CPS Budget

Chicago Board of Education passes budget amidst political uproar

By Jim Vail

Special to News-Star

The Chicago Board of Education passed a budget that will increase spending 8 percent to $7.5 billion amidst cries that it makes no sense to build new schools as the student population continues to dwindle.

Not to mention that schools in working class black and Latino neighborhoods are getting shortchanged while schools on the North Side in wealthier areas are getting more cash.

Chicago Public Schools will spend almost $1 billion on capital projects – building new schools or repairing old ones.

“Though the South and West sides of the city serve more students than the North Side, they are being promised fewer dollars for repairs, renovations, or construction,” WBEZ reported.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to build two new schools and put additions on others in neighborhoods that don’t need it. People in Belmont-Cragin said the proposed new school is not needed because the neighborhood schools are not overcrowded.

Dirksen Elementary School near O’Hare Airport is the only one of four schools getting an addition that was officially overcrowded, WBEZ reported, while there are over a dozen overcrowded schools in the city.

Waters in Lincoln Square, Rogers in West Ridge and Palmer in Albany Park are not considered overcrowded by CPS standards, but they’re getting additions.

Why?

“This is not an education plan – it’s an election plan,” said Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey at one of three public hearings CPS held before the board vote July 26.

The thinking is that Emanuel is placating the big players, the ones with money behind their voices to put schools in gentrifying areas of the city who want more magnet schools to serve their children.

CPS says it’s listening to each neighborhood community and planning for the future.

The Mayor has been able to dole out money this time thanks to the state providing funding after a deal was made to allow vouchers (to further decrease money for public schools in the future) that placated Rep. Gov. Bruce Rauner who held up funding for the schools last year.

Usually budget time is crunch time, where painful cuts are needed. Years past CPS chiefs would announce a $300 million deficit that would force teacher layoffs or whatever cuts the mayor wanted, but would miraculously reappear as surpluses once the final budget was registered.

The school budget is very political.

CPS says it needs more than $3 billion for school repairs, but the mayor’s budget allocated just $366 million for it.

The student population is dwindling each year. In 2000 there were 435,000 students, but today there are 371,000, a 15 percent decline, and CPS predicts there will be 20,000 fewer students in the next three years. Chicago also has 182,000 fewer residents than it did 18 years ago, with 220,000 less black people as well as a drop in the number of Hispanics because less immigrants are coming, Chalkbeat reported.

Many critics feel the budget reflects a gentrification plan to build new schools that will further siphon enrollment and resources from existing neighborhood schools. Parents complained several years ago about new charter schools opening in areas where they were not needed because schools were under-enrolled.

Ten percent of Chicago’s public school students are white, and their schools will see close to $2,800 per pupil investment, while schools serving 40 percent black students will get less than half that, and schools serving 45 percent Hispanic will get even less, the CTU stated.

“CPS needs a long-term facilities plan for high-quality neighborhood schools that support working class neighborhoods, which are struggling today in Chicago,” CTU VP Sharkey said.    

School Rape Coverup?

Did the Chicago Board of Education Cover Up a School Rape?
By Jim Vail

(Editor's Note: In the wake of the Chicago Tribune's investigation into Chicago Public School teacher and student sex assault cases, we are reprinting this article which first appeared in Chicago News last year.)

Network 9 Chief Felicia Sanders 

One day Jesus Quiroga and his family were watching La Virgen de Guadalupe, a popular Mexican TV show, where a girl informed her mother that her mom’s boyfriend had raped and impregnated her. The mother refused to believe it and eventually both her and her daughter committed suicide.

That was when Quiroga’s 12-year-old daughter froze. She then told her father she too had been sexually assaulted. She didn’t say where, but he noticed that whenever they came to school she started crying. She had been gang raped inside her sixth grade classroom at the Pullman Elementary School on the city’s far
Southeast Side.

Quiroga said he filed a police report and told the principal about the rape. His daughter had told her teachers.

Her teachers denied it ever happened.

And Pullman Principal Felicia Sanders asked the Chicago Public Schools to issue an order barring Quiroga from school property when he was demanding the school investigate. She then had the parent and former member of their local school council arrested and convicted of trespassing when he was near the school
grounds collecting signatures on a petition to have the principal removed for covering up his daughter’s rape.

A lawsuit was filed in September 2010 against the teachers and the Chicago Board of Education for the sexual assault that occurred in the classroom during school hours.

“I filed suit against teachers and the Board for the fact that she was sexually assaulted in a class room during school hours,” said attorney Jason Epstein who filed the lawsuit.

Quiroga told Chicago News that the classroom where his daughter was gang raped in 2009 at Pullman Elementary was designed in the 1920s where the closet area is a long closed-in storage facility. He said the classroom teacher did not supervise the children during break time when the rape occurred.

There were two girls and two boys who took his daughter into a closet in the back of the classroom and sexually assaulted her, he said. His daughter was a disability student who had qualified for special education services.

But it wasn’t the first time she was raped in the school.

His daughter said that when she told her teacher, her teacher did not want to believe it.

“I first told the teacher and she just ignored me when it first happened in fifth grade,” she told Chicago News. “They attacked me many times and there was no teacher around. They tried to do it with the other girls but couldn’t.”

She said her teacher Mary Gleason, who has since retired and was one of the defendants named in the lawsuit, looked out the window and didn’t pay any attention to what she was telling her.

“She thought I just made it up to get attention,” Quiroga’s daughter, who is now 18, told the paper.

She said she had been repeatedly raped over a period of almost two years and was threatened that if she told anyone, she and her family would be killed. It started with one person, then two people and finally four, when she couldn’t take it anymore, her father said.

“The principal covered up everything,” Quiroga said. “We needed their first names, last names and birthdays and she refused to give it.”

The principal at first told Quiroga that the board of education would conduct an investigation. But as he waited and waited, nothing happened. She kept telling him she was waiting for directions from the downtown office. Then she started to
avoid him, he said.

It was at the April 27, 2011 local school council meeting where Sanders addressed the council about the alleged rape in the school which she claimed was unfounded by the Department for Children and Family Services, according to minutes taken at the meeting that Quiroga provided to the paper.

The next day, Quiroga said, Sanders wrote a letter accusing him of making “threatening gestures, spoke loud outbursts, used excessive profanity with an elevated voice, made inappropriate comments to a few LSC members.”

He said she then informed the school – but not him – that to ensure the safety of the school, Quiroga was barred from the school grounds.

On June 17, 2011, the last day of school that year, Quiroga was arrested for criminal trespassing when he came to pick up his children. That was the day the principal saw him passing around a clipboard where he was gathering signatures to have her removed as principal.

“She was always a step ahead of me,” Quiroga told the paper. “She wanted to humiliate me.”

When Quiroga went to court he thought like other silly charges, this one would be thrown out. Instead, he turned around and saw several people in business suits who he surmised were big wigs from the board of education. He said they included Miguel Rodriguez from the CPS law department and Michael Shields, the
head of CPS safety and security.

Quiroga asked for a jury trial after Rodriguez pressed the judge to immediately go to a bench trial that day, he said.

A judge found Quiroga guilty of trespassing on state property the next year in July 2012.

A couple of months later Principal Sanders moved up the CPS ladder. She is now the Deputy Chief of the Chicago Public Schools and the Network 9 Chief. 

Quiroga was facing a one-year prison sentence, but instead was given supervision for a first-time offense.

In 2015 the Illinois Appellate Court in People vs. Quiroga overturned his conviction.

The court ruled that the state failed to meet its burden that Quiroga caused any interference with official or public access to the grounds or interfered in the performance of duty through his activities outside the school that day.

“Indeed,” the court writes in its opinion, “Sanders acknowledged that she did not know what Quiroga was doing when she saw him approaching parents on the playground, on the sidewalk, and in their cars, but called police and security personnel because she believed he had violated the visitor protocol letter sent to him. Moreover, Sanders acknowledged on cross-examination that she regularly saw Quiroga near the school grounds when he picked up and dropped off his children.”

Quiroga provided Chicago News with his notes from a deposition his attorney Epstein took of Principal Sanders about the rape in her school. She told Epstein she did not remember contacting the police about the incident and did not contact the parents herself. She said she was not sure if anyone from the school had contacted the parents of the children involved in the rape. She also said she
did not make the report because she was not in the building at the time of the rape.

“So in her 2014 deposition, nobody was notified and no parents were notified,” Quiroga said. “Isn’t it her duty to call the police and have it fully investigated to see if there are other victims? Instead she had a conversation amongst the school administrators.”

Chicago News contacted Sanders at her Area 9 office, but she did not return a call to comment on the school rape and alleged cover-up.

Chicago News contacted the Chicago Board of Education communications department to ask about the lawsuit. An attorney from the law department called back to say there are many cases like this with alleged instances of sexual assault and they need time to determine if the attack happened.

Jose Castanada, a police detective in the children’s division at 13th and Damen, investigated the rape charges that led to one of the students being convicted, Quiroga said. Castanda told Quiroga that the principal could not provide the names of the alleged rapists because she told him she was not aware of any rape incident that happened in the school. However, an assistant principal provided
the first two names to Castenada while the principal was out of the country on vacation, Quiroga said.

Castanada did not return a call from Chicago News about the prosecution. 

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. at the time stated in a letter in support of Quiroga to CPS Chief Jean Claude Brizard that the matter had to be investigated because one of the rapists was already sentenced for the crime.

Thomas Bilyk, chief prosecutor at the Juvenile Center, who convicted the one girl in Dec. 2010, told Quiroga that he could only sentence one predator to supervision because it was her first offense and he was not aware of any other children involved in the rape because they couldn’t get cooperation from the school, Quiroga said.

Quiroga said the teachers were afraid of losing their jobs if they cooperated with him. He noted that the principal and other personnel had put in paperwork before the rape incident to move up positions, and after his conviction for trespassing, several employees moved up, including Sherry Dority, another teacher named in the lawsuit who then became the school’s assistant principal.

Quiroga’s daughter said CPS officials came to her school to ask her questions about what happened. She said they also asked her “dumb” questions, like does her family hate her, or does her mother try to hit her or kill her in her dreams.

She also never saw any counselors or social workers. 

“I didn’t want any therapy because I hated men for a year and all the psychologists were men,” she said.

Her father said John Duffy, a school board lawyer, asked if he was legal here and had threatened to call immigration at CPS headquarters before Sander’s deposition.

“I told him that if he thought we were illegal that I had the telephone number to immigration in my phone and if he wanted me to call, they could come to investigate me, but if they thought it was a prank call, they would investigate (Duffy) for malicious prosecution,” Quiroga said. “Then he backed off.”

According to Quiroga, many Mexican parents were afraid to sign his petition to have the principal removed because they are undocumented.

Epstein told Chicago News that he voluntarily dismissed the case after they won the appeal on his trespassing conviction so they could include malicious prosecution. They had also found additional witnesses, he said, but it was too late to include them in the lawsuit.

“You can refile the case within one year of your non-suit within the statute of limitations,” Epstein said in an email. “However, I judge refilling as one year as it is the prudent course to take. I believe she can still refile the case if she has not reached 20. However, that issue should be researched.”

Quiroga said he plans to refile the case.

Fired Russian Teacher

RUSSIAN TEACHER FIRED FOR 'AMORAL COMMENTS '

By Stephen Wilson

MOSCOW -- A Russian history teacher, Svetlana Kornaikhova, who works at Gymnasium

Number 4, from the Murmanski region, has been fired for allegedly making

'amoral comments' on a social network. The Headmistress Tatiana Devyakova

stated she had offended some people by her words. The statement was made in

connection with the May 9th Victory parade. Svetlana had written: 'Buy a

uniform, receive a medal but those children who for four years really practice

military life, such as singing songs , meeting veterans in museums don't

even receive gratitude'. The bitter comments were aimed at the often

superficial form of patriotism which surfaces not only on the 9th of May but

pervasively in all areas of life. For instance, 40 medals were granted to

children belonging to an Army Youth Organisation simply for participating

on the Day of Victory Parade. In a way, Svetlana was simply expressing the

sentiments which many people felt in how the Day of Victory is celebrated.

On this day, young school children dawn old military caps and uniforms,

and even staff at the local restaurants are obliged to wear a military cap.

Highly unrealistic films which romanticize or distort the actual events of

Great Patriotic war are presented on television. Even the war veterans refuse

to watch such crude commercialized films.

This patriotism is defined in a vulgar and authoritarian way which instead

of asking : "What actually happened in the war?" threatens "Watch out

what you say about the war! Don't ruin our sweet fantasy!" The history

teacher was summoned to the headmistress's classroom and told, "This

is your last year of work. Frankly speaking, I did not think my comments would

make such an impression. They told me that I had insulted children, but I,

in truth, was annoyed that for several minutes they are granted medals {kids

belonging to a military youth group} and our children who are not in this group

got none .-How much work had they done ? "stated the teacher.

To add insult to injury, the history teacher with 40 years of experience was

offered a new job as a cleaner in the same school. It may well be the case that

the real reason for the dismissal of the teacher was her outspoken comments

and views in defending the underdog. The Headmistress was not available

for comment. She was on holiday. She did not answer her phone.

Local students have signed a petition to fully reinstate the teacher to her post.

Strangely enough, the Head of the Army Youth Group has made a statement

in support of the luckless teacher. This is something entirely unexpected but

very welcome!

The chairman of the teachers union Teacher, Vsevolod Lukhovisky stated:

"Now it has become very popular to fire teachers for 'Amoral behavior '.There

is nothing concrete about this term 'amoral act '. It can include anything a head

wants, such as when a teacher uses a careless expression in class, or when

a teacher raises his or her voice, or a note or photo on a social site. "

Second City Teacher for the past few years has covered many examples of

teachers being dismissed for simply writing a political poem, signing a letter

of protest to the Prime Minister about low wages, putting their photo of

themselves wearing a bikini on a beach or simply for being gay! It is worth pointing

out that the lack of work protection is not confined to schools but extends to other

workplaces. I heard that a manager was dismissed from Rosneft not for

incompetence or a crime but for wearing bright red shoes . She had unwittingly

violated the company's strict dress code!

The case of history teacher Svetlana Kornaikhova has drawn a lot of publicity

and increasing support. The newspaper Novaya Gazetta and Ogonyek have

written articles supporting her. She may well win her case which comes up in

August. Unfortunately, countless other teachers have been dismissed for banal

reasons and we never hear of their cases! They have never been reinstated.

This is why a massive campaign must be launched to secure an effective legal

mechanism for ensuring the protection of teachers' jobs . Unless people fight

back hard they 'll be picked off like lame ducks. 

No Columbus Day!

Will Columbus Day Finally Fall in CPS?
By Jim Vail

Could the Columbus Day celebration in CPS being nearing the end?

The fight to stop celebrating Christopher Columbus Day in the Chicago Public Schools took another step forward when Sarah Dennis told the Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) on Wednesday that it is possible to rename the holiday for Chicago Public School students Indigenous People's Day.

Dennis told the board members at their monthly meeting that Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Superintendent Tony Smith said the issue to change the Columbus Day celebration in the public schools lies with the school board. 

Two years ago my fourth grade students from Hammond School spoke to the school board and said what a horrible man Columbus was and that they wanted his name no longer celebrated and replaced to honor the Native Americans. Chicago BOE President Frank Clark told the students, after commending their presentation, that his hands were tied because it is up to the state to change the holiday.

However, Dennis told the board that already Evanston and Oak Park school districts changed Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day.

"Illinois School Code 24-2-b, states: "A school board is eligible to apply for waivers and modifications" as long as [you hold a public hearing]." 

Sarah Dennis, center in white shirt, spoke out against celebrating Columbus Day.

"How do we proceed to ensure ANOTHER generation of CPS children aren't miseducated about a murderous, rapist thief," Dennis told the board during her speech. "Please respond."

Dennis told Second City Teachers that after she said those final words, the board was silent.

"So I think I said,'What's next?' Nothing," she said. "I repeated, 'So, what's next?' A man asked me to sit."

Dennis is an adjunct professor from Loyola, who is an anti-bias/anti-racism consultant, and a CPS graduate of the Franklin Fine Arts Center in 1993.

The story of Christopher Columbus is the story of the American tragedy, when European settlers came to this continent in search of gold, slaves and other riches. Columbus was particularly brutal, forcing the natives to find gold, and for those who didn't work hard enough, cutting off their hands to wear around their necks. He bragged about raping the women in his diaries, fed Indians to their dogs and brought back some slaves to Spain. So why celebrate a monster?

Columbus is a part of Chicago history - there's a Columbus Day Parade, Columbus Drive and Columbus holiday and the 1893 Columbian World's Fair that earned a star on the Chicago flag celebrated the 400th anniversary of his disastrous expedition to the Americas.

The fight to slowly erase the horror of this celebration started out West where the Indians were forced to relocate once the white men and women and children took their land after the Mayflower ship arrived with English Pilgrims seeking a new life.

Several states out West do not celebrate Columbus Day but Indigenous People's Day. There were calls for the Columbus statue in NY City to come tumbling down after the disaster in Charlottesville last year where a protester died in clashes with nationalists demanding a Confederate statue be removed. President Trump who first defended his racist followers relented after it became a huge problem. The city council voted to have the statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson removed.

Here in Chicago my students started a petition at the school to replace Columbus Day, spoke to the local school council, the Chicago board of education and Ald. George Cardenas on the SW Side. Last year the Chicago Teachers Union passed a resolution to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day.

The Chicago City Council passed a law last year to officially celebrate Indigenous People's Day simultaneously on Columbus Day. The Italian lobby still fights to celebrate the monster based on so-called tradition and heritage.

CPS Chief Janice Jackson is open to ending Columbus Day for CPS students.

Dennis said after she spoke at the school board, she spoke to CPS Chief Janice Jackson.

"I think this was her quote, 'We are not closed off.' So I asked what would she suggest. She basically said they need to hear from more folks. Then I spoke with a Network Face Manager who said to get signatures (parents/teachers/students). She suggested I/we/volunteers attend the Network Back to School Bashes to get signatures of parents/children."

Dennis said she is also interested is getting an online petition started.

So students, parents, teachers and all concerned citizens who want to teach the children right and make our celebrations right, let's make this happen! 

No Columbus Day. 

Yes Indigenous People's Day! 

Teacher Shortage Bill

CTU Explains New Teacher Shortage Law
By Jim Vail

CTU policy adviser Kurt Hilgendorf

The Illinois Governor signed a new law this summer that addresses teacher shortage problems so that retired teachers can sub more days, more people can qualify to substitute teach and teachers from out of state will be able to more easily transition to teach in Illinois.

When I first wrote up the story for a local publication called the News-Star, I sent an email to the Chicago Teachers Union Communications Director Christine Geovanis. She never answered my question about what the CTU position was on this bill now law.

I then received several conflicting reports from people who read my story posted on Facebook. One stated that the CTU opposed the bill, and another who served on the union's political action committee said it doesn't affect Chicago.

So I then sent an email to Kurt Hilgendorf, CTU's policy advisor who followed the bill, asking him to explain.

He replied with the following explanation:

Thanks for the question. Here's what happened on HB 5627.

That bill was introduced as ISBE's "big licensure reform". Included in the proposal were several things that we didn't like, such as easier access for for-profit charter operator grad schools (e.g. Noble Street's Relay) to the state licensure board, a sped-up alternative certification process (one year instead of 2), and a total deregulation of substitute teacher rules. CTU, along with the IFT and the IEA, opposed the bill as introduced, and discussions about how to change it moved forward.

The version that passed is substantially different.

1.  Retirees can now sub 120 days (instead of 100) without incurring pension penalties (CTU supports).

2.  Illinois will have licensure reciprocity with other states (getting an IL license has been a big issue for many CTU members).

3.  Many CTU paras pushed out via budget slashing want to sub but don't have a bachelor's degree. HB 5627 creates a short-term sub license for folks w/ 60 hours of college credit or an associate's degree, so the law creates a path for our displaced paras to get back into schools. 

Tsar Nicholas II

THE EXECUTION OF THE TSAR

THE 100 YEAR CENTENARY

By Stephen Wilson

 

Russian Tsar Nicholas II

MOSCOW -- I wake up at five in the morning in unfamiliar surroundings Astonishingly, this

is not a flat in Glasgow or London but In Moscow. This is not my apartment

and then i realize that i had agreed to look after two of my colleague's cats .

Next to my bed a huge front page photo of the the family of the last Tsar

confronts me . In the photo I see the gentle almost angelic faces of Nicholas

the 2nd ,his wife, four young daughters and youngest son staring straight at

me. They look so fragile ,frail and vulnerable. It is difficult for me to imagine

that around a century ago they were taken to a small cellar and put to death

in what was a botched execution. An icon of the family sits next to it and it

seems like a shrine has been erected in this room. When I drop into the

next bedroom I notice another huge photo of the last Tsar along with icons.

In the next room I notice the roof tops of Lefortovo prison which is still used

for political prisoners. I recall from reading Eugenia Ginzburg's memoir of

how she was detained in this very building and told by a guard that "Do you

know how many a day they're finishing off Now ? Seventy ! That is how many."

{Journey Into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg,Harcourt, London

1995}

 

On many of the main streets of Moscow billboards have been erected

photos of the last Tsar and his wife where their words are quoted conveying

the virtues of the ideal family and the Orthodox religion. For example , 'We

must be grateful to God for everything he grants us " . Even the metro station

i pass through every week , Voikovskaya station reminds me of the cruel fate

of the Tsarist family. The metro station is named after the Bolshevik who had a

hand in his execution. Pyotr Voikov was responsible for ordering the sulphuric

acid from a chemist used to burn the remains of the deceased victims . The

metro station also has a notorious reputation for being a favorite place for

carrying out suicide. Attempts to change the name of the station failed after

a dubious local vote in favor of keeping the name!

There is no doubt that some kind of bizarre religious cult has been growing

around the last Tsar. This has largely been inspired by the fact that the Tsar

and his family were canonized in 2000 as saints or 'passion bearers' and you

can come across their icon in most Orthodox churches in Moscow. The film

Matilda, which dramatized the alleged love affair between the Tsar and

a ballerina, provoked outrage from some outspoken Russians who viewed

the film as a smear on the Tsar's reputation. While for most people this was

mere drama , some zealots equated the film as heinous as defacing an icon.

One person I spoke to told me : " This film is just an attempt to make money

from slandering the reputation of the Tsar. I doubt it is based on any reality ".

A more anxious student , Yevgeni told me : " Now nobody can say anything

terrible about this Tsar. It is an attack on freedom of speech". Indeed, the

tense atmosphere where even constructive criticism of the Tsar is interpreted

as an insult might become a predicament for some Russian historians.

As many as 100,000 people went on a pilgrimage to Yekaterinburg on the 17th

of July to attend a special memorial service to the last Tsar. This represents

a huge increase from past occasions reflecting a rising popularity in the role

of the family as esteemed saints.

Yet tense controversy surrounds the events concerning not only the role but

the execution and burial of the Tsar and his family. Historians are divided as

to who ordered their execution, whether the bones uncovered of the victims

are really those of the Tsar and his family and how should society perceive

the role of the Romanovs in Russian history.

 

THE FORMER ATTITUDE TO THE TSAR

 

 

It is worth pointing out that the attitude of most people to the Russian Tsar

in 1917 was a far cry from the current attitude. By March 1917 the Tsar had

practically lost all support not only among the peasants but practically

every section of society including the nobility. Nicholas the 2nd's reputation

as a weak Tsar who failed to keep order, being blamed for the defeat in the

First World War, the negative influence of Rasputin and fabricated allegations

of secret German sympathies as well as his intolerance of any kind of dissent

had turned him into one of the most hated Tsars. He was known as 'Bloody

Nicholas ' , especially after the events of Bloody Sunday not to mention his

secret approval of widespread pogroms of Jews. {See Orlando Figes 2017,

A People's Tragedy, The Russian Revolution, Penguin , Random house ,

London about the Tsar's attitude to pogroms.} Some of the Old Believers

even went so far to describe the role of the Tsar to the 'Anti Christ'.

So how did one of the most unpopular Tsars in Russian history attain

Sainthood? After all, most Russians prefer their rulers to be very strong

and authoritarian! Nicholas the 2nd was the most unsuitable Tsar. He

was the most reluctant ruler . He even confessed : 'I don't know how to

rule or what to do ." If you read the diaries of the last Tsar what strikes you

is how ordinary and dull they are . The Tsar liked to play cards, table tennis

and to do some gardening. He reminds you of an English man from an

Agatha Christie Novel than a Russian Tsar. In deed , he spoke impeccable

English.

When the Tsar was forced to abdicate he was put under house arrest by

the Provisional government at Tsarskoe Selo. He was treated quite well

but his movements were strictly curtailed. According to the then Prime

Minister Kerensky the Tsar was very happy to lose power. Kerensky wrote

in his memoirs : 'All those that watched him in his captivity were unanimous

in saying that Nicholas the 2nd seemed generally to be very good-tempered

and appeared to enjoy his new manner of life. it seemed as if a heavy burden

had fallen from his shoulders and that he was greatly relieved.' The Tsar

amused himself by playing Dominos, cards and table tennis.

King George v had promised that England would allow the Tsar's family refuge

and then withdrew the promise. The king did not want to offend the Labor

party.

 

CAPTIVITY

 

 

With the rise of the Bolshevik power the fate of the Tsar's family radically

changed. After some time in Tobolsk, the Tsar's family were finally sent

to 'The House of Special Designation 'in the town of Yekaterinburg or Ipatev's

house. The mansion was ominous . The windows were painted over in

white, the rooms dimly lit and members of the family were kept under strict

surveillance and escorted even to the toilets. What did the Bolshevik state

intend to do with them? According to reliable sources the Tsar was to be

taken back to Moscow to be put on trial and sentenced to death. However,

the approaching white army of Admiral Kolchak was about to take the

town so a decision was taken to murder the Royal Family on 17th July 1918.

The Soviet official version was that only Nicholas the 2nd had been executed

while the rest of the family had been allowed to live and evacuated to another

secret location. This led to a spate of legends of surviving members of the

family. However, in 1926, a book was written revealing that an investigation

had been carried out by Nikolai Sokolov which found the whole family and

attendants had been murdered. However, the government insisted that the

order had not been issued by Lenin but by the local Ural Soviet . Even the

Soviet Government felt uneasy about confessing to murdering unarmed

children along with their parents in a dark and dismal cellar. However,

this version was undermined by Leon Trosky who let the cat out of the bag. He

wrote the following in his diaries in 1935:

'My next visit to Moscow took place after Yekaterinburg had already fallen {i.e.

after July 25, 1918}. Speaking with Sverdlov, I asked in passing, "Oh yes, and where

is the Tsar?" "Finished", he replied. "He has been shot " "And where is the family?"

'The Family along with him ." "All?" I asked , apparently with a trace of surprise. "All,"

Sverdlov responded . "Why?" He awaited my reaction. I made no reply . "And who

decided the matter?" I inquired. "We decided it here. Ilich thought that we should not

leave the Whites a live banner, especially under the present difficult circumstances".

The second piece of evidence that Lenin ordered the execution of the Tsar comes

from archives where on the 16th of July, an official called Goloshchekin sent a secret

coded telegram to the Ural regional Soviet ordering their execution.

The rationale that the execution was carried out to deter the Whites seems odd.

None of the White armies were calling for the restoration of the Tsar. This was

because he was almost as unpopular among the White armies as the Red.

 

A BOTCHED EXECUTION

 

The execution turned out to be a very botched operation. Yakov Yurovsky, the chief

of the execution squad woke the family up at 1:30 a.m. telling them they were taking

them to a safer place because of nearby fighting. They took them to an underground

cellar with very little space. At just after 2 p.m. 7 Romanovs along with 4 attendants

were forced into a room escorted by an execution squad .Each guard had been

allocated a specific victim to kill. Yet when they entered the room they found that

each victim stood behind another .Yurovsky then read out a statement. "In view of the

offensive being launched by your relatives against Soviet Russia, the Executive

Committee of the Ural Soviet has decided to sentence you to death." The Tsar

answered: "What? What? " and turned to face his family. Yurovsky repeated the

order and then ordered his men to fire. The guards had been ordered to aim for

the heart. The victims then shouted some inaudible words but the guards began

shooting. The shooting took around two to three minutes. Yurovsky stated: 'I

killed Nicholas on the spot' . He then had to finish off his son who was badly

wounded on the floor. But the bullets ricocheted all around the room. They failed

to immediately kill the daughters because bullets bounced off some jewels they had

concealed in their clothes. So they even had to finish off the daughter Anastasia

with a bayonet. The disposal of the bodies went wrong. Yurovsky had to persuade

the drunken guards not to rob the victims, the mine shaft they had to use to bury

the victims was not deep enough and the truck broke down. They failed to even

burn the remains of the victims. This is why it was later possible to dig up

the remains of the bodies and identify them using the most up-to-date forensic

DNA analysis.

Despite the on-going reservations that the bodies are not authentic, the Russian

investigative committee confirm they are the Tsar's family. According to the Genetic

analysis 7 of the 11 found remains correspond to the mother, father , 4 daughters and

examination of the family'. Nicholas the 2nd's remains were identified by comparing

them to to the exhumed remains of his father, Alexander the 3rd.

So then why is the Russian Orthodox Church not persuaded than the bones are

authentic? Perhaps they jealously seek to preserve the legacy of the Tsar and

his family's remains as their sole property! It could well be due to the fact they

feel their influence over this matter has been slighted or diminished. Yet strictly

speaking a dead body or bones belong to nobody. Whatever, the last Tsar

seems more popular after his death than during his lifetime. I wonder what he

would make of all this debate over his fate? 

Teacher Shortage Law

Governor signs law to ease teacher shortage

By Jim Vail
Special to News-Star

One of the biggest problems for schools is the shortage of teachers in classrooms and the governor took a step to fight this by signing a bill that will change license requirements to make it easier for out-of-state, retired and substitute teachers to get certified to teach in Illinois.

There is a growing shortage of teachers in the state with one in five Illinois teaching positions going unfilled due to licensure requirements, according to the governor’s office.

Nowhere is this more true than in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) where schools are left with vacant teaching positions during the school year. This has a ripple effect, where the difficulty of finding a substitute teacher compounds the problem and forces classes for special education, bilingual or music and art to be cancelled so that these teachers within the building can temporarily fill in the vacancies.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has filed numerous grievances against violations of the contract because teachers who have to sub do not get their allotted time to prepare their lessons (full disclosure: I’m a CTU member and CPS teacher). This has led to deteriorating morale and frustration all around.

There are many reasons why there is a teacher shortage in this state beyond the licensing requirements. Schools in rough neighborhoods are tough to staff because of student behavior problems and the onslaught of corporate America’s Common Core curriculum attacked teachers and made the profession much more onerous.  Education schools have reported significant drops in enrollment due to the education reform movement’s attack on public education.

Chicago schools on the North Side as well as the South Side have huge problems finding substitute teachers. One principal thought CPS did not do enough to recruit subs who a few years ago had to be fully-certified teachers, whereas now they just need a bachelor’s degree, as it was when I first started subbing 15 years ago.

However, according to the new requirements in HB5627, a substitute teacher will only need an associate’s degree (two years of college classes), similar to what a teacher aid needs to work in the Chicago public schools.

The new law will address the teaching shortage crisis by creating a “Short Term Substitute Teaching License” so people with either an associate degree or 60 college credit hours can substitute teach, providing reciprocity for comparable and valid educator licenses from other states (currently there are only certain states where teachers have the requirements to teach in Illinois), allowing teachers whose Professional Educator’s License lapsed to qualify for a substitute teaching license and increasing to 120 the number of days retired teachers can substitute teach without affecting their retirement benefits.

“We cannot deliver great education without great teachers,” said Gov. Bruce Rauner. “A majority of our school districts are reporting shortages, and it is unacceptable. Modernizing our licensing systems is a strong first step to that ought to help schools attract high-quality, transformative teachers for our students.”

However, another reason for teacher shortages is teacher pay, and the governor whacked teachers by backing the recent Janus Supreme Court decision which no longer allows unions to automatically collect every member’s dues. Teacher unions could lose a significant number of members which would impair their work to collectively bargain for higher wages and benefits, and thus attract the top candidates to teach in the schools. One teacher in Wisconsin noted that after the state became a ‘Right to Work’ state which limited the unions’ power, health benefits increased to $800 per month, significantly cutting their take-home pay.

According to a 2017 Teacher Shortage Survey developed by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS) and analyzed by Goshen Education Consulting, 78% of the districts surveyed identified either a minor or serious problem with teacher shortages. Over half (53%) of the surveyed districts indicated that they have a serious problem with substitute teacher shortages.

“We have a statewide teacher shortage and this measure will help address it by making it easier to substitute teach,” State Senator Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Maywood) said in a press release. “Readily-available substitute teachers give full-time educators a support system when they are sick or need time off. Most importantly, this measure helps our schools provide the best educational experience for our children.”

In April the IL Senate fast-tracked (versus slow-tract the Elected School Board bill that even though overwhelmingly passed both Houses sits bundled up in a committee) a bill to privatize substitute teaching staffing, which the CTU opposed, in an apparent attempt to address the substitute shortage problem.

“This legislation is tone deaf given CPS’ disastrous track record with privatization,” CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said in a press statement. “It will allow CPS to contract out classroom-critical services, likely for less pay – just as has been the experience of privatized charter teachers and janitors in CPS – to the detriment of our students. And it will cost. In Indianapolis, the contracting agency slapped a 36% fee on the cost of substitute positions. The bill also fails to address the root causes of a shortage of substitute and full-time teachers – their need for a living wage and decent working conditions.”

A teacher at Acero (formerly UNO) Charter School which uses a staffing agency to assign subs, reported that the agency was ineffective and the school still suffers from a shortage of subs. 

Legend of Loch Ness

PROPOSED RUSSIAN SCOTTISH SCHOOL PROJECT SPURNED AS 'TOO POLITICAL'

By Stephen Wilson

 

A proposed project aimed at uniting Scottish and Russian schools on the theme

of shared legends of monsters has been recently rejected by the local Inverness

Council in Scotland.The reason provided for spurning the proposal was that it was

deemed 'too political.' Perhaps local politicians regard such an innocuous idea as

getting into unwanted hot water. The proposal comes at a time when relations

between Russia and Britain have reached an all-time low. However, why such a

project is considered 'political ' has yet to be fully clarified or elaborated unless one

can banally claim that 'everything is political'. But such a claim can explain everything

and nothing. It is generally accepted that politics refers to how we make decisions

and debate profound issues related to how we govern. Which political party the

Loch Ness Monster belongs to remains unclear.

Nevertheless, a headmaster called Keith Russell of a Primary school in the borders

of Scotland supports the project. It is not near Loch Ness but still something. A school

in Tver, by the name of V.V. Andreev, organised a cultural festival in May where kids

were encouraged to become acquainted with Scottish legends of monsters, Scottish

songs, dancing and other Scottish customs. A painting competition was organised

around who could paint the best picture of a monster. The founder of the

project, Maria Koroleva, a folklorist, linguist and teacher of Scots Gaelic, explained

to Second City Teachers the main idea for the project. 

"We hope to use the idea of shared monsters to not only educate children but also

awaken their interest in Scottish and Russian customs of folklore," she said. "When I visited

the school during the festival I was teaching the children how to perform Scottish

dances as well as songs. We are using the theme of monsters as a kind of spring

board". 

Local Russian teachers and politicians believe such a project would

help not only educationally and culturally but also attract attention to ecological

issues. It might also represent a boon to the tourist industry. After all, Loch Ness

represents a major tourist attraction . According to Olga Grigorevna: "We need

to strengthen our relations between Tver and Scotland, to cement cultural,

economic, sport, tourist and trading ties.The idea of connecting Brosya with

Nessie can be an example of civil diplomacy."

Asked whether she believed in the existence of the monster Maria replied: " Yes, of

course. There are a lot of reported sightings of the monster going back to ancient

times. For example, you come across one report written by a monk in the 7th century,

in his Life of Saint Columbia, where he writes that monks from Iona were attacked

by the monster while sailing across on a boat. Saint Columba managed to pacify

the monster. The Scottish monster seems quite aggressive and can attack anyone.

Whereas our monster from Tver known as Brosya is reputed to have saved a city

from the invading Mongol Tartars. It even leaped out of a lake and attacked a German

bomber during the war. "

The idea of inspiring the interest of children in folklore through legends of monsters

is a good ploy. For centuries, people have been almost obsessed by the idea of

both sea and lake monsters . Those monsters have been blamed for sinking ships,

fishing boats as well as attacking local villagers. And Loch Ness is not the only

place in Scotland with legends of monsters. At the Angus Coast near the town of

Montrose, at the turn of the 19th century, fishermen reported encountering a monster

of "distinctly snakey appearance ....The uncanny looking animal made no noise, and

apparently, swam at great speed'.

According to old legends and recent reported sightings, a reptile monster haunts

Lake Brozno, a lake located only 250 miles northwest of Moscow. It is reputed to

be 16 feet long and luminous. It has been blamed for reports of missing fishermen.

as well as spreading terror to fishermen in the Volga river. One elderly woman who

lives in Benyok stated in an interview: "I do not feel comfortable staying in this place.

The monster could crawl into my house any day". But many people are skeptical

about such fears and reports. Lyudmilla Bolshakova , at the Moscow Institute of

Paleontology stated : " It sounds like a country fairy tale, the kind of story told over

the years in the countryside.'' Much of those reports are dismissed as mere hearsay,

gossip, blatant invention or confused identification. Critics state witnesses really

saw either a huge moose or wild animal. The fishermen may have died because of

an eruption from an underwater volcano. This reminds me of how Scots scoffed

at the reports of witnesses by claiming floating logs or ripples in the water can

resemble monsters. It is very easy to be cynical . What is certain is that just like

around Loch Ness, local people have reported strange inexplicable events where

they have seen odd animals or apparitions. Indeed, many local witnesses in Loch

Ness keep silent lest they be ridiculed as lunatics! They do not wish to attract

unwelcome attention to themselves.

But does it really matter whether such a monster exists or not? At the end of the

day legends of monsters are an integral part of Scottish and Russian folklore. And

the songs, stories and music of folklore are what make our lives richer, more

entertaining and enchanting! Why kill the magic?