Below is the text of what I read and submitted to CPS at the Board meeting today. Arne Duncan and Rufus Williams were responsive and introduced me to the CPS demographics analyzer.
On a side note, best wishes to the former Edison, now to be housed at APMA, likely to be known as the new regional gifted center. I am grateful for the education Edison provided for the past 23 years.
February 27, 2008
To: CPS Board of Education
"I am here as a Palmer Elementary parent concerned about quality education and the impact of overcrowding.
Palmer Elementary has seen a dramatic rise in student population, from 482 students in 1991 to 933 students in 2006, a 99% increase, yet Palmer has not been included in any recent conversations to relieve our overcrowding. Given our demographic history, it seems fitting that we would be given consideration in addressing our needs, especially as a school with an 88% Space Utility over-crowding rating, according to the 2007 CPS Space Utility Report.
While
-we have no science lab
-no computer lab
-no foreign language instruction
-no music instruction
-no recess, and
-no lockers for grades 4-8
we do have some questions.
Before posing just a few of our questions, I want to iterate that our eastern attendance boundary is exactly one mile from the Albany Park Multicultural Academy which, according to a May 10, 2005 CPS press release, was built to relieve overcrowding with Hibbard Elementary serving as the main feeder school, and “students will also come from other surrounding elementary and middle schools”. Members of the board, Palmer is one of those overcrowded surrounding schools, yet we were not included in any conversations about the use of this facility, built in and for the needs of our community.
I am here to ask: What is the plan for Palmer Elementary’s overcrowding? Does a plan exist? Will an addition be built to accommodate our community’s needs? Will attendance boundaries be adjusted? Will our pupils have the option to elect to attend APMA or new magnet schools with capped or earmarked seats?
The Palmer community would like to have meaningful dialogue with both CPS planners and elected officials regarding our needs and optimistically await responses to our questions.
In the meantime, it is my personal recommendation as the parent of an Edison alum, as well as, a current Palmer elementary student, that the board not approve the relocation of the Edison Regional Gifted Center to the Albany Park Multicultural Academy."
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Getting Up to Speed on Albany Park Multi-Culti
I suggest Palmer’s overcrowding be relieved by ‘letting some of the air out of the balloon’: capping 50 seats each school year at APMA for both Palmer 7th graders and 8th graders, (total 100 seats annually), to voluntarily elect to transfer out of Palmer to attend Albany Park Multi-Cultural Academy. Offered on a first right-of-refusal basis.
This will effectively reduce Palmer’s overcrowding to 80% or less, resulting in not having other remedies imposed on the Palmer community, such as and likely
1) year-round school, or
2) split shift school days, and/or
3) ‘controlled enrollment’.
If the Albany Park (and North Mayfair) communities do not express themselves at this time, they are likely looking at one of the three scenarios above beginning in 2009.
Of course, an addition at Palmer would also be a solution, however the community has not consistently or effectively expressed its concerns to elected officials.
Here are some articles and links regarding the Albany Park Multicural Academy:
1) This CPS press release was found at http://www.pbcchicago.com/subhtml/press/pr_albany_park2.asp and appears to have been removed from that URL. Note the second paragraph.
CPS and Public Building Commission Break Ground on New Middle School in
Albany Park
*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
May 10, 2005
Malon Edwards
CPS Office of Communications
Telephone: 773.553-1620
Website: www.cps.k12.il.us
CPS Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan and Public Building Commission
of Chicago Executive Director Montel Gayles gathered with community
leaders on the Northwest side today to break ground for a new building
for Albany Park Multicultural Academy to help relieve overcrowding. The
school is currently housed within Von Steuben Metro Science Center, 5039
N. Kimball Ave.
The new building, to be located at 4929 N. Sawyer, will accommodate
approximately 700 students and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2006.
Hibbard Elementary will be the main feeder school, though students will
also come from other surrounding elementary and middle schools.
"Relieving overcrowding has been an ongoing commitment of this
administration," said Duncan. "A better learning environment contributes
to better performance."
The $20 million Albany Park Middle School will be more than 104,000
square feet and have 26 standard academic classrooms for 7th- and
8th-graders. Other features will include two science rooms, a music
room, an art room, a computer room, a multipurpose room, a library media
center, an administrative center, a nurse and student services center
and a gym.
The school also will be fully accessible to people with disabilities, it
will include a state-of-the-art computer network. Some of the proposed
environmental features will include recycled building components, a
motion activated lighting control system to save energy, and vegetative
roof surfaces that capture rainwater, return a portion to the atmosphere
and lower the roof temperature to conserve energy.
Over the past decade, 40,000 new classroom seats have been added by
building new schools and approximately 70 annexes, and leasing closed
Catholic schools and reopening them as Chicago public schools.
2) Under Siege
Albany Park residents forced out by progress find it's hard to argue with a school.
Author: Ben Joravsky Date: October 8, 1999 Appeared in Section 1 Word count: 1486
By Ben Joravsky
A year ago last spring the city called a meeting in Albany Park to boast about the area's bright new possibilities. City planners unveiled a map that showed the Ainslie hotel, a controversial SRO at the corner of Kedzie and Ainslie, replaced with a park.
Don't worry, the planners assured outraged Ainslie residents, nothing's official--it's a proposal, not a plan. Consider it a sketch of a work in progress.
The residents remained unconvinced. "Just watch, the other shoe's gonna fall," predicted Joe Arnold, a tenant activist who lives in the Ainslie.
Well, the mighty crash coming out of Albany Park last week was that other shoe landing with a thud. The city produced its final plan for the spot, and the Ainslie and its 88 units are coming down all right--along with some 80 other units of affordable housing a block west in the 4900 block of North Sawyer. But they aren't making way for a park; they'll be replaced by a much-needed school.
An invaluable lesson is being taught about urban renewal under Mayor Daley, when City Hall's long reach extends all the way to the schools. "Oh, they're slick," says Arnold. "They knew there would be an outcry if they kicked us out for anything other than a school."
The Ainslie affair's one of those spirited neighborhood battles that symbolizes a citywide debate--in this case, how to preserve low-income housing in the face of gentrification? The corner of Kedzie and Ainslie is by no means Lincoln Park. But nearby housing costs are rising as young professionals continue to migrate northwest to the end of the Ravenswood line.
The Ainslie was controversial long before yuppies ever heard of Albany Park. For years block club leaders have complained of its crime and grime. Alderman Margaret Laurino has called for its demolition.
The tenants managed to beat back the bulldozers, convincing the city last year to buy out the owners and install a new management team. "It's much better run than it used to be," says Arnold. But Laurino and block club leaders remained unconvinced. They continued to call for replacing the Ainslie with anything (a park, shopping strip, housing) that might clean up the area.
Mayor Daley sent mixed signals. At roughly the same time that his housing department was spending a million dollars to save the Ainslie, his planning department was suggesting that it and other "old" or "dilapidated" properties be torn down. The contradictions became apparent during an August 1998 meeting at North Park University. Ainslie tenants hooted and heckled as planning consultants hired by the city presented a "vision for the future" that the SRO was by no means certain to be part of.
In the meantime the community was facing an unrelated crisis. Its school-age population had rapidly expanded, in part because of an influx of working-class and poor families displaced by gentrification in other north-side neighborhoods. Hibbard School at Ainslie and Sawyer was filled to capacity, despite a large new annex that swallowed up the playground. The local high school, Von Steuben, was jammed, much of its space having been given over to the Albany Park Middle School, which had nowhere else to go. About 1,000 children were being bused to less crowded schools across town, and residents were pleading for a new school. "We have 29 buses coming into this community every day because we have no more room," says Anthony Jelinek, Hibbard's principal. "One of the hardest jobs I have is having to tell a parent, 'No, your child can't come to Hibbard even though you live just down the street.'"
Last month the two issues converged. The school board revealed plans to build a new middle school on the east side of Sawyer, across the street from Hibbard and around the corner from the Ainslie. The hotel, as well as some 20 buildings on Sawyer--most of them low-rent apartments inhabited by immigrants--would be demolished, and the 4900 block of Sawyer would be closed to create a campus. "We want to bring the Albany Park Middle School into its own facility," says Tim Martin, the board's chief of operations. "We need to ease the overcrowding and stop busing kids out of their neighborhood."
On September 30 the conference room at North Park University filled with some of the same activists and planners who'd met there 13 months earlier. But this time no distinctions were made between "proposals" and "plans." The new school was coming and private property would be seized, maybe as soon as the spring, Martin announced.
"To build a school we need to buy land, and buying land is not easy," Martin said. "There isn't open space. We need to take houses." He talked about similar school board projects. "We have relocated some 400 homes and provided relocation assistance to those who rent, own buildings, or live in single-family homes. Our pledge here is to do much the same. Is it easy to do? Absolutely not. Is it without controversy? No. But we don't want to bus. We want as many students walking to school as possible."
The new middle school and adjacent Hibbard would be surrounded by an "urban park" of open land and playgrounds.
One resident suggested that the new school be built on a relatively underdeveloped stretch of Foster west of Kedzie, thus saving the Ainslie and the properties on Sawyer. But Martin said Foster was too congested. "We wouldn't want children to have to cross a busy street to get to school," added Giacomo Mancuso, the board's director of planning and development.
The plan was immediately endorsed by Laurino, who said the new school would become part of an educational corridor along Kedzie that would include the new North Side Prep High School and North Park University, which has its own expansion plans. "Schools are an important element of our community," said Laurino. "We have something to be proud of."
Not surprisingly, few residents facing displacement were convinced. What followed was one of those strange rituals in which lower-level aides in dark business suits stand before a snarling crowd in the guise of public servants carrying on an open and honest exchange of information. Invariably, however, the aides have no answers to the thorniest questions--which in this case were, "Where will we be relocated?" and "How much relocation assistance will we receive?" Policy makers who might know the answers are generally far removed from such frays.
For about 20 minutes the residents bombarded the aides with caustic comments and wisecracks. Few if any believed the official explanation of why the Foster site wouldn't do. Most children in Chicago cross busy streets to reach school; even under the board's plan many kids would be crossing Kedzie to get to Hibbard and the new middle school. And how could the aides expect anyone to believe their pleas for green space? Only a few months ago many of the same officials had agreed to replace a grassy park a few blocks away with a fenced-in, off-limits, artificially surfaced soccer field reserved mainly for North Park University.
To critics, the plan was less about educating children than about pushing out the poor. "My kids go to Hibbard, so I know how much they need a new school," says Israel Pinto, who lives on the 4900 block of Sawyer. "But everyone knows what's going on. We knew why they're putting it there as opposed to Foster. They want to get rid of the Ainslie and all the other buildings on Sawyer."
Some residents favored the plan. "There's always trade-offs, but why should the children be the ones who have to make the trade-off?" said Julie Godinez, who lives in the neighborhood and brought her two young children to the meeting. "We need more parks--I see kids playing between parked cars. We need schools. Families are moving here--why should they be bused out? I'm sure many parents whose children are bused out would endorse this plan."
"Change is hurtful at first, but all communities go through changes," added another resident. "We have to pay a price now, but eventually the gains outweigh the negatives."
The meeting closed with an announcement by city planners of yet another meeting to discuss a "proposal," not a plan, to designate much of the business property surrounded by Bryn Mawr, Wilson, Harding, and Kedzie a tax increment financing district. If the idea's adopted, the city would gain the right to seize private property and replace old businesses with new ones, all in the name of community development and economic progress.
"The people calling it progress are never the people getting moved out," said Pinto, as he walked along Sawyer after the meeting. "They talk about trade-offs, but what are they going to tell my kids who have to move? I've lived around here all my life. I went to Hibbard and Von Steuben. I live with my parents in the two-flat they bought ten years ago. It was their dream house. Now that the area's getting better they want to just move us all away."
3) CPS Space Utilization Reports:
a) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_2.pdf
b) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_3.pdf
c) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_1.pdf
4) Chicago Reader Article:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/theworks/080207/
5) Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-080201edison_breifs,0,2440103.story
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-edison_23jan23,1,5816636.story
6) Pioneer Press
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/edisonpark/news/778545,ed-dispensa-020708-s1.article
7) Neighborhood Capital Budget Group (from 2005)
http://www.ncbg.org/schools/el_crowding.htm
8) Mayor Daley Quote:
“We have to build more magnet programs in every school so they don’t feel they have to go to a magnet school. ..What they have to do is build more magnet schools in every community and have magnet programs in neighborhood schools as well.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/777419,magnet020508.article
This will effectively reduce Palmer’s overcrowding to 80% or less, resulting in not having other remedies imposed on the Palmer community, such as and likely
1) year-round school, or
2) split shift school days, and/or
3) ‘controlled enrollment’.
If the Albany Park (and North Mayfair) communities do not express themselves at this time, they are likely looking at one of the three scenarios above beginning in 2009.
Of course, an addition at Palmer would also be a solution, however the community has not consistently or effectively expressed its concerns to elected officials.
Here are some articles and links regarding the Albany Park Multicural Academy:
1) This CPS press release was found at http://www.pbcchicago.com/subhtml/press/pr_albany_park2.asp and appears to have been removed from that URL. Note the second paragraph.
CPS and Public Building Commission Break Ground on New Middle School in
Albany Park
*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
May 10, 2005
Malon Edwards
CPS Office of Communications
Telephone: 773.553-1620
Website: www.cps.k12.il.us
CPS Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan and Public Building Commission
of Chicago Executive Director Montel Gayles gathered with community
leaders on the Northwest side today to break ground for a new building
for Albany Park Multicultural Academy to help relieve overcrowding. The
school is currently housed within Von Steuben Metro Science Center, 5039
N. Kimball Ave.
The new building, to be located at 4929 N. Sawyer, will accommodate
approximately 700 students and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2006.
Hibbard Elementary will be the main feeder school, though students will
also come from other surrounding elementary and middle schools.
"Relieving overcrowding has been an ongoing commitment of this
administration," said Duncan. "A better learning environment contributes
to better performance."
The $20 million Albany Park Middle School will be more than 104,000
square feet and have 26 standard academic classrooms for 7th- and
8th-graders. Other features will include two science rooms, a music
room, an art room, a computer room, a multipurpose room, a library media
center, an administrative center, a nurse and student services center
and a gym.
The school also will be fully accessible to people with disabilities, it
will include a state-of-the-art computer network. Some of the proposed
environmental features will include recycled building components, a
motion activated lighting control system to save energy, and vegetative
roof surfaces that capture rainwater, return a portion to the atmosphere
and lower the roof temperature to conserve energy.
Over the past decade, 40,000 new classroom seats have been added by
building new schools and approximately 70 annexes, and leasing closed
Catholic schools and reopening them as Chicago public schools.
2) Under Siege
Albany Park residents forced out by progress find it's hard to argue with a school.
Author: Ben Joravsky Date: October 8, 1999 Appeared in Section 1 Word count: 1486
By Ben Joravsky
A year ago last spring the city called a meeting in Albany Park to boast about the area's bright new possibilities. City planners unveiled a map that showed the Ainslie hotel, a controversial SRO at the corner of Kedzie and Ainslie, replaced with a park.
Don't worry, the planners assured outraged Ainslie residents, nothing's official--it's a proposal, not a plan. Consider it a sketch of a work in progress.
The residents remained unconvinced. "Just watch, the other shoe's gonna fall," predicted Joe Arnold, a tenant activist who lives in the Ainslie.
Well, the mighty crash coming out of Albany Park last week was that other shoe landing with a thud. The city produced its final plan for the spot, and the Ainslie and its 88 units are coming down all right--along with some 80 other units of affordable housing a block west in the 4900 block of North Sawyer. But they aren't making way for a park; they'll be replaced by a much-needed school.
An invaluable lesson is being taught about urban renewal under Mayor Daley, when City Hall's long reach extends all the way to the schools. "Oh, they're slick," says Arnold. "They knew there would be an outcry if they kicked us out for anything other than a school."
The Ainslie affair's one of those spirited neighborhood battles that symbolizes a citywide debate--in this case, how to preserve low-income housing in the face of gentrification? The corner of Kedzie and Ainslie is by no means Lincoln Park. But nearby housing costs are rising as young professionals continue to migrate northwest to the end of the Ravenswood line.
The Ainslie was controversial long before yuppies ever heard of Albany Park. For years block club leaders have complained of its crime and grime. Alderman Margaret Laurino has called for its demolition.
The tenants managed to beat back the bulldozers, convincing the city last year to buy out the owners and install a new management team. "It's much better run than it used to be," says Arnold. But Laurino and block club leaders remained unconvinced. They continued to call for replacing the Ainslie with anything (a park, shopping strip, housing) that might clean up the area.
Mayor Daley sent mixed signals. At roughly the same time that his housing department was spending a million dollars to save the Ainslie, his planning department was suggesting that it and other "old" or "dilapidated" properties be torn down. The contradictions became apparent during an August 1998 meeting at North Park University. Ainslie tenants hooted and heckled as planning consultants hired by the city presented a "vision for the future" that the SRO was by no means certain to be part of.
In the meantime the community was facing an unrelated crisis. Its school-age population had rapidly expanded, in part because of an influx of working-class and poor families displaced by gentrification in other north-side neighborhoods. Hibbard School at Ainslie and Sawyer was filled to capacity, despite a large new annex that swallowed up the playground. The local high school, Von Steuben, was jammed, much of its space having been given over to the Albany Park Middle School, which had nowhere else to go. About 1,000 children were being bused to less crowded schools across town, and residents were pleading for a new school. "We have 29 buses coming into this community every day because we have no more room," says Anthony Jelinek, Hibbard's principal. "One of the hardest jobs I have is having to tell a parent, 'No, your child can't come to Hibbard even though you live just down the street.'"
Last month the two issues converged. The school board revealed plans to build a new middle school on the east side of Sawyer, across the street from Hibbard and around the corner from the Ainslie. The hotel, as well as some 20 buildings on Sawyer--most of them low-rent apartments inhabited by immigrants--would be demolished, and the 4900 block of Sawyer would be closed to create a campus. "We want to bring the Albany Park Middle School into its own facility," says Tim Martin, the board's chief of operations. "We need to ease the overcrowding and stop busing kids out of their neighborhood."
On September 30 the conference room at North Park University filled with some of the same activists and planners who'd met there 13 months earlier. But this time no distinctions were made between "proposals" and "plans." The new school was coming and private property would be seized, maybe as soon as the spring, Martin announced.
"To build a school we need to buy land, and buying land is not easy," Martin said. "There isn't open space. We need to take houses." He talked about similar school board projects. "We have relocated some 400 homes and provided relocation assistance to those who rent, own buildings, or live in single-family homes. Our pledge here is to do much the same. Is it easy to do? Absolutely not. Is it without controversy? No. But we don't want to bus. We want as many students walking to school as possible."
The new middle school and adjacent Hibbard would be surrounded by an "urban park" of open land and playgrounds.
One resident suggested that the new school be built on a relatively underdeveloped stretch of Foster west of Kedzie, thus saving the Ainslie and the properties on Sawyer. But Martin said Foster was too congested. "We wouldn't want children to have to cross a busy street to get to school," added Giacomo Mancuso, the board's director of planning and development.
The plan was immediately endorsed by Laurino, who said the new school would become part of an educational corridor along Kedzie that would include the new North Side Prep High School and North Park University, which has its own expansion plans. "Schools are an important element of our community," said Laurino. "We have something to be proud of."
Not surprisingly, few residents facing displacement were convinced. What followed was one of those strange rituals in which lower-level aides in dark business suits stand before a snarling crowd in the guise of public servants carrying on an open and honest exchange of information. Invariably, however, the aides have no answers to the thorniest questions--which in this case were, "Where will we be relocated?" and "How much relocation assistance will we receive?" Policy makers who might know the answers are generally far removed from such frays.
For about 20 minutes the residents bombarded the aides with caustic comments and wisecracks. Few if any believed the official explanation of why the Foster site wouldn't do. Most children in Chicago cross busy streets to reach school; even under the board's plan many kids would be crossing Kedzie to get to Hibbard and the new middle school. And how could the aides expect anyone to believe their pleas for green space? Only a few months ago many of the same officials had agreed to replace a grassy park a few blocks away with a fenced-in, off-limits, artificially surfaced soccer field reserved mainly for North Park University.
To critics, the plan was less about educating children than about pushing out the poor. "My kids go to Hibbard, so I know how much they need a new school," says Israel Pinto, who lives on the 4900 block of Sawyer. "But everyone knows what's going on. We knew why they're putting it there as opposed to Foster. They want to get rid of the Ainslie and all the other buildings on Sawyer."
Some residents favored the plan. "There's always trade-offs, but why should the children be the ones who have to make the trade-off?" said Julie Godinez, who lives in the neighborhood and brought her two young children to the meeting. "We need more parks--I see kids playing between parked cars. We need schools. Families are moving here--why should they be bused out? I'm sure many parents whose children are bused out would endorse this plan."
"Change is hurtful at first, but all communities go through changes," added another resident. "We have to pay a price now, but eventually the gains outweigh the negatives."
The meeting closed with an announcement by city planners of yet another meeting to discuss a "proposal," not a plan, to designate much of the business property surrounded by Bryn Mawr, Wilson, Harding, and Kedzie a tax increment financing district. If the idea's adopted, the city would gain the right to seize private property and replace old businesses with new ones, all in the name of community development and economic progress.
"The people calling it progress are never the people getting moved out," said Pinto, as he walked along Sawyer after the meeting. "They talk about trade-offs, but what are they going to tell my kids who have to move? I've lived around here all my life. I went to Hibbard and Von Steuben. I live with my parents in the two-flat they bought ten years ago. It was their dream house. Now that the area's getting better they want to just move us all away."
3) CPS Space Utilization Reports:
a) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_2.pdf
b) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_3.pdf
c) http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/assets/blog/Elem_SUR_07-08_1.pdf
4) Chicago Reader Article:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/theworks/080207/
5) Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-080201edison_breifs,0,2440103.story
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-edison_23jan23,1,5816636.story
6) Pioneer Press
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/edisonpark/news/778545,ed-dispensa-020708-s1.article
7) Neighborhood Capital Budget Group (from 2005)
http://www.ncbg.org/schools/el_crowding.htm
8) Mayor Daley Quote:
“We have to build more magnet programs in every school so they don’t feel they have to go to a magnet school. ..What they have to do is build more magnet schools in every community and have magnet programs in neighborhood schools as well.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/777419,magnet020508.article
Friday, February 1, 2008
Albany Park Indignation
Background
John M. Palmer Elementary is a CPS neighborhood school of approximately 930
students in a diverse neighborhood of tidy bungalows known as Mayfair. Directly east
of Mayfair, bordered by Pulaski Avenue, is Albany Park. The main school building was
opened in 1925; it also has an Annex building (permanent, detached) and a Modular
(temporary, trailer).
By now you are aware of the proposed relocation of the Edison Regional Gifted Center
from their current home in Norwood Park to the brand new and mostly empty Albany Park Multicultural Academy. (APMA is currently a 7th – 8th grade Middle School) In
the process, an instant Pre K – 8 neighborhood school will be created to alleviate
overcrowding in the 41st Ward. It’s all part of the CPS’ recently revealed 5-year plan to
address underutilization, ostensibly to undo decades of no planning. If there is a
silver lining to all of this for residents of the 39th Ward, nobody has told anybody about
it yet.
Most CPS neighborhood schools lack the educational amenities to be found in
abundance at the Albany Park Multicultural Academy (APMA). According to a CPS
press release dated May 10, 2005, APMA students will enjoy “two science rooms, a
music room, an art room, a computer room, a multipurpose room, a library media
center, an administrative center, a nurse and student services center.” Apparently
$22M buys a lot of cool stuff.
None of this cool stuff exists at Palmer. Preferably, the word “essentials’ is more
fitting. When Palmer parents ask why this sad state of affairs persists, the answer is
always: No space. Not enough room. We’re too crowded. Indeed, Palmer is currently
rated by CPS at 88% total utilization; by CPS’ own standards, any school rated 80%>
total utilization is considered overcrowded.
Changing demographics
During a recent conversation, Alderman Laurino was asked why APMA remains largely
empty, and why the empty seats are being given to a selective enrollment program. She
explained changing demographics over the past fifteen years now mean Albany Park
schools are no longer overcrowded.
Yet over the same fifteen years, Palmer has seen a dramatic rise in the student
population, from 482 students in 1991 to 933 students in 2006, a 99% increase. Much
of the population growth can be attributed to a large influx of newly arrived immigrant
families.
So what does this have to do with Palmer?
The same CPS press release dated May 10, 2005 also said: Albany Park
Multicultural Academy to help relieve overcrowding...The new building, to be located at
4929 N. Sawyer, will accommodate approximately 700 students and is scheduled to
open in the fall of 2006. Hibbard Elementary will be the main feeder school, though
students will also come from other surrounding elementary and middle schools.
"Relieving overcrowding has been an ongoing commitment of this administration," said
Duncan. "A better learning environment contributes to better performance."
Why wasn’t Palmer given the opportunity to fill some of the empty seats at APMA with Palmer 7th – 8th graders?
Hey CPS! You need kids to fill the empty classrooms in your $22M Taj Mahal?
Palmer has kids, great kids, who would love a chance to experience science lab,
computer lab, art class and music class. Did you save a few spots at APMA for the
neighborhood kids? Spots you haven't already promised to others?
Where is the indignation? Where is the uproar?
You have no idea your pocket was picked until you reach for your wallet and realize
it’s long gone.
The Albany Park community doesn't appreciate what will be lost in this deal because they never knew it was theirs to lose in the first place. Very few of the parents have ever walked through the front door of APMA. Palmer was never considered in the future plans for APMA, never included in the conversation, so it never occurred to Palmer to fight for it. Some have been underserved by CPS for so long, parents don’t know how to place a value on the things they don’t have.
Shame on us and shame on CPS for taking advantage of our naivety.
The fact the kids don’t have a science lab is unacceptable. The fact the kids don’t
have a computer lab, or a music room, or an art room, or foreign language
instruction is unacceptable. These things are necessities not perks. And why don’t
they have these things? Palmer is overcrowded. Sadly, many Palmer parents cling to
the dream of an addition that is never going to happen, and in the meantime, a valuable asset like the APMA is given away.
How could this spectacular educational asset be put to better use, to benefit Palmer?
One solution would be to expand the enrollment boundaries of the current
neighborhood Middle School, drawing 7th – 8th grade students who elect to transfer from Palmer, Volta and other overcrowded elementary schools in the area, joining students from Hibbard already feeding into APMA.
Another approach would be the formation of a magnet Middle School, similar to the
Taft and Whitney Young Academic Centers, with a percentage of these coveted seats
earmarked for Palmer children who qualify.
It is time for our elected officials and civic organizations to speak up on behalf of the families of North Mayfair and Albany Park, before the CPS proposal
becomes a done deal and the APMA is snatched away from Albany Park. One can only hope it is not too late.
John M. Palmer Elementary is a CPS neighborhood school of approximately 930
students in a diverse neighborhood of tidy bungalows known as Mayfair. Directly east
of Mayfair, bordered by Pulaski Avenue, is Albany Park. The main school building was
opened in 1925; it also has an Annex building (permanent, detached) and a Modular
(temporary, trailer).
By now you are aware of the proposed relocation of the Edison Regional Gifted Center
from their current home in Norwood Park to the brand new and mostly empty Albany Park Multicultural Academy. (APMA is currently a 7th – 8th grade Middle School) In
the process, an instant Pre K – 8 neighborhood school will be created to alleviate
overcrowding in the 41st Ward. It’s all part of the CPS’ recently revealed 5-year plan to
address underutilization, ostensibly to undo decades of no planning. If there is a
silver lining to all of this for residents of the 39th Ward, nobody has told anybody about
it yet.
Most CPS neighborhood schools lack the educational amenities to be found in
abundance at the Albany Park Multicultural Academy (APMA). According to a CPS
press release dated May 10, 2005, APMA students will enjoy “two science rooms, a
music room, an art room, a computer room, a multipurpose room, a library media
center, an administrative center, a nurse and student services center.” Apparently
$22M buys a lot of cool stuff.
None of this cool stuff exists at Palmer. Preferably, the word “essentials’ is more
fitting. When Palmer parents ask why this sad state of affairs persists, the answer is
always: No space. Not enough room. We’re too crowded. Indeed, Palmer is currently
rated by CPS at 88% total utilization; by CPS’ own standards, any school rated 80%>
total utilization is considered overcrowded.
Changing demographics
During a recent conversation, Alderman Laurino was asked why APMA remains largely
empty, and why the empty seats are being given to a selective enrollment program. She
explained changing demographics over the past fifteen years now mean Albany Park
schools are no longer overcrowded.
Yet over the same fifteen years, Palmer has seen a dramatic rise in the student
population, from 482 students in 1991 to 933 students in 2006, a 99% increase. Much
of the population growth can be attributed to a large influx of newly arrived immigrant
families.
So what does this have to do with Palmer?
The same CPS press release dated May 10, 2005 also said: Albany Park
Multicultural Academy to help relieve overcrowding...The new building, to be located at
4929 N. Sawyer, will accommodate approximately 700 students and is scheduled to
open in the fall of 2006. Hibbard Elementary will be the main feeder school, though
students will also come from other surrounding elementary and middle schools.
"Relieving overcrowding has been an ongoing commitment of this administration," said
Duncan. "A better learning environment contributes to better performance."
Why wasn’t Palmer given the opportunity to fill some of the empty seats at APMA with Palmer 7th – 8th graders?
Hey CPS! You need kids to fill the empty classrooms in your $22M Taj Mahal?
Palmer has kids, great kids, who would love a chance to experience science lab,
computer lab, art class and music class. Did you save a few spots at APMA for the
neighborhood kids? Spots you haven't already promised to others?
Where is the indignation? Where is the uproar?
You have no idea your pocket was picked until you reach for your wallet and realize
it’s long gone.
The Albany Park community doesn't appreciate what will be lost in this deal because they never knew it was theirs to lose in the first place. Very few of the parents have ever walked through the front door of APMA. Palmer was never considered in the future plans for APMA, never included in the conversation, so it never occurred to Palmer to fight for it. Some have been underserved by CPS for so long, parents don’t know how to place a value on the things they don’t have.
Shame on us and shame on CPS for taking advantage of our naivety.
The fact the kids don’t have a science lab is unacceptable. The fact the kids don’t
have a computer lab, or a music room, or an art room, or foreign language
instruction is unacceptable. These things are necessities not perks. And why don’t
they have these things? Palmer is overcrowded. Sadly, many Palmer parents cling to
the dream of an addition that is never going to happen, and in the meantime, a valuable asset like the APMA is given away.
How could this spectacular educational asset be put to better use, to benefit Palmer?
One solution would be to expand the enrollment boundaries of the current
neighborhood Middle School, drawing 7th – 8th grade students who elect to transfer from Palmer, Volta and other overcrowded elementary schools in the area, joining students from Hibbard already feeding into APMA.
Another approach would be the formation of a magnet Middle School, similar to the
Taft and Whitney Young Academic Centers, with a percentage of these coveted seats
earmarked for Palmer children who qualify.
It is time for our elected officials and civic organizations to speak up on behalf of the families of North Mayfair and Albany Park, before the CPS proposal
becomes a done deal and the APMA is snatched away from Albany Park. One can only hope it is not too late.
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