Inside Chicago's School "Renaissance"

Whose idea was this?

Gage Park junior Kelly Greenan said "it was boiling" inside her classroom Monday.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times) 

 

Year-round school is the latest buzzword coming from the new reformers in Chicago. That's probably because Daley and Huberman sit in air-conditioned offices all day, during this brutal heat wave, and never set foot inside overheated and over-crowded classrooms in schools like Gage Park High.

Stifling hot, humid and sometimes crowded classrooms greeted some students at 10 Chicago public high schools that kicked off classes Monday under a year-round calendar. "Sweat-dripping-down-our-face hot," is how one student described her day. At that school, Gage Park High, the school year also started with a shooting. An 18-year-old senior was shot in the back as he exited a vehicle outside the school before classes began, officials said.

At TEAM Englewood, an air-conditioned high school, junior Shunnetta Brown didn't like her new larger class sizes of as many as 36 kids. Her art class had more kids than desks, Shunnetta said. "I just don't think that's a proper learning environment,'' Shunnetta said. (Sun-Times)