Trumbull, For The Record

WBEZ has done a great service for the community by posting audio recordings of the community hearings that have taken place for each school targeted by Rahm Emanuel for closure. You can't listen to the actual hearings without realizing what a disaster this school closing plan is.

It's a disaster on so many levels.

I'm going to post meeting number 92, the one for Trumbull. I believe it's their second hearing. The audio files on the WBEZ site are very, very quiet--- at least on my computer. So what I've done is fiddle with the sound so that you can hear what was said that day at Amundsen High School by community members facing a hugely unjust school closing.

I've also tried to clip the long pauses between speakers.

There's so much to unpack here; I hardly know where to start. Nobody with an ounce of sense about teaching and learning could possibly walk through Trumbull and call it "underutilized." It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

And yet, we're talking about CPS governance, so the normal standards don't seem to apply.

Listen to the people at this hearing.


Just a note..

I've been a number of network hearings and the subsequent community meetings. My hat is off to the principals who resisted the urge to go up to the microphone to advertise about what a fabulous welcoming school they would be for the schools facing unjust closings.  It's a sign of character, in my opinion, and of good judgment about time and place. There's a time to let people know how warm and wonderful you are: these hearings and meetings were actually not the place.

Not all of them were able to resist this urge, as you can hear. One receiving principal at an earlier hearing got up and announced the percentage of her faculty with masters degrees.  I'm sure every school that's being set up as a receiving school intends to be truly welcoming and accommodating, and that they are staffed with highly trained people. It's just that this isn't the point.

The point is that the closings are unjustified, and they're a terrible thing to do to communities, and they won't achieve any of the stated objectives, and they're based on an ever-changing set of reasons, none of which, when you drill down into them, make any sense.

If you're working with a school community, and you want the sound file for a particular hearing amplified, send me a note.