Vallas connection to Wadsworth: Why didn’t the powers-that-be fold Dumas into Wadsworth’s school building in 2013
Perfect graffiti! Photo: campus park sign (1/29/23) by Susan Zupan Why didn’t the powers-that-be fold Dumas into Wadsworth’s school building in 2013, allowing all those public school kids to experience and enjoy the huge city investment into that huge adjoining school campus park?
For what this is worth, Paul Vallas, present mayoral candidate, has a past connection to the former Wadsworth school building, the one presently in the news regarding Chicago’s migrant housing situation/crisis.
Following the news, but then going back in time, I became curious regarding the city’s investment in the James Wadsworth Campus Park, completed in 2000.
From Ballotpedia: “Between 1985 and 1995, Vallas served as executive director of the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission; Chicago city revenue director; and Chicago city budget director.” This was before his stint as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), 1995-2001.
So, it would appear that for any speculative games of Follow-the-Money and Who’s Who, Paul Vallas would be in a position to know.
scene beyond sign (view north) Photo by Susan Zupan (1/29/23)
I worked at Wadsworth School for 5 years in the late 1990s.
When Vallas was CEO of CPS, the entire city block directly across in front of Wadsworth School on 64th and University Avenue - with abandoned buildings and lots, but also not - was bought out and/or torn down, then reconfigured for the creation of a giant campus park. The entire area (streets, alley, etc.) was completely reconfigured to create that adjoining campus park.
Building to right in photo with adjoining campus park left (view south) There is no public thru street any more in front of school. Photo by Susan Zupan (1/29/23)
According to the Public Building Commission’s website, in 1997 the city launched a $50 million “Campus Parks Program” joint effort with CPS and the Chicago Park District to “create green spaces across the city.”
more of park in front of school (view south, building unseen on right);There is no public thru street any more in front of school.Photo by Susan Zupan (1/29/23)
The University of Chicago Charter School - Woodlawn Campus (UCW) started in the Wadsworth building. Wadsworth the public school building began to be a “shared facility” with UCW prior to 2013 at the latest. What was typically done then for some private school take-overs of public school buildings was to start small and more-or-less unassumingly with “only” a grade level or two sharing space, then expand on that before the eventual take-over of the whole public school building.
The Woodlawn Community School also shared space there in the ‘90s. I am not sure exactly when they moved to their present address on 66th and Kimbark, about three blocks east, two blocks south, but it was prior to 2011.
I suspected back in the late ‘90s that the campus park was really being built for the University of Chicago in some way/shape/form, geographically taking over and pushing itself outward, especially after 1997 when, a block north of Wadsworth School, the decrepit elevated train tracks on 63rd Street were torn down.
Was this all part of any longer-term gentrification plans, connected to Vallas’s positions during those earlier times?
Lo and behold, after all that campus park work was completed plus the associated costs, the James Wadsworth public school was officially moved a decade or so later into the Alexander Dumas School in 2013, 3-4 blocks west, about 3 blocks south. The Wadsworth public school was closed by CPS, or rather “consolidated” or to that effect with Dumas, within that Dumas school building but keeping the name of Wadsworth.
There was/is no huge campus park at the old Dumas new Wadsworth school building address of 6650 S Ellis Avenue, though for green space nearby across 67th Street is the north-walled boundary to the Oak Woods Cemetery. It appears the huge 64th and University campus park was just not meant to be for either of the two public schools’ students, or the students of Woodlawn Community School, that school now also across from the cemetery to their south at its own relocated location.
That whole city block of a campus park along with the Wadsworth building finally turned-over its use fully to the University of Chicago Woodlawn Charter School eventually.
Good city investment? Considerate moves for the neighborhood? Right up the Vallas/Daley/CPS alley to spend public money and maneuver whole streets around for future private interests, planned gentrification, any what and/or who already there be damned, if that was the plan all along? The UCW charter apparently then refused to buy the building from the city anyway by 2017 [dnainfo.com – “Woodlawn faced with big empty school after University of Chicago charter moves” by Sam Cholke, January 12, 2017], repairs apparently too costly. Wouldn’t that have meant a need-now list of repairs that might have/should have been done before a wish list campus park was built by the city, when Paul Vallas was CEO of CPS?
The private charter school got to use the Wadsworth building and the giant campus park until they built their own brand new school a stone’s throw away, walking distance to the campus park being a basic walk across the short, already-reconfigured street area.
According to the “Renewal Charter School Lease Between University of Chicago and the Board of Education of the City of Chicago” (dated 05/2016), the charter school leased space in the Wadsworth building from the City of Chicago for “One Dollar ($1.00) per year.”
I do not know if they paid or contributed anything for the campus park for which they still benefit. Nor do I know what that campus park originally cost the taxpayers of the City of Chicago. The following information is from a Chicago.gov news release dated February 10, 2016: “Land Sale Will Support New University of Chicago Charter School in Woodlawn.” In 2016 the City Council approved for the University of Chicago to purchase 19 city-owned parcels “for the development of a 29,000-square-foot school complex.” 
Fleet + Facility truck loading stuff into building (1/29/23 by Susan Zupan) There were 7-10 vans there the day of photos. Any cars in front were there for same, work and/or carrying loading stuff in. There is no public thru street any more in front of school.(1/29/23 by Susan Zupan)
Price: $1 for what was appraised at $755,000.
Boundaries: 63rd Street [north]; 64th Street [south]; University Avenue [east]; and Greenwood Avenue [west]. That description, curiously, describes the space location for the actual Wadsworth building, but does not include the campus park. The $27.5 million project was to be funded by the “university and private donations.” “Other amenities will include an outdoor athletic field and running track that will be available for use by area residents.” Questions: Who or what entity actually now officially owns that Wadsworth building? Is the city doing all the work and assuming all the costs on it now for the temporary migrant shelter? It is for someone else to play Follow the Money and Who’s Who now, not me. But now, on the news, when I hear or read about the Woodlawn residents speaking out about having zero knowledge of and expressing a resentment regarding what’s going on today, I think that our city’s modus operandi just hasn’t changed at all there or elsewhere. As with other neighborhoods, the City of Chicago investment plans (read: $$$) appear not to be for or with longtime residents but remain AT them. Regarding the campus park, at that time, most of the school community felt like, “Wow! All this for us!“ But cynics looking ahead, myself included, suspected writing on the wall, watching all the work being done and expressing, “This is not for us…” And unfortunately, that eventuality proved thus. It has all ended up virtually totally for the benefit of private and/or outside-of-the-community interests. I can understand how the use of the building now is truly in Woodlawn residents’ faces, regardless of how anyone might feel about needing and/or wanting solutions to the city’s migrant situation/crisis.
So, follow the news now to see how all those anti-public school moves made years before eventually worked out under Paul Vallas and Mayor Daley and those who were ruining not running CPS.
Questions: Are all the investments the city is flooding now into the Wadsworth building for the future benefit of migrants to Chicago? the homeless? the residents of Woodlawn? the University of Chicago? We’ll have to play Follow-the Money and Who/s Who going forward on that one. ‘
