Crowding woes continue BY STEPHANIE ZIMMERMANN STAFF REPORTER When Paul Vallas and Gery Chico took over the Chicago Public Schools in 1995, overcrowding at some schools was so bad that children had to camp out in hallways with their desks, papers and books. Six years and $732 million later, children are still having class in the hallways of some public schools--and overcrowding will remain a top challenge for those who follow Vallas and Chico. But the persistent overcrowding problem plaguing the public schools is not for lack of trying, school officials and many of their critics agree. "I think we would give them a solid `B,' " for efforts to relieve overcrowding, said Jacqueline Leavy, executive director of the nonprofit Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, a school district watchdog. "I think on some levels, it's been extraordinary that they fired up a system to move dollars out the door as quickly as they did." Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, thinks the district could be more sensitive to the needs of communities. Still, she concedes, "they have done a lot. They have done a huge building campaign, and it has helped a great deal." On Friday, students were found at the strangest places at Mary Lyon Elementary School at 2941 N. McVicker: first-graders under a stairwell, fourth-graders in the old teachers lunchroom, learning-disabled classes in a supply room and a converted shower room and fifth-graders in a former library. The gymnasium in the newer portion of the school doubles as a lunchroom, which opens its doors starting at 10:30 a.m. so all the kids have time to eat. The school gets an "A" for creative use of space. "You know what's amazing, is even with this, our scores have gone up," Principal Ivette Robles said. School officials spent $10.2 million for an addition at Mary Lyon, one of several projects to relieve overcrowding in the area. Now, just two years later, Mary Lyon has 1,780 students crammed into a facility meant for 1,250. The district is trying to lease space in a private school nearby that would provide 12 large and four smaller classrooms for Mary Lyon. But the children keep coming. Despite an unprecedented flow of money into building projects to relieve overcrowding, overflowing classrooms are common on the Northwest and Southwest sides and in pockets of Rogers Park and South Shore. There are many schools that are not filled --there were 131,927 free "seats" scattered around elementary schools and 32,983 in various high schools, at last count. But the school district has decided against a more aggressive busing program to move students to the empty seats. Simply putting up more schools in crowded areas is ruled out by a lack of money and a fear that huge, new school buildings might eventually be vacant. The district spends 85 percent of its new construction funds just to relieve overcrowding. Yet there still are schools where children's "classrooms" are in hallways, lunchrooms and supply closets. In some elementary schools, classes that should have 24 pupils are inching toward 40. The incoming president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Deborah Lynch-Walsh, won in part for her stance against ever-creeping class sizes and their effect. "The teachers really can't do the job they know needs to be done," Lynch-Walsh said. An analysis by the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group estimates that 55 elementary and 17 high schools are severely overcrowded, meaning they are at or beyond 100 percent of their intended capacity. (For elementary schools, 80 percent of capacity is considered the start of an overcrowding problem, because schools need some non-classroom space for activities such as computer labs, science labs and so forth, district officials said. The district says about 120 schools--or about 20 percent of the total--are considered to be in some way overcrowded; community groups put the figure higher.) "It's almost impossible for a child to meet standards in an overcrowded school," Woestehoff said. "The children are cheek-to-jowl, and yet they're expected to sit there quietly and do their work." The problem is partly bad luck: the mass movement of families into neighborhoods like Belmont-Cragin and West Lawn, where schools couldn't handle more children. Over the six years of the Vallas-Chico administration, the system's student population ballooned by almost 30,000--from 407,241 in 1994 to 435,470 this past school year. In Belmont-Cragin, for instance, the number of students zoomed from 6,242 in 1991 to 12,085 in 2000. Many were from newly arrived Hispanic families, which tend to have more young children. With their computer models of enrollment trends, population shifts and space-use data, district officials know exactly where the problems are. Some community groups worry that despite the elementary school construction and renovations, not enough attention is being paid to high school overcrowding. That's what the hunger strikers in Little Village were hoping to get before ending their fast June 2 after 19 days. But school officials say addressing high school overcrowding is tricky. For one, public school enrollment in Chicago traditionally has dropped off at the high school level, because many families pull their kids out of the system to go to private schools. Gauging where to build is tough, because students may leave their neighborhoods to attend a special program in a public high school in another part of the city. Even so, there are several projects on the table to relieve overcrowding at other high schools, including Kelvyn Park in east Belmont-Cragin and Kelly, on the Southwest Side. New schools are being eyed for Pilsen-Little Village and Back of the Yards, and replacement schools are on the list for Westinghouse, Tilden, Harper and Washington--if the money becomes available. "It's been evident where we need the new schools," said Karen Burke, deputy chief of operations for the district. "Our problem at the moment, quite frankly, is funding." Contributing: Rosalind Rossi -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
