Hyde Park High School delegate John Kugler (far left above) looks on as Chicago Teachers Union officers discuss the increase in violence at Wells and Hyde Park high schools following the September 2004 decision of the Chicago Board of Education to privatize Austin High School on the West Side and Calumet High School on the South Side. Beginning in September 2004, 9th grade students from both schools who would have attended Austin and Calumet were forced to find other schools, often increasing gang violence at the receiving schools. At the March 2005 press conference above, students from Wells and Hyde Park described the increased gang violence that resulted from the significant influx of new students. At the microphone (above) was Traci Cobb-Evans, who was hired by CTU President Marilyn Stewart to be the union's $100,000 per year Legislative Coordinator despite the fact that Cobb-Evans had crossed the picket lines (scabbed) during the 1987 strike. Kugler first reported the confirmation of that story in the March 2008 Substance, three years after the above photo was taken. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.
