As protesters denounced a state investigation as a veiled attempt to push Puerto Ricans out of their Near Northwest Side neighborhoods, leaders of an Illinois House Committee investigating Clemente High School said Tuesday that $750,000 to $1 million in poverty funds may have been misspent at the school, including on parental work never performed.
State Rep. Edgar Lopez (D-Chicago), committee chairman, and Steven Miller, the committee’s special counsel, said the panel will look into whether stipends to parents awarded by the Clemente High local school council since 1989 served as a patronage fund for persons advocating the independence of Puerto Rico and the pardon of imprisoned FALN radicals.
Committee hearings begin Wednesday at the State of Illinois Center.
In some years, Miller said, 17 percent of the high school’s state poverty funds was spent on parental stipends while the state average was 2 percent, and about 700 parents had received the stipends since 1989.
The Clemente LSC received between $1.25 million and $1.5 million a year in Illinois poverty-fighting funds, based on the number of impoverished students. It is allowed under law to spend the funds at its discretion on educational needs.
The parental stipends were to be used for tutoring, patrolling hallways and assisting classroom teachers.
But a recent Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees audit showed that Clemente High School’s documentation was poor on whether parents performed work, had legitimate Social Security numbers or passed criminal background checks, Miller said.
Miller said the committee also will examine the quality of oversight performed by the Chicago and Illinois school boards at Clemente.
Miller said a number of persons have refused to comply with the committee’s subpoenas during the one-year investigation, but he will not seek a court ruling ordering compliance because the committee does not want witnesses testifying under duress.
Lopez said evidence and testimony will be turned over to state and federal prosecutors.
Meanwhile, with six Chicago police officers stationed nearby, a small group of protesters pounded on windows at Lopez’s district office at 1951 W. Division St. Tuesday afternoon. They demanded Lopez listen to their charges that the hearings are an effort to gentrify the Puerto Rican neighborhood surrounding Clemente.
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Eleven protesters were barred from Lopez’s office by Chicago tactical police officers. Two officers moved protesters out of Lopez’s office as the protesters shouted, “Shame.”
The protesters said they live near Clemente and described themselves as “Friends of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center” at 1671 N. Claremont Ave. They said the hearings are an attack on Clemente leaders’ attempt to provide a curriculum rich in Puerto Rican identity.
Several said there may have been minor accounting errors by the Clemente LSC in the handling of state poverty funds, but they claimed Wednesday’s hearings would be biased and overblown.
The protesters, who said they are not Hispanic, contended that Lopez is a pawn of forces gentrifying the neighborhood.
“I have to question why (Lopez) feels so threatened by the reforms that have helped that school,” said Susan McNish, a neighborhood resident who said she is a suburban teacher.
Lopez, however, said he was surprised the crowd was small and dismissed their charges.
“Why would I want Hispanic people to move out of my district? To me, it doesn’t make any sense,” Lopez said.