Chicago board approves closings, "turnarounds"

The Chicago School Board has approved plans to shake up 18 schools -- the beginning of what could be 50 school closings over the next five years. Board members approved plans to “turnaround’’ four flagging high schools and four of their feeder elementary schools; to close, consolidate or phase out eight half-empty elementary schools, and to relocate two others.
Click here to read The Chicago Sun-Times article.

EARLIER: Parents and teachers from more than 18 Chicago public schools slated for closing and consolidation are expected to flood a school board meeting to blast the plan. Hundreds of supporters have spent the last month lobbying to keep open the 19 schools originally named in the plan, but so far, only Abbott Elementary School in the Bridgeport neighborhood is being spared.
To read The Chicago Tribune article, click here.

FROM JANUARY 2008: Eleven Chicago public schools will be either relocated, phased out, consolidated or closed in an effort to address low enrollment. The plan also calls for eight failing schools to be "turned around," a process in which 200 teachers and seven principals could be replaced with better-performing, better-qualified educators. (Chicago Tribune)

EARLIER: Parents, ministers and students are pleading with Chicago Public Schools officials to save some of the 19 schools swept up in what officials say will be the largest wave of school shakeups ever in the district. The school system is ready to release plans for the first wave of what could be the closings of up to 50 school buildings over five years. Some address half-empty buildings caused by an enrollment decline of 41,000 students since 2001; others aim to pump new academic life into ailing schools. (Chicago Tribune)

ALSO: Chicago Board of Education officials have approved a revised policy to limit military recruiters at the city's public high schools. Juniors and seniors now have until Dec. 1 each year to bar military officials from being able to obtain private information about them. (Chicago Tribune)

From December 2007: Chicago could close 10 to 15 public elementary schools in each of the next five years, as enrollment plummets on the city's Near West and South Sides. Even as crowding reaches critical levels in some neighborhoods, the district says 147 of its 417 neighborhood elementary schools are well below capacity, mostly because of families moving out of the neighborhoods and a decline in the number of children per family. (Chicago Tribune)