Parents occupy school, demand to talk with Rahm
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter/sespositio@suntimes.com February 17, 2012 10:44PM
Updated: February 18, 2012 2:08AM
Just days before the Chicago Board of Education is expected to vote whether to replace the staff at 10 under-performing schools, angry parents occupied one of those schools Friday night, saying they would refuse to leave until Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees to discuss their objections to the board’s “turn-around” plans.
About 30 parents occupied Brian Piccolo Elementary Specialty School in Humboldt Park, after showing up outside the mayor’s office earlier in the day and failing to get a meeting with him.
The Board of Education’s vote on the turn-around plans for 10 schools and the closure of two other schools is set for Wednesday.
A group of parents set up a half-dozen tents Friday night outside the school at 1040 N. Keeler,
Court: Chicago teachers don’t have rehire rights
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com February 17, 2012 11:14AM
CPS attorney James C. Franczek, Jr. and Jennifer Dunn at a hearing before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board last year. | John H. White~Chicago Sun-Times.
Updated: February 18, 2012 2:08AM
Hundreds of tenured Chicago Public School teachers laid off for economic reasons in 2010 did not have the right to be rehired to new jobs, unlike other teachers in the state, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Friday.
CPS officials hailed the decision as “historically significant” and a reaffirmation of reforms that began with the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act and the discretion it gave CPS principals to hire staff.
“The Illinois Supreme Court in this decision essentially upheld the right of [a CPS] principal to decide who is going to fill a vacancy,’’ said CPS attorney James