We are told to accept CPS funding formulas just “because that’s the way it’s done.”
Please. This is not how it Should be done.
And we should work to change this:
CPS gave us no choice in the budget assigned to us that we are literally stuck and obligated to make a depressing bet:
Student enrollment is down across the city.
This creates smaller class sizes.
This would be good, but then CPS finds it falsely palpable to cut teaching positions and allocations.
So that is what happens. But worse:
CPS assigned to us the assertion that our Enrollment will Go Up once the next year starts. So they forced us to spend money on a promise that when we get more students that money had covered the cost. BUT:
If those additional students don’t show up magically, as the district portends, as math shows more students are leaving, then We Will Have To Give Materials Back and Otherwise Return the Value.
Do you understand that?
Our students may receive top and world class materials for the first two weeks of school that they then may have to return before the weeks even continue!
Because if there’s fewer kids by the 20th day of school than expected— that’s how it is.
Further: We lost funds to support students with social, emotional, and behavioral health needs.
This was especially heart breaking as I know first hand how these services can save a student. If I hadn’t had support services in elementary school I likely would not have graduated high school.
The most painful thought, however, was how powerless CPS has successfully undermined the democratic values of Local School Councils.
There are stories across the city of the district stone walling LSC’s legal obligation to dismiss a principal who is found derelict of duties. CPS does not offer support in this legally obligated effort by the fiduciary of the LSC.
And our budgets. Given to us less than 2 days before a vote— practically violating the Open Meetings Act, the legal authority of the Local School Councils were deeply violated and undermined.
Our authority was replaced by their edict.
These are the budgets.
Our votes for our budgets were a sham.
We placed a bet with the future of our children as collateral.
And the students of CPS are guaranteed to lose.