Huberman was a no show at Pritzker School and those waiting had a lot to say

Shannon Turner (r), Katie McNamera (c) and Kendra Turner (l) stand infront of many unused signs.

Ron Huberman, Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), was scheduled to make a stop during the last day of school at Wicker Park's Pritzker School.  He was a no show. Parents, teachers and some students had questions to ask him and statements to make.  The entrance to the school had signs waiting to be raised, pleading the school head for various actions.

"Cutting teachers and increasing class sizes should not be the answer to educational funding needs," said Shannon Tanner, mother of Kendra. "That is just crazy." Tanner, who worked for sixteen years with Unicare health care, is currently able to stay home and meet the needs of her two daughters.  Her eldest daughter is in a work study program in a private high school where she is pursuing an interest in business.  Her youngest has just completed her second year at Pritzker where she is in the performing arts program and will be in 7th grade this fall.

D.R. Edwards (l), her daughter Chandler (c) and Sylvia Ramos (r) discuss their frustrations about school funding.

While waiting for Huberman, a group of parents began talking about the possibility that school, in the future, was going to go all year without a summer break. D. R. Edwards, whose daughter Chandler just graduated from Pritzker asked Sylvia Ramos, who has had children and grandchildren at Pritzker and is a member of the Local School Council (LSC), "Do you remember the first year Dr. Reese was here?  It was so hot in the school that children were becoming ill. Dr. Reese was taking them into her air conditioned office. Shawn Murphy, head of CPS physical plants said that the children had to stay in school until it was 105 outside. Of course, in the school it was 10 to 20 degrees hotter than outside."

"Someone said to him that the children were becoming ill. He replied, 'CPS has been making children sick for a 100 years and they are going to keep on keepin' on.' "

"Yes, and at about the same time," related Ramos, "we discovered that the furnace air filters were caked with dirt. We took a piece of one to a meeting downtown and the next day people came out to go thru the whole building and change them. I am not sure that they have been changed since. I clean mine every six months at home."

"Our whole state is a mess. It is outrageous and there is no money," said Edwards.

Amy Rosenwasser, Special Ed teacher weighs in on job uncertainty.

Newly elected LSC teacher representative, Amy Rosenwasser asked, "Can you imagine being at the last day of school today and not knowing if you have a job or not for the fall? This school is to have 4.5 teachers cut for next year. But, no one knows who that is."

"If Huberman is using a business model to run the school, I can not imagine what that looks like. How can we plan for the school or ourselves?" Rosenwasser is a National Board Certified Special Education teacher who is in her fourth year as an educator. "I worked with low income housing before changing my career into education."

David Hernandez brings attention to class size.

David Hernandez, a poet and teaching artist for CPS, said that class room size was his concern, as it is for many others.

Mitch Hutton, whose daughter was the solitarian of her graduating class has been given three choices for her high school education.  Two are on suspension and the other is far away and none are selective schools. He wants to know why that is happening.

Unfortunately, none of them could get answers from Huberman as he was a no show.

For more info: Q & A with Dr. Reese, Pritzker's Principal