Repurposing Closed Schools

In its first few months as a hybrid board, the Chicago Board of Education has only begun to tackle one of Chicago's festering challenges: what to do with closed schools. In the wake of the 2013 mass school closures, private developers quickly snatched up buildings in desirable neighborhoods, like Uptown's Stewart School Lofts. But many buildings remain vacant. Bids to purchase 20 vacant CPS properties were due May 30.

Over the summer, Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor (20) held a series of meetings and tours to hear from community members about how they would like to see the ward's five closed schools repurposed. Tyra Owens, Taylor's director of community planning and economic development, told the Hyde Park Herald that their community engagement efforts showed support for creating housing, grocery stores, wellness and workforce development hubs. Residents would also welcome spaces for culture, youth activities and recreation.

The recent renovation of Emmet Elementary shows what's possible. On Juneteenth, Austin celebrated the grand opening of the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation. Emmet's transformation was spearheaded by two community nonprofits, Austin Coming Together and the Westside Health Authority. The $40.8 million project brought together $22 million in state and city grants, including $12.5 million in TIF funding, $10.4 million in federal new market tax credits, $20,000 from Austin residents, and the remainder from a mix of foundations, corporations, and an anonymous donor. (An aside: The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on the future of new market tax credits, which are essential to financing these kinds of redevelopment projects. He made them permanent in July, but is now fighting in court to cut the staff of the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), who administer loans to nonprofits whose lenders may receive those tax credits.)

While Austin celebrates Emmet's community-led makeover, it remains to be seen whether the 20 properties out to bid can be similarly transformed. At the same time, dozens of other schools shuttered before the infamous 2013 closures are also in limbo. Price Elementary is one of them. Price, which officially shares a campus with King College Prep high school in Bronzeville, was closed in 2012.

In September 2011, Michael Neal, pastor of Glorious Light Church, arranged to rent Price's gym to hold worship services on Sundays. When Price was closed in June 2012, Neal, known to all as Pastor Mike, asked CPS if the church could continue to rent space in the building, and CPS agreed. "We already had a vision for the Timothy Community Corporation," said Neal, referring to the church's related nonprofit that now sponsors programs in literacy, health, and leadership. Timothy's work at Price has helped three fitness businesses launch.

Their presence at Price has kept the school from deteriorating like other closed schools. "We're not making money, but I know for a fact we're keeping this building alive," said Neal. Volunteers have repainted the first-floor hallway and classrooms and preserved a piano once owned by Black composer Florence Price, the school's namesake. Price now hosts spin classes, financial literacy, free books, and workshops on health topics provided by staff from Rush and Northwestern hospitals. A partner nonprofit, Sisters Working It Out, holds monthly support groups for women battling breast cancer and is expanding its services to support women as they manage chronic health conditions.

Neal would like to bring in more partners and expand the community hub, but without a long-term lease, or ideally, being able to purchase the building, it's hard to convince institutional partners to do more than offer workshops. "Right now we're in limbo," he said.

The makers of the new documentary, Beyond Closure, hope their film will spark new interest in reviving closed schools. Its next public showing is October 30, in Austin, at the Kehrein Center for the Arts, one block north of the Aspire Center. Before the film, attendees will be able to tour the center.

InFocus: Cydney Wallace

Bowen High School alum Cydney Wallace, who now lives in Gage Park, is a down-to-earth mother of four. Her oldest recently graduated from CPS, and her younger children all attend district schools. As a board member, she's focused on easing the friction families experience when navigating the school district. "I'm a parent of four kids from the South Side of Chicago that's barely out of poverty," she noted. That lived experience informs her priorities.

Make school district information more accessible. "My dream for CPS is that students and parents are able to plug in as easily and as naturally as we do video games and new tech," she said. As it stands, parents struggle to find the information they want to know. "Unless you happened to hear about it from the right person, you didn't know it was there."

While CPS has plenty of channels to reach parents, Wallace thinks the information could be better organized to help parents more easily find what they need to know. She'd like to see everything from timestamps and video clips of key moments in board meetings to parent-friendly ways to find programs and activities for their children. She'd also like to see more attention to language access for parents and more language opportunities for CPS students. Audio versions of individual schools' student handbooks in multiple languages, read by students, could be a two-fer, she suggested.

Ease the high school selection process. This starts with improving the GoCPS user experience. "There's got to be a way to stop it from crashing" during periods of heavy use, Wallace said. She's also sympathetic to charter schools that complain that their schools are harder to find on the platform.

At the same time, she wants to help neighborhood high schools overcome inaccurate stereotypes. She wants to help families get to know their local high schools from the inside, whether through high school to elementary school mentoring programs or more opportunities for younger families to see what's happening inside their nearby high schools. "If our elementary school students and their parents saw that, they wouldn't be like, 'Oh, what a terrible neighborhood school,'" she said.

Take proactive steps to ensure student safety in getting to and from school. "I'm really sad about Anakin Perez," the 9-year-old who was hit by a car and killed in front of McNair Elementary in Austin. "I would like to be able to do something about that," she said. She'd like to see more investment in complements to crossing guards, which were recently cut to reduce the budget deficit.

Soundbite: "I think our students deserve schools that reflect the beauty of their communities."

Board Meeting Preview

Thursday's board meeting will be preceded by a public hearing on a waiver application that would allow CPS to change its gym schedule for grades K-8. Currently, elementary students take gym three days a week for a total of 120 minutes. CPS would like to maintain the same number of weekly minutes but create two 60-minute gym sessions per week instead of three 40-minute sessions. According to the related board item, the school district is requesting the change because "this would be more effective and efficient due to facility limitations."

Here are some other noteworthy board agenda items for Thursday's meeting.

Policy updates. The board will vote on changes to its policies regarding intellectual property and acceptable use of technology for students and staff.

Protections for laid-off custodians. In a resolution, the board encourages CPS to work with SEIU locals 1 and 73 to ensure that custodians who want to shift from working with private contractors to working directly for CPS receive hiring priority and maintain their seniority.

Charter renewals. Various charter lease and renewal agreements are still in negotiations.

New chiefs? There are two placeholder items to appoint new chief officers in CPS. The appointments could be made on Thursday or held for a future meeting. The district organizational chart, which appears to have been updated on October 6, shows three vacancies: health, finance, and education. Sources say Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona could be appointed to serve as an interim Chief Education Officer.

News Bites

ICE Enforcement and Schools: Yesterday, ICE arrested a Chicago man whose daughter, a Lake View High School student, is fighting an aggressive soft tissue cancer. Teacher Valerie Wadycki launched a GoFundMe to support Ofelia Torres and her family. Community efforts to protect families taking children to and from school continue to gain momentum. A walking school bus launched Monday at an Albany Park elementary school already has 52 families involved, and efforts are underway to increase patrol volunteers around a group of schools in Back of the Yards.

Upcoming Contracts: On Monday, Chalkbeat Chicago reported that CPS is considering a four-year, $60 million contract with Vernon Hills-based tech supplier CDW to track district hardware like laptops and tablets. But the October agenda does not appear to have an item for this contract.

Earlier this month, Illinois Families for Public Schools, the mental health advocacy group NAMI Chicago, and other advocates called on CPS to cancel its contract with Hazel Health for online counseling services over concerns about student privacy and the potential that sensitive information could be used to train AI.