Showing posts with label student activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label student activism. Show all posts
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SOJO Teachers Win Back Jobs! Students March Through Community

August 31, 2012 0 comments


Angela Sangha and Katie Hogan, founding teachers of the Social Justice High School (SOJO) who were fired on 8/24 as part of CPS’s move to dismantle the school, won back their jobs on 8/30. This is a huge victory – thanks to the strength of the parents, students, teachers and the CTU.

The struggle for SOJO is not over
Today, SOJO students, chanting “Where’s the Justice in Social justice” and wearing T- shirts saying “CPS We Want Answers,” led a disciplined march and rally of 200 in the community and another rally at the school. Parents marched with them in support.

The SOJO community demands CPS:
1. Rewind to August 6 (Reinstate principal, rehire all fired staff, reinstate all scheduled programs and classes)
2. Approve and sign contracts for Kathy Farr, fired principal of SOJO, and also World Language principal (another high school in the Lawndale/Little Village High School Campus)
3. Change Advisory Local School Council to fully-empowered LSC
4. No retaliation against any students, staff, or parents
5. Issue an apology to the community

This is another move by CPS to destabilize and disinvest in neighborhood schools, disenfranchise the community, and turn public schools over to private operators. CPS is talking about taking half of the public schools in Chicago and turning them over to private operators in the next few years. The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board states, “CPS will likely close or consolidate scores of schools next year” (8/31). We have to draw a line in the sand.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Call CPS CEO Jean-Claud Brizard (773) 553-1500
Call Theresa Plascencia, CPS West Side Network Chief (773) 534-9770
Call Alderman Rick Munoz, if you live in his ward (773) 762-1781

Tell them you want all the demands met!

Stay tuned for next steps.

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Parents/Students Take Over Sojo Mtg-2 Teachers Fired

August 29, 2012 0 comments

A SoJo HS Parent speaks during the public comment portion of the community forum.

In a show of community unity, on Thurs. night Aug 23, 200 parents, teachers, students, and community members at Chicago's Social Justice High School (Sojo) denounced CPS-appointed interim principal and CPS Network staff for cutting AP classes and critical student programs, displacing core veteran teachers, disrespecting parents and community, destabilizing the school, and violating the values of the Hunger Strike that founded the school. Charging that CPS is trying to cut out the heart of Sojo's social justice mission, students led the parents and community members in chanting "where's the justice in social justice?"

TWO TEACHERS FIRED
At the end of the day on Friday, Aug. 24, the interim principal fired Angela Sangha and Katie Hogan, two veteran English teachers who have been with Sojo since the day it opened in Fall 2005.

SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE TO DEFEND SOJO, ITS TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
Parents, community members, students and teachers, backed by the CTU, are fighting back. Students are organizing to leaflet the community, starting Saturday (Aug 25). They need copying donated to distribute 1500 two-sided flyers. IF YOU CAN MAKE COPIES EMAIL TSJ ASAP. Stay tuned for next steps.

 CALL CPS CEO BRIZARD
Call CEO Brizard at 312-553-1500 and demand the following:
1. Respect the LSC process and reinstate the recently fired principal Kathy Farr
2. Rehire all fired teachers and other personnel and return teachers and staff to their regular assignments
3. No reprisals/retaliation against students and teachers and staff

Born out of struggle and the struggle continues!

Check out article in Substance magazine on the meeting last night here. For more information, please download this flyer.

Here are videos from the community forum:


And here is a video of Katie Hogan, one of the teachers fired the day after the community forum, speaking at Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign's town hall meeting on education on Wed, Aug 30th:



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Defend Chicago’s Social Justice High School (Sojo)

August 23, 2012 3 comments


Sojo was “born out of struggle” in 2001 when 14 Little Village residents endured a 19- day hunger strike to fight for a new school in their neighborhood. In Fall 2005, Sojo and three other small schools opened in a new building on 31st and Kostner, serving Little Village and North Lawndale. Sojo is a neighborhood school built on the principles of the Hunger Strike: “truth and transparency, struggle and sacrifice, ownership and agency, and collective and community power”. It is a national model of social justice education. But now, Sojo is under attack by the CPS Administration. CPS is trying to dismantle Sojo by downgrading the curriculum, displacing teachers, and lying to the community. Sojo’s very existence as a neighborhood public school serving low-income African American and Latin@ students with the vision of community self-determination is a threat to CPS’s top-down corporate model of schooling.

CPS never gave a contract to the new Sojo principal, Kathy Farr, who was selected by the Advisory LSC and started in March 2012. On Tuesday, August 7th, just six days before school began, CPS fired and replaced her with an interim principal, without consulting anyone in the Sojo community. When school opened Monday, the interim principal cut three AP classes and replaced them with remedial classes, fired two attendance clerks, and reassigned teachers to classes and subjects with no preparation. On Day #3 of school, students organized a peaceful, disciplined sit-in to demand the reinstatement of AP classes and staff to their original positions. Now student leaders are threatened with explusion.

Sojo is striving for the critical and culturally relevant education our youth need. From Tucson to Sojo, this is the same attack! CPS is dismantling this national model. Given what we have learned from the past 8 years of school privatization in Chicago, CPS may be planning to “redefine” sojo and turn the school’s state-of-the-art building and its students over to politically connected charter operators.

This is all of our fight! Come out to a community forum on Thurs., Aug. 23, 6 PM (31st St. & Kostner) in solidarity with Sojo.
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