Reopening schools is easy. Keeping them open will be the hard part. (Amy Harris / Chicago Tribune) Reopening schools is easy. Keeping them open will be the hard part. (Amy Harris / Chicago Tribune) SEE MORE VIDEOS
In October, CPS announced a plan to close 17 high schools and a handful of elementary schools as part of a plan to more than double the number of high schools by 2025. It needed to close 635 of the state's 753 high schools to reach the targets under the teachers' contract strikes.
About 34 high schools were upgraded to two-year schools, increasing their enrollment from 3,101 students in 2012-13 to about 4,000 students in 2014-15. There are no data on how many four-year high schools that have opened since the end of the school year will ultimately close.
The district nailed down plans to renovate classes and renovate auditoriums at 11 high schools next year. But ultimately, the party line Wednesday was to close all the schools that students stayed away from.
"What's really effective is when we can really get students back inside the classroom recruiting them back to the high school," said principals and assistant principals.
Many of those high schools are in students' former neighborhoods. (Griffey Civic Hub, Asbury High School, John Damen Middle School and Berwyn Heights Elementary and Andrew Washington, formerly Holt Middle School.)
Davenport-Barksdale Principal Jake Muscha said, since the school initially opened 50 years ago, attendance at Davenport has dropped "50 percent."
But the school name and the competitiveness of the schools attract some parents, Muscha said, who are now making the choice not to let their children miss school as "one more year of being tough on my family in any way."
"Trying to bring in other families means you're trying to do without your kids," he said.
Schools still grappling
While the districts are planning to close schools that students were not able to attend and teachers could not recruit to, South Oak Cliff is struggling with issues of attendance, finances and child poverty.
South Oak Cliff High School was left with about 1,100 students this year, the same number as it had there two years ago. Expanded last year into a four-year school, it's considered the last high school in poverty-stricken Southeast Dallas, Rockwall and Osceola counties, said Bradne Dale, an assistant principal who oversees students as they travel from station to station between Hillsboro
In October, CPS announced a plan to close 17 high schools and a handful of elementary schools as part of a plan to more than double the number of high schools by 2025. It needed to close 635 of the state's 753 high schools to reach the targets under the teachers' contract strikes.
About 34 high schools were upgraded to two-year schools, increasing their enrollment from 3,101 students in 2012-13 to about 4,000 students in 2014-15. There are no data on how many four-year high schools that have opened since the end of the school year will ultimately close.
The district nailed down plans to renovate classes and renovate auditoriums at 11 high schools next year. But ultimately, the party line Wednesday was to close all the schools that students stayed away from.
"What's really effective is when we can really get students back inside the classroom recruiting them back to the high school," said principals and assistant principals.
Many of those high schools are in students' former neighborhoods. (Griffey Civic Hub, Asbury High School, John Damen Middle School and Berwyn Heights Elementary and Andrew Washington, formerly Holt Middle School.)
Davenport-Barksdale Principal Jake Muscha said, since the school initially opened 50 years ago, attendance at Davenport has dropped "50 percent."
But the school name and the competitiveness of the schools attract some parents, Muscha said, who are now making the choice not to let their children miss school as "one more year of being tough on my family in any way."
"Trying to bring in other families means you're trying to do without your kids," he said.
Schools still grappling
While the districts are planning to close schools that students were not able to attend and teachers could not recruit to, South Oak Cliff is struggling with issues of attendance, finances and child poverty.
South Oak Cliff High School was left with about 1,100 students this year, the same number as it had there two years ago. Expanded last year into a four-year school, it's considered the last high school in poverty-stricken Southeast Dallas, Rockwall and Osceola counties, said Bradne Dale, an assistant principal who oversees students as they travel from station to station between Hillsboro
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