Local School Topics

Chicago school officials may have made their decision to close 54 of the city’s schools official, but that hasn’t stopped the fight from teachers, students and parents who had direct stake in those schools. As recently as last week, students have staged protests over the closing of their schools, and members of the Chicago Teachers Union continue to make their voices heard through public protests and lawsuits. In the midst of the controversy, new information has surfaced suggesting Chicago Public Schools may not have been as forthcoming with information used to determine school closings as they could have been.

Protests Staged

The Grio reports that dozens of members of the Chicago Teachers Union were recently arrested during three days of protests that culminated in a march on City Hall. Protests began on the South and West sides of the city before the protestors turned their sights on the city’s capitol building. Those doing business at City Hall during the protests had to weave around teacher union members to arrive at the offices they needed. It was when protestors began to block elevator entrances throughout the building that arrests were made on trespassing charges.

Members of the teachers union, as well as parents, students and other in the Chicago community have voiced concerns over school closures. One of the primary worries is over students having to cross gang lines to get to their newly assigned schools. Some school board members have also called

Hawaii Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the country, is seeing improvements in the number of students who are college bound. The district attributes the positive numbers to various factors, including their ability to better track student progress in recent years. With more students showing readiness for higher education endeavors after high school, the state is confident it can boost the number of college graduates statewide within the next two decades. What is their secret? It appears a number of factors are contributing to the state’s success.

College and Career Readiness Indicators

The Honolulu Civil Beat reports that recent positive numbers from Hawaii Public Schools can be found in the latest College and Career Readiness Indicators report. The new reports were released by Hawaii P-20 Partnerships for Education and the Hawaii Department of Education. The reports use a range of metrics to evaluate college readiness for high school students in the state. According to the most recent numbers, it appears students in the Islands are making strides in nearly every indicator.

According to a press release from the Hawaii Department of Education, the recent report included the following findings:

• College Enrollment – the state saw a slight increase in college enrollment, from 53 percent in 2011 to 54 percent in 2012
• College-Level Courses – the number of students enrolling in college-level English and math courses increased by four percent each between 2011 and 2012
• Remedial Courses – the number of students requiring

It wasn’t that long ago that the state of athletics in Boston Public Schools was downright dismal. Teams did not have a fully equipped field to practice. Some were even left to run practice drills in alleyways because space was not available on school property. There were not enough uniforms to go around, leaving teammates swapping sweaty shirts with one another in the midst of competitions.

But when the sports weren’t available, even in this less than ideal state, high school and middle school students were left with too much empty time on their hands when school got out. Pay-to-play, an option seen in many of the wealthier suburban school districts nearby, simply didn’t cut it in a district where 75 percent of the student population lives below the poverty level. The quandary seemed to be growing deeper and deeper – until two Good Samaritan organizations stepped in.

This video reports on the Boston Scholar Athletes Academic Zone.

Boston Scholar Athletes Focus on Athletics, Academics

In 2009, Boston Globe reporter Bob Hohler did a series on the miserable state of affairs in Boston Public Schools athletic programs across the city. After visiting every school in the district, Hohler found that many of the problems within the system boiled down to a lack of money, according to a report at WBUR. After the reports were published, Boston Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson began

School lunches have been getting a makeover in school districts across the country, but few have gone to the extraordinary step of Public School 244 in Flushing, New York. This school has done away with meat completely in its school lunch program, becoming the first vegetarian school cafeteria in the state and across the country. Surprisingly, students don’t seem to miss their chicken nuggets and “mystery meat Thursdays,” preferring the highly nutritious – and completely delicious – menu selections they can enjoy every school day.

Moving to a Meatless Menu

NBC News reports that P.S. 244 made the move to a meatless menu somewhat gradually. The school opened in 2008 and began serving a few vegetarian meals in the beginning, to see how students responded to the menu. School staff began noticing that many students were bringing vegetarian lunches, rather than purchasing the meaty fare at the cafeteria, and the move to meatless was born. Slowly, typical student lunches like chicken nuggets were replaced with entrees made up of tofu, beans and pasta.

P.S. 244 was the perfect school to begin such an experiment in Flushing. The large majority of students in the school are from either Asian or Hispanic descent, where rice and other vegetarian choices make up a large portion of the menu at home. The school’s head cook is also a vegetarian and parent at the school. To transition students to a similar menu at school was not exactly impossible.

Students have found themselves out of school in the small district of Buena Vista in Michigan. Unfortunately, the impromptu vacation in a district made up of mostly minority and low-income students had nothing to do with the up-and-coming summer vacation. Buena Vista students have found themselves without a school to go to because the district has run out of money. Now, teachers are without a job, income, or benefits, and students are left wondering whether they will be able to officially complete their current school year.

A Financial Emergency

According to mLive, parents and students received almost no advance notice that schools in the district would be closing. On May 6, district officials decided to close the schools and lay off all the teachers in the midst of what they called a “financial emergency” under Michigan law. A letter on the district website announced the district-wide closure to parents and students on the morning of May 7, the day the schools closed their doors.

The district states in the letter that it declares a financial emergency under Michigan Public Act 436 of 2012. That financial emergency stems partly from state money the district accepted for funding Wolverine Secure Treatment Center, an alternative high school that is no longer in operation. When the state required the district to pay back the $402,000, it was discovered district officials had already spent the money and did not have funds in the coffers to reimburse the state.

This video