Letter of thanks from Sumi Cho

Hello Drummond Families Together, Speakers, and Co-Sponsors:

I wanted to thank everyone again in DFT, our wonderful speakers--Prof. Valerie Johnson & MALDEF Regional Counsel Ricardo Meza and moderator Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado--as well as our co-sponsors: Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado, American Friends Service Committee; DePaul University College of Law Diversity Committee; Parents United for Responsible Education; Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education; Center for Anti-Oppressive Education; UIC Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy; Chicago Freedom School; Small Schools Workshop; and The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, for all your hard work and dedication. We could not have had a successful event with such little lead time without our friends and allies getting the word out so effectively.

As organizers, we were very pleased with the turnout, the high-quality program, and the supportive and energetic engagement from the audience. The topic seems to be resonating. Our event has gotten some buzz in the local media. We're the lead story in Chitown Daily news (first link below), the most commented upon thread today on Alexander Russo's Dist 299 Blog (second link below), and the third news item on Chicago Public Radio (third link below). Chicago Public Radio will post later, the podcast of our program under the "Chicago Amplified" link.

Going forward, DFT will continue to work on developing affidavits from parents and community for the new deadline of December 1st, thanks to MALDEF's successful motion to postpone the original submission and hearing date. Our new hearing date is now January 20, 2009, and speakers and attendees thought it wise to have a strong showing at the hearing. This struggle is obviously a very small piece of a much larger struggle for real school reform, and we look forward to linking the issue of resegregation to that of the great work of our co-sponsors on school closures, NCLB, English Language Learners, Renaissance 2010, overcrowding and privitization/militarization of our schools.

http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/Court_to_weigh_in_on_city_schools_deseg_efforts,17180

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/RUSSO/index.php/entry/1199/Deseg_Forum_On_Tuesday

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=29082

Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to returning the favor and continuing the struggle for quality education for all Chicago's children.

Most sincerely,

Sumi Cho