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The reaction was decidedly mixed when Ike Muzikowski told students and staff last week that Education Secretary Linda McMahon might visit their Christian private school bordering Chicago’s West Side.
A religious private school like Chicago Hope Academy seems like an obvious choice for McMahon, whose administration has shown strong support of school choice and has criticized the city’s public schools.
But as word spread, Muzikowski received six emails from parents who were opposed to her visit. He also heard from parents who were “pumped” and wanted photos of their kids at the event.
Muzikowski, Hope’s principal, knew that a Connecticut public school had just canceled McMahon’s visit in response to outcry from parents.
After he received confirmation of her visit, he opened the floor to students at a town hall attended by more than a third of the school’s students. They talked about the visit for so long that dozens of them missed their next class. The days leading up to the visit were “filled with discussions, sometimes arguments” about how the Trump administration’s policies have been harmful to many in their school community, which is predominantly Black and Hispanic.
“While that challenge exists, can we host people from different political backgrounds, with different political interests, with different political agendas?” Muzikowski wondered.
He decided yes.
And so McMahon visited the school Thursday morning as part of her 50-state “History Rocks!” tour, timed for the nation’s upcoming 250th birthday. The Education Department is coordinating the tour with the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, which includes conservative groups like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty. About half of the school’s students participated in the optional event, Muzikowski said.
Two sophomores led McMahon on a tour of the school and to a U.S. History class. A large photo of Booker T. Washington, a prominent Black educator and leader from the late 1800s to early 1900s, hangs at the top of a stairwell. A religious poem, painted in both English and Spanish, adorns another wall. In a hallway, outside of Muzikowski’s office, hang bulletin boards including one that shows how the three branches of government coexist and another featuring prominent Black Americans. College banners line the wall above the bulletin boards.
The girls told McMahon about their future business ideas, summer travel plans, and why the school celebrates Black History Month, Muzikowski said.
Later, in the school’s chapel, McMahon spoke for a few minutes about her time as a presidential delegate for the U.S. Special Olympics, Muzikowski said. Then the group played general audience and team trivia games about U.S. and Illinois history.
McMahon told reporters after the event, which the press was not invited to out of concerns about students’ privacy, that it was “totally nonpartisan” and “absolutely about civics.”
“It’s kids having fun, competing,” she said. “It’s really making history fun, and you can see the enthusiasm that was in the audience.”
McMahon also spoke briefly about Illinois state history, highlighting the state’s importance in helping the Union win the Civil War, Muzikowski said. She didn’t wade into current politics or name prominent Illinois leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama, who has also visited the school, he said.
McMahon complimented the family feel of the school, which was founded by Muzikowski’s parents in 1995.
“We understand, hey, that the approach to education from her office might be different than our execution of education in this building,” Muzikowski, dressed in a backwards baseball cap and tie with the word “HOPE,” told reporters after the visit.
It’s not a surprise the visit caused a stir, even at the type of school that is likely to draw praise from the Trump administration.
On top of the criticism McMahon has faced from Democratic lawmakers amid the Trump administration’s plans to eliminate the Education Department, Chicago is a fraught place for a Trump cabinet member to visit right now.
The federal government’s immigration raids last fall left many of Chicago’s Hispanic communities feeling scarred and fearful of federal officials. And the Trump administration has pulled $23 million in federal grants for the city’s magnet schools, claiming that Chicago Public Schools’ Black Student Success Plan, which is meant to improve academic outcomes and school quality for Black students, as well as its policies for transgender students, are violations of civil rights laws.
Muzikowski said he wished he had more time to make a decision about McMahon’s visit “as a community.” Still, he said he came away proud of his students.
While he didn’t get “100% co-sign on the event” from students, “I am very glad that we did it and that our students are able to learn from someone who may think differently.”
After the event, a student walked through the hallway holding a paper American flag from the trivia game.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
