Any parent knows when their child isn’t listening or hiding something. That’s why Chicago Public Schools parents recognize that Chicago’s unelected Board of Education is hiding information and failing to listen. With no community input, the school board announced its five-year strategic plan in December, a plan that involves “rethinking our entire theory of action.”
When the strategic plan was met with backlash from parents across the city, the school board assured the public that it was not closing any selective-enrollment or magnet schools. In reality, it already closed schools to many students when it cut busing just three weeks before the school year commenced. Though the five-year plan came as a shock to many, it did not shock CPS Parents for Buses, also known as CPfB, our all-volunteer parent group that formed in September in response to the board’s cancellation of buses.
Eighty-five percent of students who lost busing are from low-income households. The vast majority are students of color. Despite claiming a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, the board knowingly and willfully left some of the most vulnerable students stranded with no safe means of transportation to the most diverse schools in Chicago.
When the board released its plan, its apathetic reaction to stranded families suddenly made more sense. Cutting buses was step one in revoking the right of parents to pick a school that best matches their child’s needs. The fact that Black and brown students from low-income households would be the first to transfer out of their chosen schools would be a convenient, if unintentional, consequence of the cut — shifting the demographics of those schools away from the models of diversity they’ve been in the past and building the false narrative of those schools serving only rich, white families that the board perpetuates.
But the board did not anticipate the resistance that would arrive in the form of students, parents and caregivers it had left in the dust. Over the past nine months, CPfB has advocated for our students at every single board meeting, agenda meeting and budget roundtable. We gathered data to develop actionable solutions to the busing crisis, while prioritizing students with disabilities, in temporary living situations and from low-income households.
We met with CPS Chief Operating Officer Charles Mayfield monthly. We organized a protest and secured signatures from 27 Chicago aldermen advocating our solutions. We lobbied the mayor’s office and legislators in Springfield to address the plight of 5,500 students struggling daily to get to school.
Not a single member of the board attended any of the city or state meetings. Not a single member of the board assisted families that have been pleading for help. Not a single member of the board shared anything learned from the community. Their actions reveal the truth behind the lie of “community engagement.”
Parents and students are witnessing how unchecked power sets its own course. This year, it was busing; next year, districtwide budget cuts are being managed behind the scenes without a word of parent input. Past school boards shared school budgets publicly; this board has failed to do so. What we have individually heard from our own children’s school budgets is concerning. If this strategic plan is as equitable as the board proclaims, why did it keep school-level budget cuts hidden from the public?
It’s clear that the unelected Chicago Board of Education has decided what is best for your family and will take no prisoners in its quest toward its plan.
As we approach the end of the school year, it is with great disappointment that we confess our lack of trust in this unelected school board.
However, it is not too late for CPS to show true community engagement by sharing budgets, bus forms and notes from community listening sessions and by implementing CPfB’s proposed solutions. We at CPfB and families across the city are watching.
Will the board do the right thing?
Patricia Rae Easley-Cissé, Paul Wargaski, Laura Leon and Marissa Lichwick are members of CPS Parents for Buses, an all-volunteer coalition that formed after Chicago Public Schools canceled busing for students in magnet and selective-enrollment schools three weeks before the start of the 2023-’24 school year.
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