago slated to launch new North Side high school
Liz...I do not wish to debate online. Clearly, we have very different views of the work being done at the school. I would say parents stop by the school, meet the dedicated staff, and decide for themselves.
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