Illinois' Budget Crisis & Chicago Public Schools
Hey parents! I came across an article on DNAInfo Chicago - if you don’t follow it you totally should - and here is the link.
The article was basically some preschool parents were waitlisted at a CPS preschool. And the principal of the school was saying that there were plenty of spots open, so they didn’t really understand what was going on and why they couldn’t get in if there were spots available.
And it got me thinking that it might be because of our current state of Illinois budget crisis.
We, at our school, got a letter in May from our principal about the process for assigning kids to classes for the next year. Normally, the process is to give the kids the assignment at the end of the year for the following year. But this year they were going to mail them out in the summer. And I think the reason for that is budgetary. They don’t know how many teachers they’re going to be able to afford next year because the budgets haven’t been set, because they budgets haven’t been set by the state of Illinois.
And it’s a huge issue. There’s all kinds of implications for the budgetary issues in Illinois.
People always wonder ‘What can I do? As a normal, everyday human, how can I make a difference?’
What you can do is call your legislators. The way way you do that is find their number online, really easy, google search them. And you call their office, they probably have multiple offices, one in Springfield, one in Chicago, and you tell them:
Your Name
You are a taxpayer and a registered voter
You are very concerned about the budget issues (in this case, how they’re going to affect Chicago Public Schools, or public schools in general)
ASK: What are you doing about it?
Then you close your mouth and you listen. Because they need to be held accountable, and this is a way to get them accountable. You have to ask them what they’re doing, and make them tell you. Find out what actions they’re taking, who are they talking to, what are they trying to accomplish while they’re there.
We’re in the 11th hour here, guys. I don’t know if anything can be done or not, but we need to do as much as we can on our end to make sure that something can happen.
And hopefully, a budget get passed, our schools go on, we have plenty of money for great teachers next year, and everybody gets off the waitlist.