Ames hears military chief from CPS say 'Get past the politics...'... Battle continues at Ames: Neighborhood school vs. military school
Fighting over the future of Ames Middle School, Chicago Public Schools officials during he final full week of January 2014 promoted their plan to have a Marine Military Academy High School move into the building –- while members of the Ames community rallied to save it as neighborhood school.
Located at 1920 N. Hamlin Ave., Ames now teaches 7th and 8th graders from Logan Square, a mostly Hispanic neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.
Parents and community activists held a news conference at Ames Middle School on Wednesday, January 23, 2014, as part of their continuing campaign to save Ames as a neighborhood school. The Chicago Board of Education has voted to move a military academy high school into the Ames, the newest public school building in the Logan Square neighborhood. The Logan Square Neighborhood Association is asking local voters to vote “no” on the military school’s move during the primary elections on March 18, 2014. LSNA hopes that such political pressure will push the Board of Education to reconsider its decision to change Ames. Photo provided to Substance by Maria Trejo of LSNA.Ames has been a site of controversy and neighborhood activism for years. Before the school opened in 1998, parents and community organizers fought to get it built, because the other elementary schools in the neighborhood were overcrowded. The Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) has remained active at Ames ever since. LSNA now operates a health clinic in the school building, plus an extensive after-school program called Elev-8 that serves students from Ames and other nearby schools.
Yet Ames’ modern brick building –- with its interior courtyard for recess and a large field beside the school for track & field events and soccer games –- has also drawn interest from people who want to put the facility to other uses. LSNA and its supporters have fought off such moves until now.
One persistent candidate to take over the space has been Marine Military Academy, a grade 9-12 school which currently shares space with Phoenix Military Academy High School. Phoenix is located approximately two miles south of Ames. After several failed attempts, Marine Military appeared to win the battle in December 2013, when the Board of Education voted to change Ames.
Yet LSNA, with support from many parents and students, refused to give up. They had already succeeded in a campaign to have a question placed on the ballot in the primary elections on March 18, 2014, that will ask voters in the eight precincts closest to Ames whether the school should be converted to a military academy or remain a neighborhood school. They say that earlier votes by parents during report card pick up day, plus petitions previously presented to the School Board, show that the community doesn’t want the military academy. They hope such political pressure will get the Board to reconsider its decision to change Ames.
On Wednesday, January 23, LSNA’s “Save Ames” committee held a news conference at the school, announcing a renewed voter registration drive in the neighborhood. Later that day, “Save Ames” activists (including some Ames students) disrupted an “informational meeting” where representatives of Marine Academy tried to tell parents and students how to enroll in the military academy at Ames next year.
Yet the other side isn’t backing down, either. On Friday, January 25, 2014, the Ames faculty and staff heard from the School Board official who oversees all six CPS military academies and its military Junior ROTC programs (which he said are in place in 44 of the 103 neighborhood CPS high schools). Todd Connor, whose title is executive director of CPS “Service Leadership Programs,” said the people at Ames could be part of Chicago’s first military service academy at the middle school level.
(Full disclosure: This reporter is a teacher at Ames – a full-time paid employee of the Chicago Board of Education and a part-time volunteer reporter for Substance News – who wore both a CPS employee ID and a Substance News press pass during the meeting.)
Connor urged everyone to “get past the politics” and focus on making a success of the new military academy at Ames. Asked if political pressure might get the Board to reconsider – and maybe move Marine Academy to some other site, so Ames could remain a neighborhood middle school – he replied, “That’s above my pay grade.” Yet he said he doubted the decision would be revoked, and all of his comments were based on the assumption that Marine Military Academy will be operating in the Ames building in the coming school year.
When Ames becomes a military academy, Connor said, current members of the Ames faculty and staff will have a chance to stay – but he didn’t make any promises. “Those of you who are here and want to be here, we want you here,” he said. However, employment decisions will depend on student enrollment. He conceded that the Board has the authority to fire everyone because the Board has already voted for an official “change in academic focus” at Ames. He declined to say whether current Ames teachers and staff or current Marine Military teachers and staff would have priority in next year’s hiring if enrollment is too low to retain everyone from both schools.
Likewise, he offered assurances that all current students at Ames will have a chance to stay at Ames if they want to attend a military academy. Further, all rising 7th graders from the “feeder” elementary schools in Ames’ enrollment area will be able to enroll in the military school if they wish, or in a new middle school program at Kelvyn Park High School if they don’t want the military focus. If not enough students from the neighborhood enroll to fill the new Marine/Ames school, it will open up to citywide enrollment.
Military academies have a few more options for expelling students than neighborhood schools do, but Connor said the military academies’ student retention rates compare favorably to other schools’.
If LSNA decides to work with the new military school, they can expect to keep their office in the building where they coordinate their after-school programs, Connor said. He conceded that military academies have some of their own extracurricular activities, such as drill teams that compete against other military academies. He didn’t say anything about the future of the LSNA clinic at Ames.
Connor and the current Ames principal, Turon Ivy, said the Board has a $7 million renovation plan for the new Marine Military Academy at Ames. This includes new “all-weather” turf for the soccer/football/track sports field, along with new science labs, and upgrades for the mechanical systems such as heating/ventilation/air conditioning and water fountains.
There will be some differences between the middle school and high school sections of the school – for example, middle school students will not wear the full military uniform that the U.S. Department of Defense provides for high school military programs. Yet the two parts together will be considered just one school, with just one principal. There is no word yet on who that principal will be.
