- Back to school giveaway Saturday, August 19, 2023
10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
0005th District Police Station
727 E. 111th Street
Chicago, IL 60628
While supplies last
Parent must be present to receive supplies
To be honest I don't really want to add to the perception that Chicago is a dangerous place. Late last month a group of teens converged in the north side's Lakeview neighborhood and the stories became that neighborhood was destroyed. I'm sure there was damages to property whether a car, a bus or a storefront that was a bit of a stretch. Though behavior that resulted in property damages or any injuries or concern for safety is unacceptable.
So anyway, I want to share a couple of videos with regards to the 4th of July violence and we can start with WGN which reported 61 shot with 15 fatal over the past holiday weekend. [VIDEO]
[VIDEO] Perhaps some of you in this audience is watching FOX News and some of you probably are no fans of Tucker Carlson. However, I did want to share this monologue with you all. This aired on his TV program last night.
And he connects the chaos that occurred in Chicago both downtown - near Millennium Park - and near 31st Street on the south side with chaos going on around America (shown in above video is the chaotic scene at a gas station in Compton, California). It just shows how the eyes are on Chicago and especially since the DNC will have their convention here next summer. If this is already going on now, can they handle the potential chaos of the Democrat National Convention? There will be protests and of course another concern could be rowdy youth converging in one place.
This is something that perhaps the mayor to be Brandon Johnson could get ahead of except as you see here, his own words in an interview during 2020 could be used against him. Ahh which could've been used against him in the recent mayoral race except well perhaps not very effectively and he's going to be mayor for the next four years.
I want to have optimism that as Tucker states Mayor-elect Johnson isn't an ideologue. His way with words, his ability to talk is probably an improvement over Mayor Lightfoot who seemed to refuse to call out the chaos in downtown this past weekend for what it is.
Regardless it's amazing that this story has wings. Shots fired in the loop. Young people fighting each other in the streets. Youth running around disrupting traffic. A young couple being assaulted by said youth. A car burning in the middle of a street. Young people jumping up and down on top of anything from a CTA bus to a car. It's a shame.
So while our new mayor doesn't seem to condone the looting he still doesn't want to condemn the young people whom people say lack opportunities in their communities. I'd be curious how he intends to provide those young people opportunities. Whether jobs, educational, recreational, or even just services to address whatever is going on at home.
With the DNC coming to the city next year, the eyes will be on the Windy City. The new mayor needs to take control and not make excuses for this unfortunate behavior.
[VIDEO] On WGN Weekend Morning News there is a discussion with Steve Valles - co-director of Chicago Votes breaking down early voting numbers. I suppose the news I have seen have discussed to which candidate early voting benefits? Another aspect I've seen out there, is how long until we finally determine who won the 2023 mayoral race or at least who's in the mayoral runoff?
This discussion has been about how to energize young people to vote in this election. Also we hear that this is the first election where Cook County Jail is a polling location. So Chicago Votes has something going on with the inmates there.
Early voting is going on through next Monday and Election Day is next Tuesday February 28th. Have you all early voted yet? Do you plan to wait until Election Day?
The below image is from state Sen. Elgie Sims email blast. Regarding CPS Holiday Break Meal Giveaways. Want to know locations visit www.cps.edu/mealsites or call 773.553.KIDS (5437).
Before Christmas you can pick up your meal kids on Monday thru Wednesday or December 21st thru 23rd this week from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM at a mealsite near you.
These are a few nearby mealsites:
The Chicago Teachers Union recently asked a judge to issue an injunction ordering Chicago Public Schools to remain closed to in-person learning for the spring semester. It comes as the city public school system plans to return K-8 students in January and February, according to its reopening plans.
Catholic schools in the city and surrounding area have been open for a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning for a full semester now, with minimal problems. As private entities, Catholic schools have been allowed to stay open under health guidelines, while public schools have been fully remote for the fall semester.
I wonder how many of you are ready to send your children back to school soon.
h/t Newsalert
[VIDEO] This really isn't something you want to hear about. A young man cut short before he makes an impact on the world
From the WGN story above to a Tribune write-up:
Isaiah Wade, 15, was shot in the head just before 2:30 p.m. Monday in the 10000 block of South Perry Avenue where he lived in the Fernwood neighborhood, police said.
Responding officers found him lying in an alley near his home. Five shell casings were found in a backyard nearby and there were bullet holes in several garages, police said.
The boy’s mother told police she believed her son was chatting with someone on social media and might have been lured outside. Police said they recovered the boy’s cellphone.
“Another family left to mourn, forever altered,” Cardinal Blase Cupich said in a statement. “Mt. Carmel High School is a close community and we keep Isaiah, his family, friends and school staff in our prayers during this unimaginably heartbreaking time.”
I hope Wade's family finds out who did this and he receives justice for a life that was taken. It was reported no one was in custody and police are looking for tips via cpdtip.com
More than a dozen people were arrested, including two minors, after protesters set up tents outside the Loop headquarters of Chicago Public Schools on Monday to protest the stationing of police officers in schools.Tweets contained from the write-up at the Tribune
Police said they gave protesters several warnings that the tents outside 42 W. Madison St. were blocking the streets. Those arrested were charged with “illegally obstructing the roadway,” they said.
The protest was the latest call by activists for the removal of Chicago police officers in Chicago public schools. It came days before the Chicago Board of Education is to consider a resolution that could phase out use of officers.
The resolution, up for a vote Wednesday, would “require that the CEO and district leaders, in consultation with school communities, identify and recommend an alternative plan to ensure safe and supportive school environments.”
...
Monday’s protest drew about 60 people and was organized by the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Assata’s Daughters, FYSH Youth — HANA Center, STOP Chicago, KINETIC Youth — Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Logan Square Neighborhood Association and Enlace Chicago.
LIVE NOW: CPD WE WANT YOU OUT. Listen to the young people. CPD threatening to arrest young people and adult allies demanding #CopsOutCPS https://t.co/WXDvy21Xor— Students Strike Back #CopsOutCPS (@StuStrikeBack) August 25, 2020
Officers at the protest were ensuring the rights of peaceful protesters were safely facilitated. However, about 60 protesters set up tents in the street, illegally obstructing the roadway. Officers issued 3 warnings to leave the street. 13 individuals remained. https://t.co/PhYH7arxiE— Chicago Police Communications & News Affairs (@CPD_Media) August 25, 2020
Students say it’s helpful, but they want the offer year round.How about this, create a U-Pass program for K-12 students especially designed for those students who must depend on public transit. If there isn't enough money to allow free rides for CPS students year round then do what the city's universities have done, require activity fees. Probably not a popular solution, however, as stated in the article the reduced fares for K-12 students add up.
“I think students should get free rides because I don’t really know how you will expect youth who are focusing on their education and career to have constant money,” said Jennifer Nava, a senior at Kelly High School in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
It’s a big ask in a city dealing with a huge financial deficit. Just last week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city faces a projected $838 million budget shortfall next year.
Still Jennifer, an outspoken teenager who keeps close tabs on city affairs, wants to remind Lightfoot that she promised to make transportation more affordable for students during her campaign.
“If time is not now, then when?” Jennifer said.
Students in temporary living situations rarely self-identify, according to advocates. Lockett, now 22, said he didn’t like his classmates and teachers to know he was homeless. But his situation is hardly unique.
More than 16,450 Chicago Public Schools students didn’t have a permanent home during the 2018-19 school year, according to numbers released Thursday by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Most were in temporary living situations, meaning they stayed in shelters, motels, cars or, in about 90% of the cases, “doubled up” with others, according to the coalition. Doubling up doesn’t generally meet the federal government’s definition of homelessness, so people in those situations don’t qualify for federal programs for those without homes.
About half of the city’s homeless students were in 10 of the city’s 50 wards, according to the coalition’s data. At least 865 were believed to be living in Ald. Walter Burnett’s 27th Ward. Burnett spoke at a homeless coalition news conference Thursday at City Hall to plug a proposed increase to the real estate transfer tax on properties worth more than $1 million to address the situation.
“We need to put the people first," Burnett said. “We need to help the needy and not the greedy.”
The advocates’ proposed 1.2 percentage point increase could generate about $150 million that could be used to reduce homelessness. The coalition said that’s 10 times as much funding as what’s already dedicated to the issue.
During her campaign, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she supported an additional tax on expensive property sales to direct more money to homelessness. But she has also said City Hall is on a different timeline than the homeless coalition. And she’s also suggested raising the transfer tax to help fill this year’s budget hole.
The coalition wants a referendum on the tax increase on the March ballot.
BREAKING: Chicago Public Schools has announced that schools will be closed Wednesday due to sub-zero temperatures and potentially record-setting windchill values. https://t.co/IstgmNO2yh— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) January 29, 2019
The safety of our students is the district’s highest priority. All afterschool activities will be canceled tomorrow, January 29th. All CPS schools will be closed on Wednesday, January 30th.— Janice Jackson, EdD (@janicejackson) January 29, 2019
Broad failures at all levels of Chicago Public Schools kept officials from preventing and responding to sexual abuse suffered by students in the nation’s third-largest school system, according to a prominent law firm’s early review of problems documented this summer in a Tribune investigation.While this blog is named for a now closed former public school, it just has to be said. Another reason for confidence in public education to go into a negative direction...
The report by the law firm Schiff Hardin identified repeated “systemic deficiencies” in training, incident reporting, data collection and trend tracking that pervaded city schools, the system’s downtown headquarters and a school board controlled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Employees were not consistently trained on district policies and procedures involving sexual misconduct, according to the report authored by Schiff Hardin partner Maggie Hickey and released Friday. CPS also did not ensure that those policies were being implemented or that they were effective, the report said.
The report describes how understaffed and underfunded CPS investigators struggled to process reports of potential sexual harassment, notifications sent to the Department of Children and Family Services, employee misconduct allegations and altercations between students and staff — thousands of reports during the 2016-17 school year alone.
Hickey noted that the district’s incident-reporting software, known as Verify, “is almost universally viewed by principals as cumbersome and inefficient.” CPS is moving to a new system next year, the report said.
On my last day at the Tribune, I went to the Far South Side where a truce between two rival gang factions has led to a neighborhood playground being built amid a newfound peace: https://t.co/2NePIfMM9Y— Tessa Weinberg (@Tessa_Weinberg) August 11, 2018
But the playground’s foundation was really laid nearly a year ago when Sherman Scullark, a member of the Risky Road gang faction, rang Detective Vivian Williams’ doorbell.Read the whole thing!
Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood for 32 years — and has spent 23 of them working as a Chicago police officer — was shocked when Scullark came to her.
“I could see in his face that he needed to talk about something. And when I opened the door he said, 'Officer Williams, I'm just tired. I'm tired,’ ” Williams said.
Scullark was tired of the violence. The conflict between Risky Road and the Maniac Fours faction had been going on since Scullark was a young boy.
And it marred the community. Kids didn’t play outside. They knew not to go to the basketball courts or the gas station — both hotspots for shootings when rival gang members found each other across the 107th Street dividing line.
So Scullark asked Williams, who’s known as the neighborhood mom, to set up a meeting between the rival gangs. Williams agreed but needed approval from the district commander.
The next day, Williams got it. But Scullark beat her to it. He had already orchestrated a truce agreement.
He had approached his rivals on their block and let them know he wasn’t carrying a firearm. Then he told them how he felt. It turned out some of them felt the same.
They agreed to put down the guns, and the neighborhood has been more peaceful ever since.
“I said, 'You didn't even give me 24 hours?’ ” Williams said. “He said, ‘Now can you introduce me to Arne Duncan?’ ”
Duncan, the former education secretary under Barack Obama and former Chicago Public Schools CEO, is the driving force behind the organization Chicago Creating Real Economic Destiny, known as Chicago CRED.
The University of Illinois at Chicago is investing about $1 million to recruit and train male elementary education majors of color to help spur black boys' academic success.— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 25, 2018
"This is not just becoming a teacher. This is becoming a leader."https://t.co/HlwjAP0XYw pic.twitter.com/n2D1sK8Deb
Days after the Chicago Tribune began publishing stories of alarming and unreported sexual abuse and assault within Chicago Public Schools, Illinois’ two U.S. senators fired off letters demanding accountability and transparency.
But something — or rather someone — was missing from their missives. No mention of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Must have been an oversight.
Instead of directing their concern at the person who actually oversees CPS, U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth sent letters to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Illinois schools Superintendent Tony Smith expressing their alarm and requesting more data collection at federal and state levels. By threading the needle carefully, they honed in on narrow aspects of the Tribune’s investigation that touched on state and federal data collection and transparency, not CPS’ failures.
Interesting.
“There’s a nurturing that goes on at those campuses that is indeed unmatched. The students, I want them to feel like they’ve come home and that place that they will call home for the next four years is something that they will be proud of.”I sincerely hope these young people soak in the importance of that journey from last month.
The numbers are in and Black Panther is a monster hit. More than that, it has already earned a place in the box office history books in just its first three-to-four days of release. The movie earned a $201.8 million Fri-Sun weekend and will earn an estimated $235m over the Fri-Mon holiday. So, without further ado, I wanted to take a moment to note the copious big ways that the Ryan Coogler-directed/Chadwick Boseman-starring superhero spectacular has already planted its flag in the sand.Just consider this is the biggest opening weekend of a movie with a mostly Black cast and by a Black director. And of course it's setting the bar for comic book movies in general also.