DNH

Model Teacher Unfairly Placed on DNH 

By Jim Vail

Stacy Council 

Stacy Council should be hailed as a hero who overcame poverty in the Robert Taylor Homes to become a great teacher.

Instead, the Chicago Public Schools have put her on a Do Not Hire list.

Council was a fourth grade teacher at Cuffe Elementary School at 8324 S. Racine on the South Side in 2014. She worked late on her lesson plans after school and did not get home until 7:30 or 8pm most nights. 

One night during the winter she was working preparing her next day lessons when she left to go to the bathroom and when she returned found her classroom door locked. She panicked because her winter coat was inside along with her car keys and purse. She went to the office and called for the janitor over the intercom but no luck.

She had noticed that there was a gap between the door handle and the wall so she decided to get a pair of scissors and try to jiggle the handle loose so she could get into the room.

"I used the scissors to jimmy the lock because I was in such a panic that I didn't realize how much wood I had shaved off," she said. "But I still couldn't get the door open."

She then texted the principal and a security guard came to let her into her classroom.

The next day the principal called her and asked why did she damage the door knob and she explained her situation and her frazzled state of mind. The principal called her stupid and irresponsible, Council said.

Her Principal then went on the attack.

Council had taken a sick day and got antibiotics to deal with anxiety. She also took a trip out of town. But another teacher informed the principal that a student claimed she said she had used her sick day for her vacation. They asked her for proof about her absence, and she gave the school her doctor's note. The school called the doctor's office to confirm the note, and the doctor faxed back the HIPAA privacy law.

A month later Council had to attend a hearing in which she was being charged with 'intentional damage to school property.'

Before her hearing Council was warned by her colleagues that she would not get a fair hearing. She was a probationary teacher who did not have full tenure rights and her union rep did not refute the allegations. 

She explained her situation to the hearing officer. She was asked to show her doctor's note which explained that she needed medication. The hearing officer refuted the note stating that she was in the care of a 'cosmetic' operation and not a medical provider. A few weeks later she received in the mail a letter informing her that she was suspended indefinitely and would be placed on the Do Not Hire list.

The insanity of the CPS Do Not Hire list hit the headlines in 2014 when many good teachers were suddenly labeled criminals and put on a black list. One probationary teacher who had excellent ratings but was cut at two schools due to budget concerns was put on the DNH, while another P.E. teacher at Schurz High School who had retrieved a discarded white board in the trash bin to use for his class was also put on the DNH. 

In other words, great teachers trying to do everything to help the kids were instead labeled criminals and told they could no longer teach here.

Stacy Council is the model teacher CPS should be lauding in their teacher bulletins. She overcame poverty growing up in the Robert Taylor Homes to become a teacher. She credited a teacher at her elementary school who helped her overcome the death of her mother when she was 8, and did not have a father in her life due to drug problems. She beat the odds to become a teacher and give back to the community she grew up in.

Council worked in a toxic work environment that is all too real for teachers today. She was the victim of a ruthless administrator who went after her because she was hired on the recommendation of their assistant principal, who then had a falling out with the principal. 

Life for Council after that became a living hell.

A big reason why she could not think straight and didn't immediately ask for help from her boss was fear. 

"The truth is I didn't call the principal for help because I was intimidated," she told Second City Teachers. "She would ridicule me at meetings. She did this with anyone she didn't like. Many teachers were afraid."

The principal would exclude her and other teachers she did not like from receiving CPS computers, deny her access to her attendance and then try to write her up for not putting in attendance, and falsify formal evaluations that she never participated in.

Any teacher that didn't agree with her tactics were later put on the DNH list as well, Council said. Many grievances were filed against Principal Lakita Reed, including several EEOC complaints for the same treatment she received, she said. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency that enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. 

"This whole ordeal severely traumatized me," she wrote in a letter. "It was so overwhelming that I would get physically nauseous every time I pulled into the parking lot. The sad part about it all is that this was happening to several other teachers at the time. I would vent to other teachers and I could see that they were actually scared of speaking anything negative about her for fear that they would be on the same 'list' that I was on." 

After she left CPS, she went to work in the suburbs and the Catalyst Charter School where she received excellent recommendations. The principal at Beasely Elementary School wanted to hire her, but he said he couldn't because of the DNH.

Council recently appealed her DNH designation but did not have the guidance of a union representative and was denied. 

She plans to speak out at the next Chicago Board of Education meeting September 28 to plead her case.

In this time of teacher shortages and Black Lives Matter, we need teachers like Ms. Council back where she belongs - teaching children and being the role model they need in their lives! 

Douglass Park

Riot Fest Concert Continues Despite Growing Public Protests

By Jim Vail

The Riot Fest Music Concert at Douglass Park begins this weekend and runs Sept.16 - 18 despite growing protests from the community.

Douglass Park has been taken over by private music festivals including Summer Smash in June, Heatwave in July and Riot Fest in September.

Private and public school soccer games have had to be moved from the park to make way for the big money interests. 

My students wrote letters last year addressed to the Alderman to complain about the loud music, traffic congestion and not having access to their beloved park. They wrote that the noise prevented them from sleeping or having any peace and quiet, and one student wrote that his father ordered a pizza from a local vendor that never came because of the increased traffic.

Our soccer teams used to play games at the park before Riot Fest landed here in 2015 after it was kicked out of Humboldt Park where residents also complained. We used to use the park all the time to play softball, football and soccer games with the other public schools in Little Village and Lawndale. 

Now for 47 days during the summer the public cannot use their park!

The Riot Fest and other music venues have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Aldermen and a Latino public relations group that works with the politicians.

Alderman Michael Scott in Lawndale who oversees most of the park was replaced by his sister who told the community at a public hearing this summer that she thinks it is good to see people who do not look like them and no one uses the park anyway. Alderman George Cardenas never held any public meetings and records show he has received tens of thousands of dollars from the Riot Fest organization and the vendors inside the fenced-off public park.

Most concert goers are white who can spend $300 for a weekend pass (or an ultimate pass for almost $2k!) that the area's black and brown people cannot afford. The Juneteenth celebrations were forced to move their celebrations to make way for the Summer Smash. And this was after a school called the Village Leadership Academy fought for three years to rename Douglass Park after the great Civil Rights leader Frederick Douglass.

However, what happened next is a lesson in capitalist city politics. When the current organizers of No Riot Fest in Douglass Park reached out to the teacher at the school who fought to rename the park, she never responded. It turned out that Riot Fest made a donation to their school to shut their mouths. 

We are trying to elevate the fight as the corporate media has finally taken an interest after staying mostly silent since 2015. The outrage over a Riot Fest speaker mocking Spanish-speaking immigrants at a public meeting went viral and they piled on attacking Riot Fest and its glaring corruption and privatization of a public park in a community of low-income people.

The Chicago Park District said special permission needs to be given to music events with over 10,000 people. I would say this is stalling and trying to appear the city is concerned about minority residents being shut out of their park for a quarter of the summer.

More pressure needs to be done and the organizers of No Riot Fest in Douglass Park continue to meet and discuss how to stop this madness. 

They wrote a letter addressing the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District that focused on the main problems:

1. There are no longer any youth soccer programs held at Douglass Park, residents have longer commute times because of the huge increase in traffic, and families suffer extreme noise levels.

2. The festivals threaten the livelihood of local vendors who typically sell during soccer  games and most other local businesses  see no increased revenue as the traffic and noise tend to drive their regular customers away and the festivals' "no-entry" policies keep festival goers from leaving the grounds to buy food from local vendors.

3. The festivals cause physical damage to the park that already suffers from disinvestment and chronic flooding and repairs made do not address the major infrastructure of the park.

4. The festivals impede Mt. Sinai and St. Anthony Hospitals because crowds and traffic keep ambulances from quickly reaching the hospitals in emergency situations. Mt. Sinai is a Level 1 Trauma Center that serves a huge part of the city, including Cook County Jail.

No privatization of public lands!

CTU Mayor Endorsement

Endorsement should be earned, not given away with political hints at public press conferences

As Chicagoans prepare to deliberate and consider who is to be their next choice for mayor, it is imperative that they consider how candidates are endorsed and if an endorsement from one organization actually represents that organization’s members.

By Froylan Jimenez, Chicago Public Schools civics teacher

Letters to the Editor

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Brandon Johnson addresses reporters alongside Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates after her speech Wednesday at the City Club of Chicago.

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Nader Issa/Sun-Times

In response to the Sun-Times report that Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson is favored to be the mayoral choice of the Chicago Teachers Union: There is a big difference between Johnson being the CTU brasses’ pick and him having the full support of the general membership. 

The article details Johnson’s expected jump into the mayoral race resulting in an almost automatic CTU endorsement since “to many [it] is a foregone conclusion, given he’s on the union’s staff and is making public appearances with CTU leaders.” An endorsement should be earned and not given away with political hints at public press conferences.

As someone who has previously co-chaired the CTU’s Political Action and Legislative Committee, I can attest that the democratic process to obtain our union’s endorsement involves several steps. It requires careful deliberation by the union’s political action committee and executive board and finally a final vote by the majority house of delegates.

While it’s evident that our union leaders have clearly decided that Johnson is their personal selection to be the next mayor of Chicago, it is worthwhile to point out that not all CTU members agree. In fact, in the last election for CTU posts, 46% of the membership did not support the current leadership’s political positions. It was one of the lowest margins of approvals in union history.

With that disparity in mind, there are several reasons to be cautious in going along with this pushing of an endorsement and, as a CTU member and taxpayer of Chicago and Cook County, I think it is imperative to at least consider these reservations before nodding along with the CTU leadership’s pick.

It is a fact that Johnson is both a Cook County commissioner and paid organizer of the Chicago Teachers Union. No full-time public servant should be working and simultaneously earning a paycheck as a full-time union organizer.

Taxpayers who go to the polls have the expectation that whomever they elect is not going to clock out of their public duty in the middle of the day and to go to another job. Similarly, union members expect full service and dedication from the people the union employs, and that their hard-earned union dues are going to people who are actively working on their behalf and not punching out and stepping away from their union duties. Both union members and Cook County taxpayers deserve full-time leadership and accountability from the people who work for them.

Simply put, double-dipping is a political tradition that is wrong, especially when it harms taxpayers and union members, and it should not be rewarded. As a CTU member and CPS civics teacher, I would go further to say that our union should serve as a working- class example where our actions promote good government and not questionable political maneuvers.

As Chicagoans prepare to deliberate and consider who is to be their next choice for mayor, it is imperative that they consider how candidates are endorsed and if an endorsement from one organization actually represents that organization’s members.

Sept. 1

School Begins!

By Stephen Wilson 

The 1st of September in Russia which is celebrated as 'The Day of Knowledge' as well as the beginning of the academic year has been marked by more changes to the curriculum as well as new lessons on patriotism for the youngest children at school termed 'Conversations of Importance.' Critics claim it is an attempt by the Russian state to brainwash impressionable young children and is wasting the precious time of school teachers.

Just like the weather, the future school program can just suddenly abruptly change in dramatic ways. In late August Moscow experienced a heat wave for one week of temperatures averaging around 30 degrees. Then suddenly the temperature has plunged to around 14 degrees and less. Instead of a clear blue sky you have a dense grey or white overcast sky with a chilly wind. Just as nobody knows exactly what to wear, teachers often don't know exactly what they must prepare. For instance, the format of the final year General English State Exam has changed yet again with new changes to the exam rendering some text books almost obsolete. English teachers feel pressurized into taking new courses or purchasing new textbooks they can ill-afford. The new changes involve a ban on mobile phones in the classroom, school students no longer being obliged to take two foreign languages and instead can choose only one {this move has been unwelcome for many Russian school teachers of French and German who worry about losing a lot of their hours at school}, beginning the school day with the singing of the national anthem and raising of the Russian flag and 'Conversations of importance' where school children as young as six will learn how to be patriotic.{often called history lessons}

In Russia, from the 1st September as many as 17.5 million children returned to school. Two million children went to school for the first time. When I asked some of my students how they felt about returning to school they grunted 'Don't even mention school' and later returned to enthusiastically playing video games as much as possible before they had less time for such amusements. They don't seem in any elated mood for celebrating.

It is fair to say that the 1st of September is still a special day for teachers. It is much more significant than the 1st of January as it really is the beginning of something new. In the old calendar of Moscow the 1st September did once mark the beginning of the new year rather than the 1st January. This is because it was the time where peasants had to gather the harvest. It was even thought that God had made the World in Autumn because it was the most convenient time to make it. It took Peter the Great to bring out a globe of the World and patiently explain to Russians that Russia is not the World and that when it is Winter in Russia it can be Summer elsewhere.

The ban on mobile phones has been welcomed by most school teachers. "About time to" you often hear in the school corridors. School students were often sending messages or secretly playing some games. They also use gadgets for cheating during some tests although that had become increasingly problematic with the imposition of very strict rules during exams.

The most controversial change has been the introduction of lessons on 'patriotism.' The lessons come under the title 'Conversations about what is important.' The idea is that children will learn about the most significant events happening around them and that children from ten will be allowed to discuss controversial topics such as the on-going 'Special military Operations' in Ukraine. Children will be taught of the importance of serving in the armed forces and their obligations to defend their country against any imminent invasion. On the surface, this might seem innocuous until you wonder how patriotism is be defined and explained and whether such discussions would just provoke pointless arguments. Not every school student eagerly wants to discuss 'Special Military operations' especially when their classmates are from Ukraine. A 16-year-old school girl told me that, "We don't even discuss this question at school because we don't want to hurt the feelings or offend the sensitivities of fellow schoolmates from Ukraine." They seem to be following an old English maxim of making conversation where a rule at parties was never to discuss politics or religion. This maxim was observed to prevent fist fights and duels against a background of Civil war in England during the 17th to 18th  centuries. This is not the most appropriate time to introduce such a topic. In many places in Moscow the atmosphere has been rendered toxic following political arguments. Teachers and students who have been friends for years have fallen out over different views on the conflict. Families have been torn apart by ugly arguments. An Orthodox priest who takes confessions stated that many of his congregation has come to him for advice on how to repair the damage inflicted on their families by political arguments.

Should teachers simply boycott those lessons? Such an action might only succeed in leading them to losing their jobs. Perhaps a more productive way of teaching might be allowing children to discuss what is patriotism! Is it love of nature? Does patriotism encompass friendship, love and charity? In that case it is worth children and ourselves learning how to value friendship, how to be a good friend and how to keep friendship going! We need to learn that just because you have a disagreement on a political matter does not mean the funeral of a friendship. There are cases where married couples have very different political opinions, but their marriages can continue until death! What is their secret? Perhaps it is how they disagree and what they do agree on that matters most!

So 'Conversations about what is important ' need not be brain-washing but an exercise in 'emotional intelligence' or practical wisdom. The main thing in those discussions would be to ask the questions than simply furnish ready-made answers in advance. One of the saddest things about many schools is that children are not taught what is love and how to truly love people. That is certainly one of the most important topics of any school discussion. And children should be encouraged to find the answers themselves. The poet T.S. Eliot claimed, 'Old men ought to be explorers. But children deserve to be given the head start when it comes to exploring. They should be inspired to retain a childlike curiosity which questions everything!'