[in person preferred] West Side - 2023-2024 Educational Facilities Master Plan Community Roundtable
Chicago Public Schools
Development
Education
Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024
5:30 p.m. — 7:30 p.m. CST
139 S Parkside Ave. Chicago, IL 60644 (Directions)
Oscar DePriest Elementary School
This meeting has in-person and remote options, though in-person coverage is preferred (more on that below). Regardless of how you attend, you will need to RSVP via the Google Form to make sure you are on the list and receive any important meeting materials or updates.
If you attend in person you will receive an additional hour of pay. We are encouraging in-person attendance because 1) we are interested in what the discussion and vibe feels like in person and 2) it’s more likely that there will be technical difficulties with the livestream as CPS is hosting these sessions at schools across the city, as opposed to on their home turf in a room that is set up for hybrid meetings.
Pre-Research Resources
- CPS will host sixteen (16) Education Facilities Master Plan community roundtables sessions to provide information regarding the state of school facilities and gather feedback from families and members of the community. Participants will be able to collaborate and share their thoughts on how the District should prioritize repairs, construction projects, and overall investments in our school buildings. The feedback will inform CPS’ 2025 Capital Plan, future Education Facilities Master Plans, and the District’s upcoming Five-Year Strategic Plan.
- We expect that this slide deck (or something very similar) will be presented.
Reporting
Edited and summarized by the Chicago - IL Documenters Team
Note-taking by
Ebony Ellis
Chicago Public Schools held the third of 16 planned community round tables for its next five-year Educational Facilities Master Plan.
Live reporting by
Kaelyn Robinson
Chicago Public Schools held the third of 16 planned community round tables for its next five-year Educational Facilities Master Plan.
Kaelyn
@Kaelynski
Good evening, Chicago! Tonight, Chicago Public Schools is hosting a Community Round Table for their 5 year Educational Facilities Master Plan. This meeting is for the West Side planning area. I'll be livetweeting for @CHIdocumenters #CHIdocumenters
05:25 PM Jan 11, 2024 CST
The West Side Planning Area includes Austin, Humboldt, Garfield(s) Park and North Lawndale. This Facilities Plan is legally mandated to assess facilities needs for the school and plan the next five years of maintenence spending, construction, etc.
cps.edu/sites/five-yea…
The round table is taking place at Oscar DePriest Elementary School at 139 S Parkside Ave. It is scheduled to begin at 5:30.
Charles Mayfield is speaking to the importance of this event. He is thanking a contractor who provides janitorial service, Clean Comfort. As well as a contractor, JLL, who is providing contracting services. He mentions that JLL is hiring and there are job applications available.
There is visual interpretation here to help folks with hearing impairment. There are small groups arranged at tables and Mr. Mayfield is asking everyone present to introduce themselves and answer what creative furniture folks use to hold their parking spot if they shovel it out.
Lots of folks seem to know one another, there is a sense of familiarity in the gym.
Mr. Mayfield is introducing the event. There are guiding questions being presented and each table has a facilitator and note taker. Each table will have time to share at the end. Here is a link to the slide deck we are working from this evening
documenters.org/documents/slid…
Mr. Mayfield is discussing that the Facilities Master Plan will be used to build the Capital Plan for CPS. He is using words like "underutilized" and "efficiencies" that may sound familiar to folks who have followed the mass school closings under Rahm Emanuel.
He says that schools in this planning area are disproportionately underutilized, and the students are "choicing out" of public schools in the area. This means students are choosing to attend other schools, public or private.
Mr. Mayfield finishes by saying that even with a $14.5 B deficit, this meeting is not about closing schools. This issue has been closely held in education circles since the school closings were first floated, almost a decade ago.
The next speaker is Rachael Panrea (sp?), an equity officer for CPS. She is speaking about the "equity index" that weights decisions for the master plan. The largest factor is something called "community hardship."
The next speaker is Alfonso Carmona Chief Portfolio Officer, who is helping to facilitate discussions. He is pointing to a document provided to attendees. This document is a framework developed by CPS. There is a pyramid, discussing student outcomes and student wellbeing
Mr. Carmona is discussing that this framework is to develop accountability for the district around student outcomes. The schools themselves have often carried this burden alone. But Mr. Carmona says that schools can only help students achieve if they are proberly resourced.
He is also discussing student experience. Here is another handout around this. He says that our school buildings should be places that "spark joy" in the students.
There is now ten minutes for group discussion. There are three large tables of participants, one has 12 people, one has 6, and one has 10.
Mr. Carmona is speaking to some of the things he has been hearing in discussions. He is speaking about teacher capacity, and training around new items in schools.
He adds that even though the EFMP includes the word plan, but there he says that the plan is being formulated and that community engagement is part of how the district wants to formulate the plan.
Our next speaker is discussing the needs assessments for the facilities. She discusses that $14.5 B figure again. There are short and long term repairs (including energy efficiency), upgrades, and ADA accessibility.
Apologies, I am having trouble getting images to post with ALT text. I believe that my internet is somewhat lacking in the gym. 😂
Mr. Carmona is back to discuss declining enrollment. He says that birth rates, people leaving the city, and declining immigration. He says that the enrollment has been stabilizing (not including the new students who have arrived recently as migrants have been bused to town.)
Mr. Carmona brings up school closings again. These meetings ten years ago included a lot fo discussions of this topic. Mr Cardoma continues that there are not school closures included in the plan.
According to this document, schools in the planning area attract 3,500 students who come to school on the west side from outside the area. There are 11,348 students who live in the West Side Planning Area and attend school elsewhere.
Mr. Carmona takes some questions, folks asking about how the data and maps that have been handed out was compiled. Several people are asking how the maps were made or data compiled asking, "how accurate is any of this?"
Here are some recent facility investments that CPS wants to call attention to.
Mr. Mayfield is introducing the next set of questions. He is talking about being "creative" uses for underutilized schools. He specifically calls out the potential of using the public space for private use, such as a bank.
Mr. Mayfield is saying that the discussion will be cut short (30 minutes) so that there is more room for questions.
One community member is asking for the microphone. She is asking that the discussion "amongst ourselves" is not necessary, as these conversations have been happening. She calls out folks in the room that she knows, saying, we've been talking about this all along the way.
She is asking the district to allow folks to go straight into q and a, to have more back and forth with the District. She continues that the format is patronizing, telling people what to dicuss among themselves, but not engaging directly with the community.
Mr Mayfield is defending the process, and urging folks to participate as the district intends, so that he has "something to report" about this meeting. He says they need to record the answers and that they do not document the q and a for the district.
So he is saying that if attendees want to have input, they need to go through the discussion questions so that he can include input from the West Side.
Mr. Mayfield asks that folks spend 20 minutes on the discussion, and save the rest for q and a. Mr. Mayfield is standing at the back of the meeting talking with some of the folks who are upset about the process calling it "cookie cutter."
Another person says, "As much as they (the district) say they want people to be informed, but they don't." And another person is criticizing the guided questions, saying, "you aren't asking the right questions. A lot of us have our own questions and some of them are very simple."
The tone has shifted, but things are still polite. A lot of "respectfully" at the beginning of the sentences and a lot of warm hand shakes. This is a tension that has deep roots.
blockclubchicago.org/2023/08/03/chi…
Charles Mayfield, whose title at CPS is Chief Operating Officer, is reminding folks of the time and a sharing out from each table.
Some may be confused by the corporate sounding title. Chicago's schools were reorganized in 1995 and positions were replaced or shifted to resemble a corporate model, with CEOs instead of Superintendents, etc. That same reorganization also instituted an appointed school board.
We are done "discussing" among ourselves. The speaker is Ms. Jones, speaking about the frequency of the meetings, and that she is tired of meeting and having nothing done.
Ms. Jones is saying that resources need to be brought in, and children need to be coming back to our schools. She references migrants taking resources and says that "charity starts at home and spreads outward."
She concludes that she is going to keep speaking up and that she is here for the children, it is not about you (CPS).
Another speaker is speaking about the lack of parent voices. He says we need to go to every school and talk to the parents where they are. The speaker is saying that he is a member of a community group that has given the recommendations to the district.
Marlow Brown (sp?), who works in this school, is speaking about needing the resources in their school. He says, this money that we have been discussing, "we would like to use some of it." He discusses the cold building, the outdated technology.
Our next speaker is saying that the money was discussed has been spent previously, or what the deficit might be. She says that we should be discussing the moneys that might be made available to us. She says a more productive conversation is about what we might get.
She says former money or negative money isn't helpful. She says it is disingenuous to come and ask what we want, when there isn't anything you are offering.
Out next speaker is Arlene Green (sp?), she is saying that one of the schools in her neighborhood, Marshall, there is no elevator. She says they have been advocating for 20 years for an elevator. And how many new schools have been built? She continues.
She discusses charters attracting high performing students, and then sending back any students they don't want, but the money doesn't come back with them.
Our next speaker is a parent and Marshall alum. She says her kids attend schools on the south side because there aren't schools with CTE programs on the west side. She says that Marshall went from 2000 students to 150.
She says the charters are doing a disservice. They take students out of the buildings, and passing them without teaching them just to continue to get funding.
This is a more holistic approach to the problem of underutilized schools, one that looks at root causes, and bringing students back into the schools instead of being "creative." These folks want students back in the building, in resourced schools that aren't being privatized.
Mr. Mayfield is redirecting us to the discussion questions saying that he wants to have a share out from folks joining virtually. A speaker is saying that daycare center or other ideas that could generate revenue.
One of the tables is saying that the engineers in the schools should be included in the conversations around what facilities need. She also mentions that third party contractors are often unvaccinated which creates problems in the schools.
The next table is discussing black people leaving the city, black students leaving the district. And the policies are at fault.
The next table is speaking about transparency. She is asking for commitments, saying how can we know that you are going to do anything about it. She is speaking to the context of No Child Left Behind, Arne Duncan, closures, etc.
She says that the community what's to know the district's goals and intentions. She says the district comes to the community, divides them up, rebrand their ideas as their own, or outright ignores us.
She says that the district is doing more work than it needs to in this data and conversation. The community is asking for the same things, things they never get. Elevators, better climate control in the buildings.
So, folks are answering the larger question. They are trying to redirect district efforts into "collaboration" with community groups and folks that have been looking at this data all along.
One quick correction, i referred to Mr. Carmona earlier, but it should be Dr. Carmona.
Our next speaker is advocating for accountability for how the billions of dollars is being spent. There is all this money and then we come here to talk about deficits and efficiencies.
There is more conversation about money that was miraculously found to help migrants, because of the political dynamics. Meanwhile, the west side is still waiting for money that never flows out to their community.
Chief Mayfield is thanking everyone and saying that in the interest of everyone's time, they will conclude. The meeting is adjourned at 7:42.
Folks are filtering out, there is a discussion among attendees that they feel like the district isn't willing to have honest conversations and that they are tired of being treated as if they don't understand complex issues in their schools.
This concludes my coverage of the Chicago Public Schools Educational Facilities Master Plan Community Round Table for the West Side Planning Area. For more hyper local coverage, visit .
Documenters.org
Another correction. The equity officer from the top of the meeting is named Rachel Parnell. Apologies.
Attachments
Agency Information
Chicago Public Schools
The Chicago Board of Education is charged with governing the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), setting policies, governing operations, and charting the direction of current and future programs.
A list of board members (with headshots) is here. Board members are currently appointed by the mayor. In 2021, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law that will gradually transition to a 21-member elected school board over the course of 2024-2027.
A list of CPS executive leadership is here.