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The Chicago Board of Education voted Tuesday to end agreements with independent operators of two high schools after those operators decided they could no longer run the campuses.
The school board decided to keep Chicago High School for the Arts, or ChiArts, an integrated arts high school serving 559 students who had to apply and audition, open as a district-run school and provide $1.5 million for the transition. The contract school is known for its arts conservatory, which has special departments for creative writing, dance, music, theater, and visual arts.
After a contentious debate at a special meeting, the board also voted to wind down EPIC Academy, a charter school in South Chicago with 244 mostly Black students enrolled and provide the school with $1.4 million to stay afloat through the end of the school year. EPIC’s operators previously said they faced closure in the middle of this school year if they couldn’t find additional funding.
For ChiArts, several students, teachers, and parents who spoke to board members Tuesday demanded the board maintain the school’s arts “conservatory” and keep its teachers and “teaching artists” intact.
“You hold the livelihoods of more than 60 arts teachers, you hold the sanctuary of over 600 art students run toward in a world that frequently tells us we aren’t necessary,” said Maya Davis, a senior at ChiArts who said the school has helped her flourish as a young actress. “Let it be the haven I’ve experienced it to be.”
The debate around EPIC’s future began last week at the board’s regular monthly meeting for October. That’s when elected board member Jitu Brown introduced an amendment attempting to keep EPIC’s students and staff together at a high-performing school next year. But a vote was delayed to Tuesday after district officials raised concerns about the tight timeline for producing a plan and other board members asked for the district’s general counsel to review it.
Ultimately, the board voted to require the district to offer enrollment to students at a district-run school, as well as job opportunities for “qualified” EPIC staff at receiving schools. An amendment to Brown’s amendment removed the term “high-performing.”
“I can support it if this would get us to a resolution,” Brown said. “But historically, 88% of the people that have been impacted by school closings have been Black students. The overwhelming majority of those students did not go to a better school.”
Past research from the University of Chicago found that not only did the city’s school closings disproportionately impact Black children, but most of those students did not go to better performing schools.
“How do we make sure a child doesn’t go from one school that’s closing its doors in the middle of the night, then they end up at a school that’s going to be in discussions for school closings the next year?” Brown said. “This has happened over and over and over and over again, and this is the concern. Now if that’s acceptable, then say that.”
Elected school board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, whose district includes EPIC Academy, said he doesn’t want to limit parents’ options.
“Parents choose different schools for different reasons,” Smith said. “What one person may consider high-performing may be subjective to another person. I speak with parents who send their children to a school because it’s the safest school in the district for their kid to go to, even though another school may have better academics.”
Some board members echoed concerns raised by the principals union about hiring autonomy. Other board members said the language merely offers opportunities for teachers to apply and doesn’t require principals to hire them.
During the meeting, appointed board member Debby Pope added an amendment — later approved by the board — that commits CPS to preserving ChiArts’ conservatory “to the greatest extent practicable” and look for other ways to financially support the school’s model going forward, including through partnerships with other groups. It committed board members to reconvene on the issue of funding to support ChiArts transition to a district-run school by its January board meeting, after it engages with the school community.
The board spent about four hours in closed session where it planned to discuss interviews it had conducted with candidates for CPS’ next CEO and decide on a list of finalists, Jessica Biggs, an elected board member helping to lead the district’s CEO search committee, told Chalkbeat before the meeting.
Becky Vevea and Mila Koumpilova contributed.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
