Parents, students supporters occupy Whittier School in Chicago
From the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI)
Dozens of parents, students and members of the community, organized by the Whittier Parents’ Committee, have been occupying the Whittier Dual Language School’s field house, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. since Sept. 15.
The Whittier Parents’ Committee is opposing the demolition of the field house, at a cost of $345,000, and demanding that the funds be used to remodel the field house. The Parents’ Committee demands that a school library be placed in the remodeled field house and that much needed school programs be expanded. Instead, the Chicago School Board wants to create a soccer field on the field house land to be used to be used by a nearby private school!
The occupation continues to grow in strength, with hundreds of supporters stopping by every day to deliver food, water, and other supplies. There have been several attempts by the Chicago Police to break up the occupation, without success.
Whitter occupation has brought broad media coverage
Background from the Parents’ Committee
The Whittier Parents’ Committee is staging a sit-in to fight against the demolition of the Whittier Dual Language School’s field house (la Casita), in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. The sit-in has been widely reported as the struggle of a community against the blind austerity cuts instituted by a cash-strapped school board. But in fact this struggle brings to light larger and more contentious issues in Chicago and nationally: control over Tax Increment Funding and the top-down reshaping of public education.
The Whittier Parents’ Committee has been organizing for seven years to push Pilsen alderman Daniel Solis to allocate some of the estimated $1 billion in Mayor Daley’s TIF coffers to their school for a school expansion – he finally agreed to give $1.4million of TIF funds for school renovation. Cynically, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has earmarked a part of this money for the destruction of the school’s field house, which has been used for years as a center for community organizing and services. This would directly undermine the ability of the Whittier community to organize and struggle for educational rights. Parents are demanding to be part of the decision-making process.
CPS has been conducting an extreme makeover of public education: privatization, demolitions, school closures and turnarounds, massive firings of seasoned teachers have been part of the large-scale redesign of public education. Public funds are being used to renovate schools that are privatized, while low income neighborhood schools are being starved of the most basic resources. The fight over the survival of this little field house is an important one in the larger struggles around educational rights, community self-determination and control over public land and institutions.
Please sign the online petition in support of the Whittier Occupation by clinking on this link: http://www.petitiononline.com/whittier/petition.html
Partial list of signers so far:
Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, Chicago
Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (CORE)
Teachers for Social Justice
Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign
ChicagOtra
Centro Communitario Juan Diego
Southside Together Organizing for Justice (STOP)
International Socialist Organization, Chicago
Community Education Task Force (Rocheser, NY)
Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota (PEJAM)
Arab American Action Network (AAAN)
Biblioteca Popular del Barrio
ANSWER Coalition
Mess Hall
Venus Collective
Blocks Together
Mexico Solidarity Network
Project NIA
Write to Win Collective
Chicago Democratic Socialists of America
Chicago Single-Payer Actino Network
