How Numbers Lied After Schools Closed

During last year’s historic school closure process in Chicago I advocated against the closing of schools in multiple ways. I have seen schools as anchors in a community and it is sometimes through the facility itself and what happens in that space that could never be measured through a blunt utilization formula.  For example the closed Ryerson Elementary School, it was a Level 2 School according to CPS, and not on probation. The school serviced a high poverty student population. The school had been Level 1 for past three years. The school received citywide attention for its 6-8th grade single sex class that had made remarkable gains. It was the first school to pilot Longer School Day before the Emmanuel administration. It had a neighborhood clinic occupy one of the classrooms, a Chicago Bulls Health and Fitness Center, and a state of the Art Library and Media Center donated by Target, with recess rooms with computers and a community rooms which were useful spaces as the outside park area had been a drug dealing hang out. The enrollment reported when it was slated to closed was 398 with a student capacity of 690 students. The utilization rate according to CPS was 58%. When parents took it among themselves to count their own classrooms and special education rooms they used the formula and determined they were 77% utilized.

The Chicago Board of Education voted to consolidate Ryerson with Laura Ward Elementary School but inside the Ryeron building. The Laura Ward building is now vacant, the school had a capacity for 720 students versus Ryerson’s capacity of 690 students. Ryerson according to data from the Utilization Commission needed $16 mil., and Laura Ward needed over $9 mil. But both schools 2008 facility assessments had reduced numbers, matter of fact Laura Ward only needed $3 mil. During the school closure decision process there was never any clarity on those maintenance dollars.

So now here we are in 2014 and the one pager for Real Estate Brokers from CPS recently posted RFP states that the yearly maintenance of Laura Ward is a little over $200,000 a year, and the information given to the brokers explicitly shows the available Tax Increment Financing dollars available to be potentially used.

Why couldn’t we have used those funds to lower the cost of Laura Ward and Ryerson maintenance and keep these high performing schools in the community? Keeping two schools with high academic achievement with relatively high utilization (Laura Ward's utilization was 55%) and continuing to support the stabilization of these anchoring schools who before the closure had eighth graders going elite high schools across the City. Matter of fact, Laura Ward is now back to being a Level 1 school. The new Laura Ward which is the consolidation with Ryerson no longer has a Fitness room, and has over 694 students in a building made for 690. 

The vacant school buildings mean so much more than a potential development project they must be a part of restoring the hurt, any damage done by the school closures and uplift these communities through community decision making and advising the disposition of these anchor institutions determined by those impacted.

Participatory Planning with Chicago Public Schools Closed Buildings

The Mayor's Advisory Committee on School Re-Purposing came forward with their recommendations a few weeks ago detailing a process for school disposition. The recommendations included an aggressive timetable and a call for community engagement, primarily post bids. The recommendations spoke to moving forward as fast as possible to find alternative uses for the empty buildings, and could limit the ability of communities to organize and create their own process.  

The communities impacted by last years mass school closures need to be able to create their own vision for the vacant spaces as oppose to bids being created by others who are developing a plan for the space based on their market needs. Alderman should take the opportunity or push back on the process and create spaces for community visioning around the re-purposing of these schools, even connecting with more traditional development as well. 


Communities should be able to ask themselves...where do we want to be in this community in the next ten years, how does that look and feel...and what are the institutions and services needed to get there-and can we use the vacant schools to support this vision?

This can build on current plans and initiatives and can introduce new ones, and promote conversation around gaps in services or social capital support that can be addressed in those buildings or by a community controlled bid process. Understanding the parameters of the closed buildings already acts as a filtering process so no need to think the process will get too overwhelming, the maintenance and operation of these buildings cost money and this makes communities and local stakeholders think critically about how the proposals address a communities growth and keep the lights on! 

Community/Collective visioning can include surveys, interviews, and focus groups using the great university and community based organizations throughout the City like the work being done by Resident Association for Greater Englewood and there collaboration with Illinois Institute of Technology. Yes, this will take time but a collaboration like this creates ownership, transparency, increased democracy, and is smart planning. In 2009 the Taskforce did just this to help us create our recommendations that became law in 2011. We devoted a year to vision what CPS needed to be doing when it came to school buildings and worked with teacher, students, parent, principals, and elected officials. From here we created draft changes for the district that were spearheaded by the common recommendations, from this data collection here we translated those themes into Citywide recommendations. We went further and then redistributed it for final review all over the city gaining consensus and working to address people's concerns creating a grassroots informed bill. It was clear that the community recommendations were heavily weighted in our work and without approval from the larger community we were not going to move forward. 


Community engagement should not be post bid where people are giving feedback on whether or not a proposal should go through. Communities can create proposals and create criteria for bids. The participatory budget model that is being used here in Chicago and used in New York City, and throughout the entire City of Vallejo, California also shows some ways we can implement a community engagement process. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. It offers residents a fundamentally different way to engage with government. The process has been used in disenfranchised communities to support stronger democracy, citizen engagement, and encourages leadership in the local community. The engagement for the process includes activities such as neighborhood assemblies, this is where you and other community members propose project ideas and priorities. From there committees research and price out the project and potential impact and finally there is a community vote on the projects that will be considered and sent to the elected officials.  Imagine residents engaging in their own committees to propose plans to the larger community for the closed schools....

These efforts such as community/collective visioning, large scale engagement, requires technical assistance and any resident and stakeholder driven process takes technical support. As CPS takes over the work, as being advised by the Mayor's committees recommendations, CPS should be reaching out, or communities can begin to get support for an initiative like leaning on local universities, funders, and other organizations that support in research, mapping, analysis, data collection, leadership development for residents, and other skills needed for a community engagement process. 

Yes it should be messy,yes it should be time consuming, maybe even cost some money, and yes this should be be done right and not expediently.  The district has many more buildings and much land that has yet to be disposed of prior to the closures of last year. So there is much work to do around getting closed and vacant land off the books besides those recently closed. 

Last years closures were devastating and for many children throughout the City they have had to change their lives because of the school actions. So yes we should respect those that have been changed, and those who have lost, and ensure the sacred spaces are turned into something that is beautiful and can leverage human and community development.