Congratulations to the parents of students at Brian Piccolo Public School in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago.
I have a feeling we will see more #OccupyOurSchools in our city and across the nation as the fight to reclaim our public schools grows.
While you plan your occupation, please join Parents Across America in national conference call on education reform on Monday Feb 20th. Call in is at 8pm Eastern.
Conference Dial-in Number: (424) 203-8075
Participant Access Code: 1037540#
Adam
Declaration #1 from Piccolo occupation
11:49pm – February 17th, 2012
We, the Piccolo Occupation, are putting our childrens’ education
first. Piccolo has failed because CPS has refused to invest in public
education. The school has struggled for years but you have taken out
all the programs, classes and opportunities to learn. We have had 3
principals in the last five years.We have not been able to work with
anyone on a long-term basis to address the chronic disinvestment in
our school. CPS and City Hall have failed us and our children. Your
goal is to privatize the education system by giving it to corporations
that support the mayor. We have been ignored, you have ignored our
children and now you are trying to make money off of them.
The Chicago Public Schools is in violation of its own remediation and
probation policy. CPS is in violation of the Illinois School Code and
the Illinois Civil Rights Act. CPS is in violation of Illinois Senate
Bill 630. Because of this, a moratorium has been introduced in the
Illinois Legislative Assembly by the School Facilities Taskforce. We
are enacting our moratorium for ourselves with this sit-in do to the
fact that CPS not once has laid out the necessary corrective action
for Brian Piccolo or Paolo Cassals along with the Local School
Councils for getting them off of probation during the last five years.
The School Improvement Plans for Academic Achievement (SIPAA) at these
two schools have lacked the budgetary resources to bridge the
achievement gap of our student populations. Furhter, the SIPAAs along
with the budgets at the time of their signings have not had real
community input. Therefor, these actions could very well be civil
rights violations. At the recent CPS hearings, the former principle of
Cassals testified that not once in the last five years had CPS met
with her nor with the LSC about any of the necessary corrective action
for Paola Cassals to be removed off of probation.
Because CPS has been not willing to meet with or listen to us, this is
what we want:
1) A meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel
2) A meeting with at least five of the Chicago School Board members present
3) The removal of Piccolo and Cassals from the turnaround list
