Chicago students displaced by closures avoid schools that were selected for them

Almost half the students most affected by public school shutdowns in Chicago did not enroll this fall in the new schools where officials planned for them to go, district records show. The Chicago Tribune reports that nearly 7,000 students were enrolled last spring in 30 city elementary schools that have since been decommissioned and their buildings closed. But more than 3,300 of those children — 48 percent — are not attending the "welcoming" schools designated to take them in this fall. The reasons why so many displaced students went elsewhere are varied: Some students and their parents worried about gang rivalries, others wanted classes closer to home, and still others chose better performing schools than the ones the district had selected for them.