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The document discusses how to deal with public reaction to school
closing decisions, with ideas ranging from establishing "a meaningful
engagement process with community members" to building a "monitoring
mechanism to ensure nimble response to opposition to proposed school
actions."
It is unclear how closely the administration is following the ideas in
the 3-month-old document; sources told the Tribune the school closing
plans are being constantly updated and subsequent proposals have been
kept under close wraps.
The detailed document obtained by the Tribune comes from a time
when a Chicago teachers strike interrupted the beginning of the school
year and Jean-Claude Brizard was still Emanuel's schools chief; the
embattled Brizard quit soon after. Byrd-Bennett was a top education
official at CPS under Brizard and was named by Emanuel to succeed him.
CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said Tuesday that "this plan was
proposed by past leadership at CPS and is not supported by CEO Byrd-
Bennett."
"In terms of whatever document you have, I don't care when it's
dated, as of today there's no list and there's no plan," Carroll said. "Maybe
there were multiple, different scenarios passed around at some point, I
don't know, but there's no list of schools.
"When CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett took this position, she made it
very clear that we were going to do this differently than how it's been done
in the past," which is why she appointed a commission to take public input
on school closings, Carroll said.
But under Byrd-Bennett's tenure, at least one of the proposals
outlined in the secret document has come to pass — the idea of a five-year
moratorium on further school closings after this school year.
First mention: The September document raises the idea of a
moratorium that would extend beyond Emanuel's first term in office as
part of the rollout of school closings. But the mayor's first public mention
of a moratorium came in November, when he offered it as a sweetener that
helped persuade state lawmakers to extend the December deadline for
announcing school closings to March. Read More