Speaking on background, the officials said that the hearing officers--who concluded that CPS did not comply with state law and therefore should not close the schools--either did not understand or over-stepped their role.

Of 54 schools, hearing officers concluded that the following should not be closed: Buckingham Special Education Center, Calhoun, Delano, King, Mahalia Jackson, Manierre, Mayo, Morgan, Overton, Williams Elementary and Williams Middle School. In addition, a hearing officer said the closures of Stockton and Stewart should be delayed and that Bowen High School should not be forced to co-locate with a new Noble Street Charter School.

The hearing officers’ findings are not binding.

In a statement released later Tuesday, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said that the reports will be considered by Board of Education members. The board is set vote on proposals to close 54 schools and co-locate another 11 at their May 22 meeting. If approved, this will be the largest restructuring of a major urban school district ever.

“We are grateful for the work and dedication hearing officers have brought to this process,” Byrd-Bennett said in her statement.

Hope for opponents, but no guarantee

Given that the opinions were written by well-respected former judges, the reports could give new fodder to closing opponents and may bear weight on board members’ votes.  

CPS officials note that in the vast majority of cases, hearing officers simply concluded that CPS complied with the law. But the officers in other cases listened to impassioned pleas from teachers, parents, principals, aldermen and state lawmakers, and issued reports that indicated they understood their concerns.

Otis Taylor, principal of Buckingham Special Education School, says he didn’t know what to expect when he went to the hearing. He and parents told the hearing officer that the commute is too long from Buckingham, on the far South Side, to Montefiore School on the Near West Side. 

The hearing officer agreed, saying that the CEO “failed to consider pertinent information on the safety impact that the long commute will have on Buckingham students.” 

Taylor says the finding gives him hope. “I am glad it came out like that and I am optimistic.”

As is the case with Buckingham, in most scenarios the officers opposed a closing because they did not think the district had made sufficient transition plans that addressed academic or safety concerns.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll says the district was only required to provide a draft transition plan—which, as drafts, are works in progress and won’t be complete until mid-June. She added it was not up to the hearing officers to comment on the quality or feasibility of the plan.

But many of them did just that.

“Generalities and vague promises”

Hearing officer Paddy McNamara notes that “it cannot be emphasized enough how concerned the Manierre parents are about their children’s and their own safety if Jenner and Manierre are merged into one school.” The two Near North Side schools are such deep rivals that the basketball league realigned so that they don’t play each other, according to the testimony.

She decided “that CPS violated its own guidelines by failing to consider the unique circumstances of Manierre.”

Regarding plans for the closing of Morgan Elementary, hearing officer David Coar noted two deficiencies. First, the transition plan did not adequately answer the question of whether Ryder, set to receive Morgan’s students, could meet the need of special education students. Second, CPS did not tell parents enough about how safety concerns would be addressed.

“The safety of the youngest and most vulnerable children in the school system is a very serious thing, not to be addressed with generalities and vague promises,” wrote Coar, a former federal judge. “Violence is a fact in the city of Chicago and in the neighborhoods involved in this school closing in particular.”

Hearing officer Charles Winkler echoed these concerns. However, instead of opposing the closure of Stockton and Stewart, he suggested that CPS wait until the 2014-2015 school year.

Then, he asks these probing questions: “Will an understaffed Chicago Police Department be able to provide enough officers to assist the Stewart children? Will CPS hire a private security company to furnish properly trained personnel? Is there really enough time to get everyone up to speed so the 14,400 children from the closing schools are provided safe passage?”

Carroll says the school district is still working with the Chicago Police Department to firm up plans. However, the transition plans rely on what are called “safe passage workers” to make sure students get from school to home. Safe passage workers are adults from the community who stand on corners and watch students as they walk home, calling the police if they spot trouble.

Academic quality

Other hearing officers cited academic concerns. In the past, most displaced students have landed at schools that are not much better than the schools that closed.

One current proposal involves Overton and Mollison, both of which are Level 3 schools, the lowest possible rating given by CPS. Overton is slated to close, with its students sent to Mollison.

Byrd-Bennett’s guidelines say that if two schools have the same rating, the district can still consolidate, as long as the receiving school outperforms the closing school on four of the performance criteria established by the district. The performance criteria include ISAT scores and measures of academic growth, as well as attendance.

Under those guidelines, Overton qualifies to be consolidated into Mollison. Hearing officer Carl McCormick does not dispute that, but he does point out that the guidelines don’t lead to the ultimate goal—a better education for the students who are displaced.

“We must ask, is it relevant or significant that the higher-performing school is rated in the lowest academic level and is on probation?” wrote McCormick, a former Cook County Circuit Court Judge. “This is tantamount, using a food metaphor, to the promise of an omelet with a crisp waffle. Then what is actually delivered is broken eggs, whose contents are oozing out, and a burnt pancake.”

Rather than addressing McCormick’s concerns, in a formal written response, CPS’ General Counsel James Bebley wrote “the Hearing Officer substituted his judgment for the CEO’s in applying a different standard to higher-performing schools than the one expressed in the guidelines.”

Carlos Azcoitia, a former principal who has been on the board since November, voted against the establishment of a KIPP Charter School in Englewood. He also voted against renewing and expanding KIPP’s ACT campus and Chicago Virtual Charter School. Board member Mahalia Hines, also a one-time principal, joined Azcoitia in voting against the Chicago Virtual Charter School item.

Considering that the board is in the midst of deciding whether to close 54 schools, Azcoitia said he did not think it was the right time to add seats at schools. He did vote in favor of some of the charter school grade expansions because they are existing schools or adding high school grades. CPS is only planning to close elementary schools this year.

“Before we open new schools, I think first we need to know the impact on our communities of school closings,” said Azcoitia after the meeting. “I just did not think this was the right time.”

Among the charter networks set to expand are Noble Street, Aspira, and UNO's Rogers Park campus, which is adding a high school.

Azcoitia and other board members also questioned and raised concerns about the schools that CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has recommended for closure. The vote on the closures will take place at their next meeting on May 22.

Board members are trying to visit every closing and receiving school. “We learn something on each of these visits,” Board President David Vitale said.

Vice President Jesse Ruiz added that his school visits have resulted in several questions and he is hoping CPS officials take time to address them. Azcoitia said he wants the board to be briefed on each individual school action with information on academics, safety and facilities, as well as what was learned at community meetings and by hearing officers.

Hines made the strongest statement. She said she had driven many of the routes from closing schools to schools that students will be sent to, and that she was not convinced they were safe. She was particularly concerned about the trip between Melody and Delano.

“It is not a route that I would send my child and there is no way I am voting for anything that I would not send my child [to do],” she said.

Hines also said she was worried about the fact that CPS officials did not account for special education students in their utilization formula. Underutilization is the key factor in deciding what schools are to be closed.

Hines visited Trumbull Elementary School, which has 116 special education students this year. Trumbull parents have said that their utilization rate would be higher if CPS had taken into account the special education students, who are supposed to have smaller class sizes.

“How are we going to address the needs of special education students?” Hines asked.

Special Education Director Markay Winston said her team was taking steps to make sure receiving schools have the  services needed, but Hines indicated that the questions are about more than services.

Board members made their comments after public participation, during which speakers once again insisted that their school stay open. One of them was Asean Johnson, a 3rd-grader at Garvey Elementary School.

He said that Byrd-Bennett and Vitale visited his school recently. Addressing Byrd-Bennett directly, he said, “Why would you take Marcus Garvey away from us? You loved how quiet it was and how we were all at work. You tried to surprise us, but we were ready. “

Another strong statement was made by Jalainea Leslie, a mother whose children attend Parkman.  She said there’s no way she will send her child to Sherwood Elementary School, some six blocks away.

Recently, she said, someone got shot near Sherwood.

“I want to protect my kids,” Leslie said. “57^th Street is too far. I know you have a heart. This is not a right thing because they won’t make it there.”  

Before the board meeting, dueling rallies showed the deep divide that exists on the charter school and school closings issue.

Students from several high schools marched chanting: "Rahm Emanuel has got to go" Many of the students were juniors who were supposed to take the second part of the Prairie State exam on Wednesday, but boycotted it. They said they wanted to show their displeasure at using test scores in decisions to close schools and to evaluate teachers.

Brian Stirgus, a student at Robeson High, said he was at the rally to speak up on behalf of his elementary school, Banneker. Banneker is slated for closure and its students will be sent to Mays.

“These school closings are racist,” he said. “We refuse to sit back and let you destroy our neighborhoods.”

In the background, Chicago Parents United, a new pro-charter parent group, also chanted. The parents, whose children mostly attend UNO, Noble Street and Chicago International charters, said they wanted CPS officials to hear their voices and for charter schools to get equal funding.

After CPS rejected Concept Charter School’s proposal to open two schools, the operator turned to the Illinois State Charter School Commission, which was created two years ago to handle appeals when proposals are turned down. The commission last month approved Concept’s plan to open two kindergarten-through-12^th grade schools.

 District officials considered a legal challenge to the approval, but eventually decided against it, says CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll. Still, it is not clear that the district will just accept the decision. The district "is engaged in ongoing discussions to determine next steps in response to their actions," she says. The deadline to file a challenge was last Friday.

Concept Schools already operates the Chicago Math and Science Academy, a Level 2 school in Rogers Park that opened in 2004.

The approval of the Concept proposal means a new reality is taking hold in CPS, one in which the district does not have total control over charter school decisions. Because the operator was approved through the state commission, the charters will receive their funding through the state. The state, in turn, will deduct the money from the district’s funding.

Concept Charter is seeking to get a building in the North Side neighborhood of Bowmanville--typically called Lincoln Square--rezoned to allow the school to locate there. A slew of residents showed up at a community meeting to speak against the zoning change.

The other Concept school is planned for McKinley Park, and has the support of the alderman.

At full capacity, the new Concept Schools will only enroll 1,450 students, a small number. But eventually, a number of Chicago students could end up attending charter schools that have no connection to CPS.

Money, politics

Charters approved through the commission receive a tuition rate of $9,120 per student, about $1,600 more than the per-pupil funding that CPS gives charters. Commission-approved charters also get state and federal funding for special education and low-income students directly, rather than through CPS.

Greg Richmond, executive director of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and a member of the commission, says charter operators think they will fare better financially by getting the funds directly, but it is unclear whether this is true. CPS subsidizes special education services at charter schools, making up the difference in what the services cost and what the state provides. CPS-approved charters also get stipends to help pay for facilities.

But Salim Ucan, executive director of Concept Schools, says that the additional per pupil funding given by the state end up significantly higher, especially when multiplied by more than 1,000 students. He says thinks it is more than enough to run the schools.  

Yet he emphasizes that his charter school management company has a good relationship with CPS and that he considers the district as a partner.

Charter operators in Illinois have always had the power to appeal to the Illinois State Board of Education if a proposal is denied, says Richmond. Over the past decade, about a dozen made such appeals, but in only three cases—none of which were in Chicago—did the state board override a district.

In 2011, when lawmakers first considered the bill creating the commission, “the discussion was about how to reduce the politics involved in the process,” Richmond says. Because charter schools are a hot-button issue in education, politics and ideology often come into play whether it is a school district or the state board of education approving a charter.

All but five states that have charter schools have a non-district authorizer, Richmond says.

The commissioners include an Evanston science teacher; a retired Joliet superintendent; the founder of Target Area Development Corporation, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins; and Angela Rudolph, policy director of Democrats For Education Reform.

Richmond says the commissioners look mainly at the merits of a proposal and try not to get mired in other details.  Members also look at the need in the community. Richmond says he and others were convinced the Concept Charter Schools are needed because of the low graduation rates of nearby high schools.

Questions of performance

Exactly why CPS denied the Concept Charter proposal is unclear. The charter school mistakenly uploaded an incomplete narrative with its application, and because the deadline had passed, CPS officials would not allow them to resubmit. Evaluators subtracted points based on the incomplete proposal.

Evaluators also said that Concept’s current campus, Chicago Math and Science Academy, is not among the highest-achieving schools in the district and is not out-performing other schools in its area network—two of the criteria for replicating a charter, according to the district’s Request For Quality Schools proposal form.

CPS officials also questioned whether the charter management company had enough money in its budget for teacher salaries. According to hearing documents, CPS officials were worried that the schools would not be able to compete for good teachers.

The average teacher salary in the district is $74,839, according to data on the CPS website.  But at Concept, the most a teacher can earn is $50,000, Ucan says. However, he says the starting salary in Concept schools is not all that much different than in CPS.

Ucan says Concept Schools does not have problems finding quality teachers. The charter management company runs 27 schools for 10,500 students across the Midwest.

He also says conflict with the Bowmanville community stems from delays caused by CPS. Originally, the second Concept campus was to be located in Belmont-Cragin. Ucan says his staff reached out to the community and had strong support.

But CPS board members did not vote on proposals until February. By then, the lease on the original building in Belmont-Cragin had expired.

Recently, they were able to find a new location in Bowmanville.

Ucan is confident that once Concept Schools is able to do more community outreach, people will like what they hear. Concept Schools are focused on providing a strong math, science and engineering base. Students also do more project based learning than at traditional schools.

“All the design elements prepare students for college,” Ucan says.

ATTEMPTED SIT-IN: Eager to keep the fervor going for the graphic novel “Persepolis,” students at Lane Technical High School tried in vain to stage a library sit-in during Monday morning classes — but they couldn’t pull it off. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
POWER TO CHARTER: The Kansas Senate Education Committee gives a second chance to an ALEC-based charter school bill, which would give the Kansas Board of Regents, cities and counties and the governing board of any public or private post-secondary institution the power to authorize a public charter school. (Lawrence Journal-World)

TAKEOVER TARGET: Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III is planning a takeover of the Maryland county’s struggling school system, seeking state legislation that would put him in charge of the school superintendent and $1.7 billion budget while significantly reducing the power of the elected Board of Education. (The Washington Post)

RHEE CHALLENGED: Comedian and TV host Bill Maher challenged über-school reformer Michelle Rhee's “no-excuses” philosophy on teachers by saying that he thinks the problem with public education is “poverty and parents.” He pushed back on some of her major talking points: teachers can overcome poverty, teachers don’t need tenure, etc. (The Washington Post)

The state law that dictates the process for closing schools requires 60 days between the time the CEO makes the official recommendations and the decisive vote by the Board of Education. When CPS officials went to Springfield to shift the recommendation back from December to March, they did not request a shorter time period between the announcement and the vote, according to a source familiar with negotiations. 

As a result, the Board of Education vote cannot take place until May.  If Byrd-Bennett waits until the last minute to announce her recommendations, the vote wouldn’t be able to take place until a mere three weeks before summer break.

The May board meeting is set for May 22, although members could decide to hold a special session to take up the issue of school closings.

Parents whose schools are on the recommended school closing list will have one of two choices: Spend the month of April either continuing the fight to save their school, or deciding where they will send their children in the fall. Teachers and staff in schools recommended for closure also will be torn, as they try to figure out where they will be teaching in September.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll says that the public hearings and comments required by law between the recommendations and the vote will carry weight.

“These are merely recommendations by the CEO,” she says. “They are not final and won't be final until we’ve completed our next round of engagement with school communities and after the Board of Education has taken a vote.”

However, even before the vote, district officials will be working “proactively” with schools recommended for closure and the designated welcoming schools.  

“There is a team of 40 subject-matter experts working to prepare transition plans for each school and its students before we launch the implementation phase of our transition work so we are prepared to move forward once final decisions are made,” Carroll says. 

The timeline was noted in the final report of the School Utilization Commission, which was released Wednesday evening. The report gave CPS the green light to take action at up to 80 schools, but also lays out steps that commission members believe should be happening between April and June.

District officials should spend the spring advising parents of their options for the coming school year. The commission says assemblies should be held at each school, where district officials “allow parents or other caretakers to both enroll their child at a receiving school and submit applications for selective enrollment, magnet, or out-of-area schools.”

However, this recommendation is somewhat confounding: Acceptance letters for magnet and selective enrollment elementary schools are set to go out the week of March 18. Also, by May, the application and acceptance at most charter schools will have taken place. (Charters that are in less demand, however, often still have space.)

Byrd-Bennett has said that she will make sure that parents have options, but has yet to lay out how this will happen.

District officials seem to be holding off on letting neighborhood schools offer up their extra seats to applicants. Last week, parents were sent a letter saying that open enrollment seats at neighborhood schools won’t be offered until May 19.

The commission suggests that district officials also spend the spring looking at how displaced children will be getting from their homes to new schools and working with the community to figure out safe passage routes.

CPS should work with community members to identify resources, such as the YMCA, that could replace the support offered by the school, the report states.

On top of all this, the commission recommends that CPS hold camps over the summer for all the displaced students at their new school.

Commission chairman Frank Clark says he is convinced that CPS leaders can accomplish these tasks in the short time period they have before the summer. He points out that Byrd-Bennett hired Tom Tyrell, a retired Marine colonel, to handle the closings.

“She has hired new leaders with extraordinary logistics background,” Clark says. “This guy knows what he is doing.

I am pleased to announce that Catalyst will be part of a multi-city reporting project that will examine the issue of expanded learning time.

We will join EdNews Colorado, EdSource Today, GothamSchools and the Philadelphia Public School Notebook for this year-long project. The collaborative effort was made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation, which has made More and Better Learning Time a priority in its philanthropy.

In addition to reporting on developments in their own localities, the news organizations will take advantage of this unique collaboration to produce a cross-city report that compares and contrasts policies and practices.

Expanding learning time for students, especially those in low-income neighborhoods and districts, has emerged as a major reform initiative.

• In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was successful in lengthening the school day and year, which has been among the shortest in the nation.

• In Denver, School Superintendent Tom Boasberg has made a concerted effort to run pilot expanded-learning-time programs in district schools, especially in middle schools.

• In California, the Los Angeles and Oakland Unified school districts have instituted “community schools” initiatives and are turning to outside partners to provide after-school learning activities and health and social services that engage students beyond the regular school day.

• Schools in New York City are experimenting with a “community hub” model, adding to other expanded-learning-time efforts by city schools and outside partners.

• In Philadelphia, the city government is offering training for nonprofit organizations that run afterschool programs in schools to ensure that the time students spend there results in real learning.

This project presents an exciting opportunity for us at Catalyst to place our work in the context of what is happening in other cities. We are excited to be part of it.

Linda Lenz
Publisher

Every fall, the district will name poor performers to a “warning list.” In contracts with charters going forward, it will stipulate that being on the warning list would result in closure the following Spring. Currently, charters only face closure at the end of their contract. Contracts are typically five years, though recently some shaky performers have been given three-year contracts.

The first batch of those put on the warning list, announced Wednesday, will get slightly longer to improve – until spring 2014, if they are still on the list come September.

“We are putting schools that are not making progress to our standards on notice,” schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said at Wednesday’s school board meeting.

In addition to the schools that are being closed for poor performance this year, six more are on the list to start – ACE Tech Charter High School, which had its charter renewed for 3 years today; ASPIRA Early College High School; Catalyst-Howland; CICS-Basil; Galapagos Charter Campus; and North Lawndale Charter High School – Collins.

The new ASPIRA Business and Finance High School, put on the agenda even as one campus faced closure for poor performance and another was put on the warning list, was pulled from the agenda in a move CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said was procedural.  The board will consider the new campus separately in a future meeting.

In spring 2012, the most recent year for which data was available, there were at least 12 elementary charter campuses and six high school campuses rated as Level 3 schools, among the worst in the district. All new charter contracts will allow CPS to close campuses that are at the lowest level for three years in a five-year period to be closed; and to review them annually for closure starting in September 2017.

Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said those rules, along with the “warning list,” will allow the district to “act immediately if a charter is not performing, rather than waiting for the renewal process.” But those aren’t necessarily the schools targeted by the new policy. CICS-Basil and ACE Tech, for instance, are Level 2 schools.

Schools will be added to the list any time that they miss performance standards in their contracts for two years in a 3-year period, and don’t score at least 10 percent higher on the CPS performance policy point system than comparison schools.

CPS is also getting tough on schools with financial problems. Certain infractions will lead to shortened renewal periods, and schools that are more than 15 days delinquent on Chicago Teachers Pension Fund contributions will have 15 more days to pay up, or CPS will withhold the amount due.

The new rules will phase in as charter schools receive new contracts. Some board members seemed impatient; board Vice President Jesse Ruiz asked if current charters could be renegotiated to allow CPS more power.

Warning list “a bit of a blindside”

Phyllis Lockett, president and CEO of New Schools for Chicago, says she is glad CPS is holding charters accountable but wishes charter schools had gotten a seat at the table.

“Schools got less than 24 hours’ notice they were even being put on this list,” she said. “When you have schools like CICS-Basil and they have done an amazing job this last year, it is a bit of a blindside to the parents, the students and the teachers.”

Lockett is also unhappy that CPS uses the ISAT, PSAE and ACT scores (though combined with other measures like AP enrollment and dropout and graduation rates in high school) as well as, for elementary schools, the ISAT value-added student growth scores. She would prefer to see the performance policy include the NWEA MAP assessment, which CPS has also adopted district-wide.

“Those are much better indicators, and so I think they have got to develop a more consistent and comprehensive approach to evaluating schools before putting them on lists like this,” Lockett says. “I think a much better measure is nationally normed student growth.”

Galapagos Charter School issued a news release complaining it was not told of the decision until 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. “Furthermore, Galapagos was not provided any opportunity to participate in a dialogue surrounding this issue. In fact, all of the CPS Board of Education speaker reservation slots had been filled at least three days earlier,” the release said.

The school slammed the lack of warning as a “failure of professional responsibility” on the part of CPS and a symptom of “the capricious and covert nature of CPS’ closure process.”

“The question should be: Which Chicago schools are providing the best quality education to the students of Chicago? If that were the question, Galapagos would not be on any ‘watchlist,’” the release said.

DuSable supporters seek another chance

Amid discussion of the DuSable Leadership Academy phase-out, it became clear the discussion of getting tough on the politically connected Betty Shabazz International Charter School operator touched a nerve. In addition to DuSable Leadership Academy, Shabazz has two other campuses.

Board member Andrea Zopp, who later voted against the phase-out, along with board member Mahalia Hines, questioned why DuSable was being closed when its graduation and college enrollment rates are better than those of nearby schools. But Elsey said test score data shows students may not be prepared for college.

“Admission to college is not a subjective process,” argued Carol Lee, the school’s founder, during the public participation section of the meeting. “We have indicators in what we are seeing now, in the test preparation work, that we will see significant improvement in the spring scores.”

David Ireland, CEO of the charter operator, said that the school’s students were more likely “to actually attend school,” to graduate, and to enroll in college. “Aren’t these indicators of a school’s quality?” he asked.

After public participation ended, Zopp asked Elsey for a response to the plans the school proposed to improve DuSable.

Elsey said the plans were “certainly research based” but “late in the process; they came up in the year when they were up in renewal.”

Problems at Shabazz, ASPIRA campuses detailed

Officials also offered more details on the problems plaguing ASPIRA and Shabazz charter operators, both of which are having schools phased out.

Site visits to Shabazz campuses found that “strategies and structures designed to improve academic performance were absent or only newly instituted” and that “school and classroom management were inconsistent… Some parents and students had significant issues with the schools, including a lack of academic rigor, lack of engagement in student outcomes, and verbal or physical altercations with other students and parents.”

The Shabazz Academy campus requires $1 million in Americans with Disabilities Act recommendations in the first year of its contract. “Fixing these issues was a condition of their previous contract and was not met,” noted Chief of Innovation and Incubation Jack Elsey’s presentation. “The five-year budget allocates no money for facility improvements associated with documented ADA issues.”

By July 2, the operator will be required to have a new budget approved by CPS, as well as a facilities improvement plan and a financial “corrective action plan” with details on how the school will pay for the estimated $1.5 million in improvements.

At ASPIRA, also being granted a 5-year renewal, site visitors found that “data was rarely used to inform decision-making” and that “teachers at Ramirez had not received any professional development support or observations.”

Elsey’s presentation noted that “the ASPIRA network’s governance and operations provide poor oversight; the network reports that a strategic plan does not exist.”

The campus had not been previously approved by the district; spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus says it was discussed at the Feb. 21 charter school renewal hearing. However, the school’s construction has been in the works for years and was approved by a city zoning board in March 2012.

Sainvilus wrote in an email that “In the last year, ASPIRA has taken important steps to improve overall performance. They chose to change leadership both in reconstituting their board and in replacing school leaders. “

“The decision to recommend ASPIRA’s expansion by opening a new campus was made based on these recent changes, ASPIRA’s expressed desire to operate in a neighborhood that is experiencing overcrowding, and the additional steps that will be taken to add annual academic benchmarks to their accountability framework,” Sainvilus wrote. “These benchmarks will allow CPS to take more immediate action should the schools not meet expectations.”

Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said he also did not see a contradiction between ASPIRA’s expansion and the closure of one campus. “Some of their schools have relatively strong performance (and certainly better than Mirta Ramirez),” he wrote in an email.

He added: “We are pleased to see Chicago take charter accountability seriously. The charter movement is about better outcomes for students, not merely about expansion for expansion's sake… We have very few high-quality schools of any type in Chicago and our focus is on changing that through high-quality charter expansion.”

ASPIRA’s school for dropouts, Antonia Pantoja, is not part of its charter. The organization's other two campuses are Haugan Campus, a middle school which has a Level 3 rating – the lowest rating the district gives schools—and Early College High School, which has not been around long enough to have a performance rating.

Early College does have some promising initial statistics: a 94 percent attendance rate, which is markedly above the 86 percent CPS average and a freshman on-track rate of 80 percent in 2011, which is somewhat higher than average.

However, in 2012, just 21 percent of students met state standards on the Prairie State exam, compared to the CPS average of 32 percent; and just 15 percent of students earned scores of 20 or higher on the ACT college admissions test, compared to the district average of 29 percent.

The school board will make an official decision on the fate of Mirta Ramirez Computer Science High School, run by ASPIRA, and DuSable Leadership Academy, run by Betty Shabazz International Charter School, at its Wednesday meeting. Both schools are affiliated with community organizations that have deep roots in Chicago.

Due to poor performance, the district also plans to put other campuses run by those schools on a shorter leash, requiring them to meet annual academic benchmarks that have not yet been determined. Those schools comprise ASPIRA’s Haugan Middle School, Antonia Pantoja High School, and Early College High School, as well as Betty Shabazz International Charter School and the school’s Barbara A. Sizemore Academy. (This is the second year that some charter schools have had their contracts renewed for shorter periods of time.)

Ten other charter operators will also have their contracts renewed – two for 3 years, and the rest for 5 years. In addition to the two campuses that are being recommended for closure, six of the 27 schools run by those 12 operators are level 3 schools--the worst possible rating by CPS. Six were Level 1 schools, the best possible. Eight were not given performance ratings.

Less than a handful of charter schools have been closed by CPS. Only two have closed in the past 6 years. Choir Academy decided to shut itself down for financial and performance issues. ACT Charter’s board of directors was pressured to close the low-scoring school, but the school’s charter remained active and was given to KIPP to open a junior high school this year.

District officials announced their recommendations for charter renewals at 5 p.m. Thursday. At the same time, a public hearing on charter renewals was starting. About 45 minutes before the hearing began, the principal at DuSable Leadership Academy said that she was not aware of the district’s recommendation to close the school.

The hearing was attended by about 150 people and 72 people signed up to speak. Among them were the leaders of Shabazz and Aspira. Both argued that, although test scores are low, they do well in other areas. The Aspira official said that 93 percent of their students are accepted into college. 

Carol Lee, who founded Shabazz, said the network runs award-winning schools that have good attendance, low drop out rates and good acceptance into colleges.

Fernando Grillo, chair of the board of ASPIRA of Illinois, said Thursday night that "we certainly understand the challenges we have (and) we are committed to accountability."

He also said that in the last year the entire ASPIRA organization has been "on a self-imposed turnaround" with a new board and new staff in its corporate offices as well as at the schools. "We are holding ourselves to much higher standards," Grillo said.

Last March, the organization's board fired CEO Jose Rodriguez, likely due to the poor performance.

CPS said in a press release that it reviewed charter operators’ records in terms of contract compliance, charter governance, fiscal management, academic growth, test scores and parent input.

Some charters get shorter renewals

The two charter schools that are being renewed for just 3 years are ACE Tech and Community Services West Charter School.

Last year, ACE Tech had a 1-year contract but the district says it “is showing early signs of performance progress.” Community Services West “is moving to restructure its organization to better serve a distinct alternative student population,” the district noted. In recent years, several charter schools have undergone restructuring or "turnaround" in an effort to boost performance.

Several principals contacted by Catalyst Chicago say the district’s substitute center rarely, if ever, provides them with substitutes, even when requests are sent in several days in advance. The problems started in spring 2012, principals say, but got worse during this winter’s massive flu outbreak.

In November, Catalyst filed an open records law request with CPS for data including teacher absences, substitute teacher spending by school, and the steps the district is taking to reduce teacher absences. Last Thursday, the district said it could not fulfill the request because it was “unduly burdensome” and would require more than 40 hours of work to collect the data.

Another factor contributing to the shortage could be new restrictions on teachers’ ability to get paid for unused sick days. That could mean more teachers who are sick are staying home, rather than coming to work in hopes of getting money for unused sick days later.

“Every day we are without subs and we are plugging the holes [by] pulling people off schedules,” said another principal, Tamara Witzl of Telpochcalli Elementary. When the special education teacher must cover classes, students do not get their mandated services. When the world language teacher gets sub duty, students skip that class.

Witzl says she tries to book substitutes she knows in advance, but that it’s hard because they are in such great demand.

“The amount of time I am spending either plugging the holes or tag-teaming can be between an hour and two hours, almost every single day,” Witzl says. “It is extremely stressful. Day-to-day operations are being disrupted. We don’t have any subs coming out to the schools, and we don’t know why.”

One issue could be a district rule that, starting in 2010, required substitute teachers to have teaching certificates “to alleviate concerns from principals regarding sub quality,” says CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler. But, she says, existing subs were grandfathered in.

The district has roughly 3,000 substitutes, Ziegler says, including 600 that were hired in August – but CPS is trying to find “several hundred more” through job fairs and outreach to retirees.

Chicago’s substitutes are spread more thinly than those in Los Angeles, another large urban district. According to state teacher service records, Chicago has roughly 17,500 classroom teachers, or about 5.8 teachers for every substitute. Los Angeles, by comparison, has 4.6 classroom teachers per sub.

Several studies done in the 1990s and early 2000s suggest that nationally, about 5 percent of teachers are absent each school day. This would suggest CPS would need at least 1,260 substitutes each day, but that number doesn’t include substitutes who are used when teachers are released from class due to professional development and testing.

Also, teacher absenteeism can be higher in high-poverty schools like many of those in CPS. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, 15.5 percent of CPS teachers missed 10 or more school days in 2008-09, the most recent year for which data was available.

“We hope that as the flu outbreak diminishes, absenteeism due to illness will also diminish,” Ziegler says.

Head teacher Marta Moya-Leang, the only administrator at Belmont Cragin Early Childhood Center, said the shortage has been particularly hard on her school.

“There was one time we had four teachers out. I can only go into one classroom [at a time],” she points out. “We have relied on the teacher assistants and the parents to help, and that’s not good.”

But Peck Elementary Principal Okab Hassan, a veteran, says that he has learned he has to fend for himself as far as substitutes are concerned.

“If I waited for the district, they would never do anything,” Hassan says. “When we have a sub that is good, we keep them in the file. I am not going to depend on anybody to make my school run.”

Finally, the crowd would disperse into breakout sessions to share with independent facilitators the strengths and weaknesses of their schools, plus suggestions about how to make the transitions to new schools less painful.

In reality, this is the scenario: A CPS official tells the throngs of people in attendance that public comment will start immediately and that each speaker will only have two minutes to speak. Then, for the next hour, parents, teachers, principals and even some children make impassioned pleas to keep their schools open.

At the end of the meeting at Olive-Harvey College on Wednesday, Chief of Schools Denise Little got up and tried to reassure the suspicious crowd that she was listening. She noted that she wanted the pictures that attendees from DuBois School brought, showing their dilapidated buildings, and said she will remember, among other things, that White Elementary is the only other school located in the area.

Eventually, the attendees reluctantly retreated into breakout sessions. The media is not allowed in these sessions, but, from interviews, it appears that people continued to make the case to keep their schools open and refused to broach the topic of transition.

Taquia Hylton, principal of West Pullman School, says people in her overflow breakout session told facilitators that they don’t see how they will get around safety issues, should they try to move students.

[View the story "CPS Community Meetings on School Closings: Week 1" on Storify]

OOPS, WRONG LINK: A link to an erotic web site found its way into an email message to parents of CPS children from the schools chief about standardized test scores, the Sun-Times has learned. Instead of routing parents to the web site of the Illinois State Board of Education, the site featured at the bottom of Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s letter about test score changes features a cheeky error message and a sketch of a woman touching her lips: “Oops, someone has been naughty. But we’ll take care of her, we promise. Click here to go back.”

EMAIL ERROR: Chicagoist reports that it was alerted to the racy website and the embarrassing URL mistake by an anonymous tip it received.

CLOSING CONFIDENCE: Chicago Public Schools officials said Wednesday the district has the resources needed to close as many schools as deemed necessary. (Tribune)

FAIR PLAY: The Education Department says students with disabilities must be given a fair shot to play on a traditional sports team or have their own leagues. (Sun-Times)

COOPERATIVE SPIRIT: In a moment not often publicly seen, the Chicago Teachers Union acknowledged "CPS leadership" for its support of teacher professional development. The recognition came during what CTU described as an "emotional ceremony" celebrating 49 teachers who recently achieved National Board Certification. (Ctunet.com)

PAROCHIAL GROWTH: Enrollment in Chicago's Catholic schools has grown over the past three years. The Archdiocese of Chicago announced this week that the school system has seen an increase of 675 students during that period. (WBEZ)

HAZING CLOUD: Another soccer coach linked to hazing allegations on athletic teams at Maine West High School has been suspended without pay by the district while officials pursue his dismissal. (Tribune)

IN THE NATION
CATHOLIC SCHOOL CLOSINGS: The New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese announced Tuesday that it would close 22 elementary schools and 2 high schools, saying it could no longer afford to spend millions each year supporting schools that were not economically self-sufficient. (The New York Times)

But the charter schools that were approved might face an uncertain future. Both Foundations College Prep, which will open in Roseland, and Orange Charter, which has not picked a neighborhood yet, were pulled from the December meeting agenda, had their openings delayed by a year, and were given additional conditions they must meet before they are given final approval to open.

“They are to identify the communities in need, and also the communities that support these schools,” Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said. “One of them [Orange Charter] had six communities they were considering, and we recommended that they narrow their scope.”

Board member Andrea Zopp was particularly concerned about Orange Charter’s application. “If they find a site and it is a site I don’t agree with, that’s not in need, do I get to vote again? …Orange doesn’t even have a principal yet.” She continued: “My problem is, our guidelines require us to have people with a proven track record, which Orange does not have except for one person on the board.”

Board member Mahalia Hines also questioned the idea of conditionally approving a charter school. “We are not approving schools that are ready to go.” Board President David Vitale noted that CPS has historically approved charter schools in that way. “But does that mean it’s right?” Hines asked.

Earlier in the meeting, board member Andrea Zopp questioned Foundations College Prep principal Sarah Hunko Baker about the school’s plans. “Have you spoken to either of the aldermen there?” Zopp asked. “We are currently finalizing our support from aldermen,” Baker said.  Zopp asked about the board, and Baker admitted that the school’s board “is an area of growth for us.”

The conditions now imposed on the schools set the agenda for what they must accomplish in order to receive final approval.

Foundations must open only with the middle grades, adding one grade per year until it is a 6^th- through 12^th-grade school. Baker will be required to “participate in a mentorship/training program with a focus on developing high school leaders” and the school’s board “must expand to include member(s) with demonstrated development/fundraising capacity.”

Orange Charter must find a principal candidate who has worked successfully with a similar population of students to those the school will serve. Its budget “must be revised with more realistic fundraising goals” or identified funding sources. It must also choose a community, and be able to demonstrate that the community needs the school and supports it.

Also given a green light on Wednesday were alternative programs that will serve a mixture of dropouts, students who transfer out of their schools because they aren’t on track to graduate, and those who have been expelled.

But the schools’ 950 new seats may be just a drop in the bucket. Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative Schools Network, says there are currently 15,000 to 20,000 young high school dropouts in Chicago.

*Edison Learning – Magic Johnson Academy, which will have two locations; each will serve 150 students in grades 7 through 12.

*A new Banner Academy program, serving 225 students. Banner currently runs alternative programs at Banner South and Banner West.

*A new Pathways in Education site serving 300 students, plus 100 more students for the program’s existing site that currently serves 200 students.

In addition, the Options Lab School – currently a Youth Connections Charter School campus serving 175 dropouts – will reopen as a 200-student contract school, the Little Black Pearl Art and Design Academy. It will still continue to serve dropouts, but Executive Director Monica Haslip says it also plans to enroll younger students – including incoming freshmen who need a small school environment but aren’t yet off track. She describes the school as “a college prep arts and technology training program.”

Several of the other schools will offer a combination of online and classroom instruction.

The two Magic Johnson Academy locations will be based on a model used by 14 Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academy schools around the country, which are a joint venture by the for-profit companies Magic Johnson Enterprises and EdisonLearning.

The 10 schools that were open during the 2011-12 school year – the first year they were in operation – were all in Ohio, says Michael Serpe, a spokesman for EdisonLearning. For students who entered as seniors that year, the schools had a graduation rate of over 70 percent.

Students in the programs spend half their time in on-site online classes, and half in traditional classes. Typically, students can choose whether to attend school from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. or from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. each day, depending on work and child care schedules. Students also receive job training and job placements at Fortune 500 companies, Andre Johnson of Magic Johnson Enterprises said during the public participation segment of the meeting.

Pathways in Education also operates with a combination of online and classroom instruction. Bill Toomey, the program’s deputy superintendent, says he hopes the additional seats will help alleviate the waiting list.

“We don’t have enough slots for the students that need us,” he says. “Our current site is at 87^th and Kedzie on the Southwest Side. We are looking at Englewood, we are looking at Roseland and the Austin area” for the second location.

Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett also announced at the meeting that she will personally respond to all proposals made by the district’s Community Action Councils. She also pledged that the district will send representatives to the councils’ monthly meetings.

The community action councils were created by former schools CEO Ron Huberman, but some felt their recommendations were ignored in the last round of school actions.

“We have so longed to partner with the Board,” said 29^th Ward Ald. Deborah Graham, who is the chair of the Austin Community Action Council.

In reiterating her response to the Commission on School Utilization’s interim report, Byrd-Bennett said she has grown much more confident in the last month that CPS has the capacity to close schools.

Chief Transformation Officer Todd Babbitz noted that the district plans to offer all students from shuttered schools a space in a “welcoming school” that is higher performing.

But officials noted that in some cases, higher-performing schools might be far from students’ neighborhoods.

“When parents have taken advantage of going to a higher-performing school in the past, the culture shock has been such for the parent and the child, that it has not been a pleasant experience,” board member Mahalia Hines cautioned.  

Principals will be judged based on a new indicator CPS is developing for 3^rd through 12^th grade students that is meant to show how many students are “on track” to eventually graduate, based on their attendance, grades and number of student misconducts. The new indicator is currently being piloted at a number of schools.

The district aims to have 100 percent of its principals be “high-quality” by the 2014-2015 school year, but has not yet determined how that will be measured or what will happen to principals who score poorly.

Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett insisted the new state-mandated evaluation “is not about failure, it’s about support.”

The new evaluations also will factor in the progress made by English language learners and special education students; and a combination of graduation rates, dropout rates and attendance.

Elementary principals will be rated on student growth in math and reading on the NWEA test, as well as 8^th-grade EXPLORE test scores. High school principals will be rated on students’ growth on the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT tests. (EXPLORE and PLAN are precursor tests to the ACT.)

District officials haven’t decided yet how much weight will be assigned to each factor, but said principals will be rated most heavily on improvement among students who are considered “high-risk” and overall improvement in test scores. Overall, the different measures of student growth will add up to 50 percent of a principal’s evaluation.

The rest of a principal’s score will be based on an assessment of th