During the meeting, the 49th Ward office shared information from Chicago Public Schools that we received in August for school communities seeking to pursue a school action. In that meeting, we learned that CPS has created a robust process for recommending school actions. This process includes establishing a steering committee that is representative of the school community, including a student representative. The steering committee would be required to follow specific outreach and engagement procedures, including recording participants and attendance throughout. 

Based on the level of engagement throughout the community process, the requirements CPS has established for recommending school actions, and the history between the two schools, our office will be making the following recommendations to CPS:
 

• We will push again for CPS to reconsider the student-based budgeting model that is bad for our neighborhood schools;

• We will ask CPS to reconsider the SQRP rating model and address the concerns around equity as it pertains to this rating system;

• We will ask for additional support from CPS to create robust articulation between the two schools, including more opportunities for students at both schools to engage with each other and the administrations;

• We will advocate for additional resources for Eugene Field so they can more effectively market the school to neighborhood families, especially prospective parents who are just beginning to look into schools for their children; and

• We will continue to engage with the two schools with activities and actions to bring healing to the two communities.
   

Our office launched this process in December 2019 in response to a grassroots effort from the Unite the Fields organization. Our office took on a community process to ensure transparency and accountability in our ward's decision-making process.

What became clear throughout the process is that our community deeply cares for our students and wants to provide them with strong neighborhood schools. When seeking schools for their students, parents want continuity, stability, and cohesion. Our office will continue to work with our local school communities and CPS to advocate for the resources and services they need to be first-choice schools. 

We know that this topic is extremely personal to many, so thank you for engaging with our office around it. While we plan on making these recommendations to CPS at this juncture, it doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t support other proposals or community actions in the future. We would support the formation of a steering committee that can explore potential community actions that follow CPS’s requirements. Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process over the past year.