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Chicago Public Faculties officers are internet hosting six month-to-month on-line conferences beginning subsequent week to share the newest developments of their plans to construct a controversial $150 million highschool on the Close to South Facet.
The primary digital informational assembly might be held Jan. 19, the college district introduced Friday, in an try and “interact group members in [the] imaginative and prescient” for the brand new faculty that might be constructed on public housing land. The housing will as an alternative be constructed close by.
The conferences will “introduce the mission design staff members, share the district’s engagement technique and determine subsequent steps on this mission,” a press release mentioned.
Officers additionally touted “greater than two dozen conferences and data classes with group members to assemble enter about this proposed highschool” since final Could.
“Co-located with CHA housing, and various by design, the college can function a mannequin for the way various districts in cities with various wants can thoughtfully develop a plan for a brand new faculty. The proposed highschool would tentatively open in 2025,” the district mentioned.
It wasn’t clear whether or not enter from the conferences can be taken into planning consideration. Group members have complained over the previous few months that related conferences have solely targeted on what the college ought to embrace and never whether or not it needs to be constructed in any respect, and haven’t taken their considerations significantly.
State Rep. Theresa Mah in September accused CPS of holding disingenuous group conferences by which no enter was truly taken.
“It’s all simply to examine a field,” Mah mentioned then. “It’s all for present as a result of they’ve this concept in thoughts, they wish to push ahead and so they’re making up the help for it.”
There stays important opposition to the district’s plan from numerous corners, significantly those that are indignant about using public housing land for a brand new highschool after many Black residents left the world when the previous Harold Ickes Houses shut down. There are additionally considerations — together with from some former CPS officers — {that a} new faculty might hurt close by traditionally Black excessive colleges.
And even a few of the strongest advocates of a brand new Close to South faculty don’t approve of the chosen website out of solidarity with public housing neighbors and its distance from Chinatown, which is without doubt one of the communities the college would serve. Mah secured $50 million in state funding for a Close to South faculty in 2020 however vowed final fall to withhold that cash till CPS authentically engages with group members.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS officers have plowed forward with the mission at twenty fourth and State streets nonetheless, pushing by way of Board of Schooling approval and a few metropolis funding final 12 months.
The assembly subsequent Thursday is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. Households and group members can register online.
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