Administrators at the Chicago Public Schools have, for the moment, conceded to a group of parents at Whittier Elementary in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, stopping construction of a library in the school that parents argued would have displaced special-ed students and gone against the wishes of the community.
Though the immediate battle is over for now, the outcome of the more protracted struggle -- and what exactly both sides hope to gain -- remains unclear.
The story of Whittier, and the fieldhouse known as La Casita located on the school's campus, goes back nearly a decade, but it broke into the city's consciousness last September. CPS was planning to demolish the fieldhouse, long a home of community events, tutoring programs and other activities, to replace it with a soccer field -- primarily for the use of the neighboring Cristo Rey high school, a private Jesuit institution.
For 43 days, mothers of Whittier students in the predominantly Mexican Pilsen neighborhood occupied the building in a sit-in that captivated the city and drew nation-wide attention. Their demand: that the building be saved, and converted to a library. Whittier is one of more than a hundred schools in Chicago that doesn't have one.
Eventually, then-CEO of CPS Ron Huberman put the demolition on hold, agreed to lease the building to the parents, and to put a library in at Whittier.
Trouble broke out again two weeks ago, at the start of the tenure of newly appointed CEO Jean-Claude Brizard. The parents at Whittier had spent months coming up with plans to renovate the fieldhouse into a library and multi-use facility that would be environmentally friendly and funded mostly by monies already obtained from neighborhood elected officials.
Brizard declined to meet with parents. Instead, on a morning when they came downtown for a Board of Education meeting, CPS sent construction crews to their school to prepare for installing a library inside the school's main building.
Parents quickly organized resistance. The school was already overcrowded, they argued, and the room CPS planned to use for the library was being used for pull-out sessions with special needs students. Where would those take place? they demanded. And why couldn't CPS just use La Casita for the library, like they'd suggested?
For a week, they held a line, sealing off access from construction trucks to the school's main building and preventing CPS from beginning its work. They asked that CPS stop construction and meet with the parents to discuss their plans for La Casita.
Late Wednesday, Brizard sent a letter to the parents announcing that his planned construction would be halted.
"As a result of your continued opposition in allowing us access to the school, we have no other choice than to cancel construction of the library project this summer," Brizard wrote.
The Chicago Tribune covered the stoppage of construction, saying that the "weeklong delay in construction cost the cash-strapped district about $150,000," although neither it nor CPS explained how such a large sum was wasted in such a short time. It described the parent movement as disorganized ("sometimes they turn on each other") and perhaps of some nefarious political affiliation ("some have questioned who is behind the Whittier Parents Committee").
Several news sources around the city objected to the Trib's coverage. Gapers Block described its claim that "leftist activists" were the driving force behind the movement as "reminiscent of the first Mayor Daley blaming all civil disorder on 'outside agitators.'" And Curtis Black of NewsTips wrote that the Trib's account "pretty clearly sets forth the version of events that CPS brass prefers."
In any event, the question remains: what will happen at Whittier?
CPS seems unmoving in its insistence that it will not fund the parents' plan for a library renovation inside La Casita. The parents seem to have reconciled themselves to this outcome, saying that they "will allow CPS's plans for a library in the main school building" as long as special needs students are provided for. They are also insisting that the second-floor library be accessible to disabled students, though no classrooms on the second floor currently are.
They have also added an apparently new demand, in a June 28 letter to Brizard: "We demand CPS match the funds that the Whittier parents have already raised independently for the renovation of La Casita," the parents wrote.
In his reply, Brizard was cool on that idea:
You ask that CPS match funds you have raised privately for renovation of the field house. We have no record of CPS agreeing to match funds raised by the WPC. CPS and the WPC agreed that the Board would lease the field house to the WPC for $1 per year and the WPC would be responsible to bring the field house up to Municipal code for occupancy.
For now, it appears clear that students at Whittier won't have a new library when they return for classes in the fall. When and if a library will be installed, and when and how La Casita will be renovated, are still open questions.