Searching for a better education, thousands of Chicago public school students started the new year Tuesday by switching schools, some taking advantage of federal reforms while others were displaced by local school closings.
Although the complex set of changes led to some isolated problems, such as children stranded waiting for buses that did not come, most parents and officials agreed that the opening of school was relatively smooth. Attendance figures for the first day will not be available until Wednesday, but spot checks suggested a solid turnout.
Troy Irvin, 12, of Englewood was happy to take advantage of a new federal law that allowed 1,200 Chicago pupils to transfer from their failing neighborhood schools into better schools. Still, the prospect of his first bus ride unsettled him enough that he decided to pass on his usual Frosted Flakes.
“I’m kind of scared I won’t know anyone,” said Irvin, a 7th grader.
But as he waited for the bus on South Ashland Avenue, he soon found that he was not alone–at least a dozen of his former Bunche School schoolmates were also transferring two miles away, to Joplin School in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
Though some parents had been critical of the limited choices offered Chicago students, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige said Tuesday that he believes Chicago Public Schools officials are making an “honest” effort to implement the new law.
“Are they doing everything we would like to see them do? Obviously not,” Paige said of Chicago school officials during a conference call with reporters. “On the other hand, we realize the limitations (of the law), and we are willing to give them leeway.”
About 1,300 more youngsters moved to new schools Tuesday after the Chicago Public Schools system closed three of its own elementary schools for poor performance. In addition, the district opened classes in four former Catholic school buildings, leased by the city to relieve overcrowding on the Southwest and Northwest Sides.
Tuesday also marked the opening of the newly constructed $47 million National Teachers Academy, at 55 W. Cermak Rd., which will serve as both a community elementary school for about 850 pupils and a training ground for prospective teachers. Experienced city teachers seeking professional development also will benefit from the school, officials said.
Mayor Richard Daley chose the National Teachers Academy as the site of his opening-day ceremonies and defended the school’s price tag, which is twice what most other elementary school buildings cost.
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`Worth every dime’
“It’s one of a kind in the country,” Daley said of the school, where unpaid student teachers in college will learn from master teachers. The students orally commit to work in the city schools for four years after graduation, helping to provide badly needed teachers. “It’s worth every dime.”
Daley took the opportunity of the first day of class to announce a new goal: early childhood education within the next five years for the children of every parent and guardian who wants it.
“Today I challenge (the city’s) Department of Human Services and the Chicago Public Schools to develop a plan to get every child between the ages of 3 and 5 … into an early education program for at least part of the day,” Daley said.
As in past years, the opening of school did bring some glitches. In one instance, parent Cynthia Long said four children headed for Disney Magnet School never got there as they waited two hours for a bus that never arrived, though the bus company said it went to the stop but no one was there.
“I was an hour late for work and my kids ended up having to stay home with my mother,” Long said.
Despite such miscues, schools chief Arne Duncan said transportation was much smoother this year than last year. “I was really pleased at how the day went,” said Duncan, who visited nine schools.
In Englewood, relief and a smile filled Irvin’s face as he saw other Bunche pupils approaching the bus stop in new gold shirts–a signal they too were abandoning Bunche, with its white-shirt dress code, to head for Joplin. Though Joplin has better test scores than Bunche, Irvin’s mother, Evelyn Handley, said academics weren’t the only reason she decided to seek a transfer under the Leave No Child Behind Act.
“Troy gets nice grades, but he often finishes his work before the other kids and then he starts talking to his friends,” said Handley, 60, who adopted Troy. A foster mother who has cared for 35 children, Handley and her husband also have five grown children, an adopted daughter and two foster children now.
“I’m hoping this gives Troy a chance to meet some more kids from outside the neighborhood,” said Handley, who lives three blocks away from Bunche.
Kids on time, bus late
The bus to Joplin arrived about a half-hour later than parents were told it would come, causing problems for parents due at work or who still had other children to get to school. Still, the 12 youngsters waiting outside Bunche at 65th Street and Ashland made it to Joplin at 79th and Honore Streets in Auburn Gresham in time for classes.
Other children who were used to walking to school got their first bus rides Tuesday because of the Chicago Public Schools decision last April to close Williams, Dodge and Terrell Elementary Schools because of poor academic performance.
Parents from the shuttered Williams School near the Dearborn Homes on South State Street were confused about their bus pickup points to their new schools. A chaotic scene resulted as some parents tried to board buses with their children.
“It’s the first day,” said Alice Crawford, a district administrator. “It will be better tomorrow.”
Once at Douglas School, which took in 200 former Williams pupils, confusion persisted. An increasingly rowdy class of 4th graders spent an hour in the morning goofing off as groups of parents wandered in and out.
The teacher was nowhere to be found despite repeated requests to the office by parents. Every time a new face came to the door, the pupils and parents asked, “Are you the teacher?”
“This is the first time I have ever seen a classroom like this,” said parent Catrina Goodman who took it upon herself to supervise the children.
“Then you’ve got new kids coming to this school,” continued Goodman, whose 9-year-old son was sitting quietly in the front of the classroom. “It’s already traumatic for them. They were forced to leave their old school and [the new school is] not prepared. That just robs you of all the excitement of being in a new school.”
Teacherless class
It was 10:15 a.m., an hour after school began, before a child welfare worker from the school came in to temporarily supervise the children.
Douglas Principal Beverly Blackwood explained later that the children were dispersed to other classrooms.
“It’s going well as our first day,” she said. “You see, many of the people who should have registered their children did not register. Many of the children lost their report cards and could not remember what rooms they were assigned to. But I think the adjustment has gone well. These things, they take time.”
The parents of the 4th graders who were sent to other classrooms will receive a letter informing them who their new teachers are, Blackwood said.
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