'Save Deneen!' rally rejects Huberman turnaround proposal, AUSL
About 150 people showed up for a spirited rally and candlelight vigil on the late afternoon of February 18, 2010, in front of Deneen Elementary School at 72nd and State St. in the heart of Chicago's South Side.
Some of the more than 150 students, parents, teachers, and supporters who rallied at Chicago's Deneen Elementary School at 72nd and State on the evening of February 18, 2010. Deneen is still facing so-called "turnaround" (in which all of the staff from principals and teachers to janitors are fired) under proposals scheduled to be voted on by the Chicago Board of Education on February 24, 2010. Substance photo by David Vance.Although some of the schools on the original 2010 'Hit List' had been removed by Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman, Deneen remains on the list. If the Board of Education votes to reconstitute Deneen at its meeting on February 24, the school will be taken over by the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) and all of its teachers and other staff will be fired.
The protesters, like those who testified at the Board of Education hearings a week earlier, said that Deneen had not failed, but that CPS had sabotaged Deneen and that Chicago had failed Deneen, its children, and their community. The group stood on corner of 72nd and State, marched, and asked drivers going by for support. There were lots of honks of support from passers by. A number of teachers from CORE were there, as were supporters of Deneen from Guggenheim Elementary School.
Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart (second from left, above) was one of those who joined Deneen in protesting the proposed turnaround. Substance photo by David Vance.All of the schools slated for "turnaround" in 2010 by Ron Huberman was all-black and serve children from some of the areas of Chicago hardest hit by the current economic recession. The same was true of all the schools subjected to "turnaround" by Huberman in 2009, and all the schools subjected to "turnaround" by former CEO Arne Duncan in 2008. A growing number of leaders in Chicago's black community are framing the entire Chicago "turnaround" project as an attack on black teachers, black principals, and black community centers.
Chicago Teachers Union financial secretary Mark Ochoa showed up at 5:45 and CTU President Marilyn Stewart was at the site briefly.
One of the things noted by many of those protesting the latest announcement that Deneen would be subjected to "turnaround" is that the school, which has two buildings, has one of the most attractive new buildings in the area. A number of people believe that the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) wants to take over Deneen so that they can showcase their "turnaround" in another fine facility, just as they are now trying to do at Johsnon Elementary Schools (which was turned over to AUSL after the Chicago Board of Education voted for a "turnaround" of Johnson in February 2009).
Posters "save our school" all over the place, and many of the protesters were students from Deneen who said they did not want to see their teachers fired, which is what happens under "turnaround."
