Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/author/alejandra-cerna-rios/)
What are some strategies a district should use to get parents to have faith in the system?
You try to involve people but you also have to be willing to say, I’ve listened to you but I don’t agree, and from my perspective, as the one who’s making the decision, this is a better way to go. Then go back and try to involve those people who disagreed.
How do you teach troubled young people to manage their behavior?
Let’s say there are two students in a fight. In a traditional school, they would probably be suspended. We use what we call life-space interviewing, or LSI. Our students know that skill by that name. They would say, “Ms. D., I need to LSI with so-and-so because we’re having a conflict.”
Most of Gladstone’s students are low income—like CPS as a whole—and qualify for free eye exams and glasses—through either Medicaid’s KidCare program or a private program, like Sight for Students, that has partnered with CPS.
At a March 15 meeting, Clemente’s LSC reviewed line items budgeted for the $2.2 million in poverty funds the West Town school is slated to receive next year. The process was a 10-minute formality since Area Instructional Officer Richard Gazda had already signed off.
Prosser Career Academy and Steinmetz High School, both in Belmont Cragin, came in second with nine aides each. At Prosser, that amounts to one aide for every 149 students; at Steinmetz, one for every 271. “They’re necessary”.