Chicago Public Schools are taking a major hit in light of recent budget cuts. Schools are now facing the elimination of teachers, sophomore sports and school materials.
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The proposed budget for the next year plans to cut $1.3 billion dollars in funding for education within the state of Illinois. In Chicago $368 million will be cut to the Chicago Public School system. Statewide 30,000 teachers will be without jobs come September and in Chicago 2,700 teaching jobs have been eliminated.
At the same time, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools Ron Huberman awarded himself a $300,000 yearly pay increase as well as giving his administrative staff raises. Outlined in the budget, the top officials in each of the 53 departments within CPS as well as many of their assistants have received raises this year.
According to Chicago Reader, at a May 11 press conference Huberman said he has drastically cut the central office payroll. “In the administrative ranks we’ve reduced or eliminated over 50 positions that make over $100,000, all to tighten our belts internally,” said Huberman.
Various Chicago Public Schools affected by the budget cuts:
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Sophomore sports are being cut, assistant coaches are now being asked to work for free. Foreign language programs in 28 Chicago elementary schools have been cut.
Fifteen teacher positions have been terminated at Morgan Park High School due to the budget cuts. Lauren Luchessi, a social studies teacher who has been teaching at Morgan Park for five years said that those teachers that have been laid off have not told their students yet for fear of disrupting their learning environment.
“They are cutting student bus cards so now we have to pay out of our own pockets to get to school,” said Atwan Gist, a junior at Morgan Park High School in Chicago’s west side.
“I think around April it started to be an emotional, physicality thing where you started to see the sophomore cuts you and you started to hear about position cuts. Then there was fear about losing a job and losing some of the better teachers we have. There was a palpable fear amongst staff; students can sense that fear and it really affects their ability to focus on their schoolwork,” said Luchessi.
Students at Morgan High are beginning to feel the tug from their own pocket money as a result of the budget cuts. Seventeen-year-old Justin Robertson said, “They raised our activities’ fees. What was usually just a couple of 20’s from my mother, is now something I have to chip in.”
Robertson said he is very passionate about bowling and relies on it to get scouted for college scholarships. He said he fears that with the increased activities fees, he will be unable to continue to bowl and in the end, not be able to go to college.
Going from the west side to the southwest side of Chicago, at Curie Metropolitan High School you can hear the same tune. At Curie teachers are anticipating twenty position cuts coupled with the threat of terminating summer school programs and sophomore sports next season.
“We [teachers] are strongly against the cuts. I really don’t think it’s where you need to go,” said David Coronado, a guidance counselor and baseball coach at Curie Metropolitan High School. “This is your future, this is what we have to work with. These children are the people that are going to take care of us when we are older.”
“We need to strive to get as many resources we can to them. I think we are already strapped for resources and for them to cut it doesn’t’ make a lot of sense,” said Coronado.
“I don’t think it is flawed. It falls on everyone; the parents, teachers, and students,” said Alderman Balcer of the 11th ward. Balcer said it is not the CPS system’s fault and that he holds teachers accountable. “They should complain if they aren’t getting funded.”
Coronado believes that budget cuts are going to have negative effects on students who no longer have sports, summer school, and extracurricular activities to keep them motivated and disengaged with street drugs and violence.
Summer school programs at Morgan Park High School are being cut down so that only two courses over the summer will be offered. Coronado said that they are now placing the responsibility on the students to learn the material the first time around.
“They are taking away our summer school and now we can’t fix the mistakes we made,” said Nadia Villanueva, a sophomore at Curie Metropolitan High School. “It makes us realize that instead of making mistakes, slacking off and then just going to summer school- it’s making us realize we need to do better.”
“I’m concerned about the privatization of public schools,” said Luchessi. “315 million was spent this year on contract schools, charter schools and turnarounds- which are all privately operated and have no parent local school council supervision. I’m really worried about a public commodity becoming private and being run for other peoples’ interest rather than the community’s.”
At Morgan Park High School, the music program is facing even more limited money than before. The school has been trying to get a music lab over the couple of years but hasn’t been successful in doing so.
“They haven’t been able to get the keyboards they need so they can practice the notes they are learning,” said Robertson. If everything is all theoretical then you can’t put any use to it in the real world.”
“I think that many of the students are very well aware of the discrepancies within public education, within magnet schools and within selected enrollment schools. They could potentially take this a little personally, but I think they were already well aware of the inequalities within the public education system,” said Coronado.
The average ACT score at Morgan Park High School is 18.8 and at Curie it is 18.2. At Percy Julian High School the average ACT is 16.4.
After repeated attempts, the CPS administration was unavailable for questions.
Students said they hate their school’s cafeteria food and wish it could be better. When it comes to school lunches, it seems some things will never change.
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