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Public commenters urge alternatives to layoffs and protections for special education
Summary
Teachers, parents and education advocates at the July 20 hearing urged the board to preserve special education and bilingual positions, use attrition and voluntary retirement incentives, and protect school-level budgets and LSC autonomy amid a $732M shortfall.
Several public speakers at the Chicago Board of Education hearing urged the board to pursue alternatives to staff reductions and to protect critical school services.
Hazel Prentice, a fifth-grade teacher at Hanson Park Elementary, described nonverbal students in wheelchairs who rely on special education teachers and said recent eliminations remove trusted bilingual advocates from school communities. "We are setting our children up for failure the moment they walk through the door," she said, pressing the board to "fully fund and staff our schools and guarantee an equitable school system for every single child."
Margaret White, who said she lost her eighth-grade teaching position at Hanson Park, told the board it cannot approve a budget that "abandoned students by laying off devoted teachers," and asked the board to pressure Springfield and Cook County for owed funding under the state’s evidence-based formula. Bertina Booker, a longtime CPS educator, proposed using natural attrition, operational efficiencies, calendar innovations and a voluntary "legacy educator" retirement program to reduce staff without losing institutional knowledge.
Nelson Giroux of the Chicago Public Education Fund asked that the final budget preserve Local School Council (LSC) plans and autonomy, and noted the budget assumes $85 million in furlough savings and $200 million in TIF surplus revenue. Speakers stressed urgency while offering concrete alternatives they said the district should exhaust before cuts take effect.
