Tag: Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools Refuses to Release Records Detailing Gender and Sex Education Training

Admin

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district refused a Daily Caller News Foundation Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding training materials used for its gender and sexuality lessons provided by the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

CPS paid over $90,000 from January 2021 to as recently as June 6 for a number of workshops and trainings that the hospital provides through its Sexuality Education Program, according to invoices obtained by the DCNF. In a follow-up FOIA request, the DCNF asked that CPS provide any “presentations, slideshows, curriculum materials, videos [and] handouts” used for the training, but the district refused on Aug. 25 in a email, saying the information was “exempt from disclosure” since it involved “course” and “research materials” used by staff.

Read the full story

Cities Turn to Schools to House, Support Migrants

Admin

Multiple cities are turning to school districts to house and support an influx of migrants through the summer months.

Following the expiration of Title 42, both New York City and Chicago have been overwhelmed by the number of migrants that have come to the cities, arguing that there is a lack of resources. In response, the city governments, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have considered school districts to house migrants.

Read the full story

Children’s Hospital Agreed to Pay Employee to Give ‘Drag Performance’ to School Kids

Admin

A Chicago children’s hospital agreed to pay one of its employees to give a drag performance at a public school event for students, according to documents obtained through a public records request by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago paid Chicago Public Schools (CPS) $500 to cover the cost of a drag performance by one of their health educators at a school resource fair, according to documents obtained by the DCNF. The funds covered a drag performance by Jose Dominguez Magdaleno at the school district’s May “Galaxy Summit.” The summit featured art, workshops and performances in an effort to create “affirming spaces to celebrate and learn about the diversity of [the] CPS community.”

Read the full story

Not a Single Student Is Proficient in Reading or Math at 55 Chicago Schools: Report

Admin

In 55 Chicago Public Schools, not one student met grade level expectations in either math or reading during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a Wirepoints report.

Out of 649 Chicago Public Schools, 22 schools have zero students who met grade level expectations for reading while no students were proficient in math in 33 schools during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a Wirepoints report. The data analyzed is from the Illinois State Board of Education annual report which details how schools within the state are performing.

Read the full story

The Country’s Biggest School Districts Are Explicitly Hiding Kids’ Gender Transitions from Parents

Admin

The nation’s largest school districts are implementing policies that require educators to keep students’ gender transitions a secret from their parents.

Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools and New York Public Schools are promoting practices and policies that hide a student’s transgender status from their parents. The policies have become a cultural flashpoint amid a battle over the role parents should play in their child’s education, and the extent to which gender ideology has infiltrated K-12 classrooms.

Read the full story

Chicago Schools Tells Teachers Sex Is ‘Socially Constructed,’ Tells Them to Hide Students’ Gender Pronouns From Parents

Admin

A Chicago Public Schools (CPS) training program tells teachers that sex is a “socially constructed” phenomenon and instructs them to hide students’ gender pronouns from their parents, Fox News reported.

CPS told teachers that “gender and sex” are social constructs that have been “created and enforced” by society and threatened retaliatory measures if they didn’t use students’ preferred pronouns during a required teacher training program, Fox News reported.

A 104-slide PowerPoint titled “Supporting Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming Students” asserted that “everyone has multiple, overlapping identities” and that “gender & sex are socially constructed, meaning they’ve been created and enforced by the people in a society,” Fox News reported.

Read the full story

Thousands of Students Plan School Walkouts Across the U.S. in Protest of in-Person Learning

Admin
Boy walking down a school hallway

Students across the U.S. are planning school walkouts in protest of in-person learning as COVID-19 cases spike amid the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

There are nearly 3,500 schools actively disrupted as of Friday, according to Burbio’s K-12 School Opening Tracker, which tracks school closures for 1,200 districts, including the 200 largest school districts in the nation.

On Tuesday, New York City students staged a walkout in protest of in-person learning over what they said were concerns about testing and safety mitigation measures. NYC Mayor Eric Adams said school was the “safest place” for children during a Friday news conference.

Read the full story

Chicago Public Schools Forced to Cancel School After Teachers Union Votes to Move to Remote Learning

Admin

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted Tuesday to move to remote learning Wednesday, citing concerns over safety amid the rise in COVID-19 cases, the union said in a press release.

The CTU’s elected House of Delegates voted in favor (88%) of a resolution to return to remote education amid the surge of COVID-19 cases and the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant, citing a lack of safety guarantees, a union press release said. In the membership-wide vote, 73% of CTU’s members voted in favor of virtual learning, passing the two-thirds threshold required to enact the resolution.

The resolution outlines plans to work remotely until Jan. 18 or until the current COVID-19 wave falls below last year’s threshold for school closures, according to the resolution.

Read the full story

Chicago Teachers Union Plans to Use ‘Delta Variant’ as Excuse to Shut Down Schools Again

Admin
Chicago Teachers’ Union protesting

The Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) declared its belief that schools should be shut down again if the India Variant of the coronavirus, also known as the “Delta variant,” continues to spread, as reported by the Daily Caller.

In a letter published on Thursday addressed to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.), the union demanded that the mayor “acknowledge the changing dynamics of the COVID-19 virus” and make further bargains with the CTU regarding conditions for possibly returning to school.

“Parents are concerned,” the letter states in part, “and they deserve assurances that our union and the [Chicago Public Schools] team are working…to ensure safety in hundreds of school buildings across the city.” In fact, many parents have been critical of CTU and other teachers’ unions across the country, which have sought to extend school shutdowns for as long as possible for the teachers’ pleasure, often including absurd and unreasonable conditions in their requirements for returning to in-person instruction.

Read the full story

All Three of the Nation’s Largest School District Heads Have Resigned

Admin
Empty Classroom

Within a roughly two-month period, the heads of the three largest public school districts in the country have all resigned, as reported by Breitbart.

The most recent resignation comes from Chicago, where the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Janice Jackson, announced her resignation on Monday. After serving for nearly three years in the position, Jackson declared that it was time to “pass the torch to new leadership.” Under Jackson’s command, CPS began clashing with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.) over the issue of whether or not schools should return to in-person learning, with Lightfoot attributing the constant stalemates and delays to the union’s “aspirations,” which she said are more “akin to a political party” than a union.

Read the full story