"Las Casas serves students whose emotional needs cannot be met in a regular public school setting..."
"Las Casas Occupational High Schools has been telling a story of success from over 25 years. This programs has had continued graduation rates of over 95% with all students leaving with actual work experience and over 75% with occupational successes in a private sector. Attendance rate 82%, Truancy is 12%, 24% mobility trained, retention-since we are 100% special ed., all students can be retained until 21 years of age , expulsion 2% and drop our rates are 3%.
The majority of our school population is bussed from as far north as Roosevelt Road, South to 120th street and west to Pulaski Road. Many of our students are either Wards of the State (DCFS); live with family who is on public aid, or live in foster or group homes. The racial makeup of Las Casas is 90% black, 7% Hispanic, and 3% White."
From Davis:
"Miles Davis Magnet Academy for Children's Engineering... The children's engineering program is the first in the Chicago area."
Miles Davis faced closure last year. This year they face consolidation.
the lease lasting until 2013 plus the capital improvements would indicate a new home for a new charter?
ReplyDeleteThis was emailed to me from a Davis teacher:
ReplyDeleteI thought our hearing went as well as could be expected. I was very proud of our parents. Almost all of them that attended do not speak English and were somewhat intimidated by the whole process. One of our parents convinced the rest how important it was to use the interpreter and speak their minds! They were great. We have known about our consolidation for many years. The CORE website wrongly states that L. Hughes burned down, but it was torn down to build the new building. We were part of a big design competition years ago to get architects to build this great building for disabled and non disabled students. We were told we would be INDEPENDENT schools within the school. Now things have changed. Of course CPS couldn't afford the winning architect's design and we are getting a rectangle building (with some very special accommodations for our students.) Anyway, we are asking to remain autonomous. Our students have many medical, cognitive and physical challenges. We don't want to just move most of the teachers. We want our Administrators, ESP's and everyone else too! Maybe you want to share my email and my attached letter that I read at the hearing. We got to speak for about 3 minutes because everyone had to slow down for the interpreter. We also did not have a lot of people. The Law Dept. read the proposal to the Hearing Officer and describes the reasons for the CPS proposal. We don't have any argument with that. Then everyone else got called in the order they signed up. We signed up in the lobby downstairs. Everyone has to go through security there too. I don't know what that entails because I had a CPS ID and passed through the lobby. It is in the same room you see on TV for the meetings. The only person up there is the Hearing Officer. Reps from many other Depts. were seated along the sides. They generally didn't speak unless they were referred to for clarification on something. The officer didn't really seem to know the whole story because she asked a parent if she had been to Hughes to see the students or staff. Hughes is currently in 3 different locations!!! We are afraid that this is all for nothing and just a legal formality if CPS has already made up their minds anyway. This is a no brainer for Arne or anyone else trying to cut money to get rid of one of our Principal, Asst. Principal, and making many staff members reapply. Then they rehire the cheapest ones back. I hope this was informative. Please keep me posted.
Sue Reynolds
Davis Developmental Center
January 26, 2009
ReplyDeleteARNE DUNCAN, Chief Executive Officer
Chicago Public Schools
125 South Clark Street, 5th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603
Mr. Duncan:
Davis Developmental Center is a special school that deserves special considerations in the consolidation process. Davis is unique for many reasons. We are considered a “Special Education School” according to CPS description. Approximately 70-75% of our students have special needs that include primary handicapping conditions of Cognitive Impairment, Physical Impairment or Other Health Impairment. Besides being the youngest CPS students, they are also among the most physically and medically challenged children in the Chicago Public Schools.
Davis is also special because of its size. Because we service approximately 100 3-6 year olds, we are able to develop strong relationships with the children and parents. The staff at Davis works tirelessly to ensure the parents that their children will be cared for in every way possible. It is very difficult for many parents to send off their children that are unable to walk, talk, or care for themselves in any way. Our Principal, Rochelle Riddick has been at Davis Developmental Center as both a teacher and a Principal for over 20 years. Her dedication to the children at Davis should not be overlooked. She has worked tirelessly to assemble the most dedicated, and qualified staff possible. Only a few weeks ago, we were told after a Walk-Through that they would like to “clone our staff.” Now we are in jeopardy of losing many of the staff members that make Davis the special place that it is.
The Davis community has been very excited about the completion of our new school. We were informed almost 10 years ago about the combined building that we would share with Langston Hughes. It was part of the “Big Shoulders, Small Schools” Design Competition in which our own staff participated. We were asked several times for our input and opinions. We spent many hours attending community meetings and other functions. We stood before architects to explain the very special needs of our students and the type of building that they would need. Even now that a different building is being constructed, we were still asked for our advice and suggestions. The Davis staff voiced our concerns about our students, staff, and administration many years ago. We were afraid to lose the “smallness” of Davis Developmental Center. We were assured at that time that we would remain a small “School within a School” and that we would also remain autonomous. Now that our building is almost finished, we are being told that we are not going to be welcome to join our students.
According to Board of Education Policy Text:
When considering the matter of closing schools, it is the intent and desire of the Board of Education to provide students high quality academic opportunities in a supportive educational atmosphere. A “supportive educational atmosphere” for a Davis Angel would be an atmosphere where they would have familiar faces in their classrooms, throughout the building, and on their buses. The students of Davis deserve to have administrators that are familiar and EXPERIENCED with the unique needs of multiply- challenged children. The students of Davis Developmental Center DESERVE to have a staff that is familiar with them and that will help them to transition through yet another challenge in their lives. PLEASE give Davis Developmental Center special consideration during this consolidation process. Please allow Davis to remain autonomous and allow the Davis staff to lead our Davis Angels to the Langston Hughes/Davis Developmental Center.
Sincerely,
Susan Reynolds
Davis Developmental Center
Kristine Mayle said...
ReplyDeleteI attended the hearing for Davis Developmental on behalf of CORE to support the teachers and families who will be impacted by this closing.
After hearing the testimony, I am glad I attended, especially because I am a special education teacher who realizes how few schools there are to send students who are in special education due to medical conditions as well as developmental delays.
As was the case last year, there were no Board members present, but there were representatives from various offices and departments of CPS in addition to the hearing officer. I counted 20 people total on the other side of the "fence."
Background I gleamed about Davis Developmental from the testimonies of parents, teachers, community partners:
-Davis is a unique school that serves a very specific population of about one hundred 3-5 year olds with cognitive impairments, physical disabilities, and other health impairments. Students were described as being "medically fragile" and "medically complex" and many rely on the school's specializations to provide feeding, ventilators, and medical monitoring in addition to meeting the educational needs of students.
-The Board is proposing to move Davis students into a facility to be shared with Langston Hughes School.
-It is unclear if staff from Davis will be employed and if so how many would be.
-An especially interesting point brought up by both a teacher from Davis and another from Hughes is that when the Board was pushing small schools circa 2000-2001, they wanted to merge the two schools and even held a Small School Design Competition and sought teacher and staff input on choosing the winning design. Teachers reviewed more than 150 sets of architectural plans and provided imput as to the medical and emotional needs of the students when planning the school. This school never came to fruition.
-Most of the speakers on behalf of Davis seemed resigned to the fact that they would in fact be closing, but many appealed to the hearing officer that they be allowed to move the entire staff to Hughes to provide both continuity in medical care and to emotionally support the children that rely on them. They also asked that they be given expanded space and enrollment capabilities when they move to Hughes because there are so few schools in CPS that serve this population of students.
-There are very few schools in CPS that are equipped to handle medically fragile students and at a recent area walkthrough, the principal was told that they wished they could "clone the staff" at Davis because they were so adept at serving this population of students.
January 26, 2009 7:59 PM
Kristine Mayle said...
The Las Casas hearing was better attended than the Davis hearing (probably due to the early start and possible childcare issues for special needs children). I counted 25 speakers on behalf of Las Casas, myself included.
Las Casas, like Davis, serves a very specific Special Ed. population. Las Casas is currently the only CPS-run therapeutic day school. They serve students with emotional and behavior issues. Las Casas takes in the students that cannot be placed in "regular" CPS schools because of their behaviors and social/emotional needs. Currently, 99% of the students at Las Casas are African American males, the majority of them with emotional disturbances as well as learning disabilities.
The Board's reasoning for closing Las Casas is that it costs too much money to maintain the physical building and that there is "no demographic need" for the school.
**Sidenote** as a special education teacher who has tried to have a student placed in a therapeutic setting, I can testify that it is nearly impossible to do. Only a ton of different interventions, tracking, monitoring, behavior plans, observations by behavior specialist can a teacher even begin to discuss a therapeutic setting. I have a friend that is an AP at a northside day school and she says they are desperately looking for more students, but CPS is reluctant to send them because of the cost. So CPS's arguement that there is "no demographic need" is due solely to the fact that they make it nearly impossible to send students to a day school setting.
The Office of Specialized Services has the only authority to place students in a therapeutic setting, despite the opinions of individual IEP teams. (This, in an of itself walks a fine line of legality re: IDEA. If an IEP team deems a therapeutic setting the Least Restrictive Environment, they should not need further approval from the Board). Needless to say there are plenty of students that would benefit greatly from this type of program, but they never make it that far in the process. In regard to Las Casas, the Board has 4 privately run therapeutic day schools that they are proposing as alternatives for the students currently attending Las Casas.
Representatives from three of these schools spoke at the hearing to brag about the programs they offered at their schools (Beacon Therapeutic, South Central Day School, and Infinity High School). One teacher from Las Casas told me that he had already received phonecalls from more than one of these schools offering him a job (non-union, no pension, but they were offering him a salary "comparable to CPS").
A social worker/clinical director from Las Casas testified that they are underfunded when compared to privately run therapeutic day schools which average CPS a cost of $77,000/yr per student. Las Casas functions on $28,700/yr per student.
So why would the Board close the less costly alternative? Because according to the Office of Specialized Services there are 50 pre-paid "seats" being unused right now. At the beginning of the year, CPS buys 100 "seats" or places in private therapeutic schools for students. By leaving 50 vacant "seats," CPS is essentially throwing money away. (Not sure of accuracy of the numbers, just reporting on the testimony I heard). Of the students that testified, many broke down in tears, one couldn't even finish speaking.
Both students and parents repeatedly testified that they or their children would not return to school permanently (drop out) if Las Casas was closed. Many people described students that had come from other CPS schools as trouble-makers, cronic truants, students with little to no motivation to excel in school. Once they were placed in Las Casas, they turned their lives around.
One mother testified about her son that attended Gage Park and was shot while ditching classes (a regular occurance). Once he healed from his wounds he returned to school, but this time at Las Casas. The mother credited the school with saving her son's life and said that now he is passing his classes, attending school regularly. She said that if Las Casas closes, he has already told her he would stop attending school altogether. She closed her testimony by noting that all of the services mentioned by the three private schools present at the hearing were already being provided by Las Casas and that in many cases, students from Las Casas had already attended those schools and experienced problems there.
Over and over, students testified about how Las Casas was their "family" and how many of them didn't even have real families as many of the students are wards of the state. Another mother was brought to tears as pleaded that the school remain open because she was afraid her son would drop out and ruin his life.
An interesting financial aspect was brought up by both the priest from the Catholic school that currently houses Las Casas and from Derrick Harris from North Lawndale Accountability Association who spoke on behalf of parents. They testified that over $1 million has been spent in the building recently for various capital improvements including roofing, electrical, and tuckpointing. Harris stated that CPS has a lease for the space until 2013 at a rate of $236,000/yr.
Harris also testified that CPS was chosing to close Las Casas in order to protect themselves from covering up IEP violations as well as falsified attendance information dating back to the previous principal.
I encourage all to attend the upcoming hearings. This really was an eye-opening experience for me. Seeing the testimony in person not only puts a face on the individuals that will be affected, but also shows all the great work/programs/services that are being sabotaged by the Board.
January 26, 2009