Students sit-in at SoJo to protest firings

Little Village hunger strikers and community members started the school.

Teachers for Social Justice posted a summary of the issues behind yesterday's student sit-in at Social Justice High School. This small school within Little Village High School, was born out of community struggle -- a 19-day hunger strike by parents in 2001.

Sojo's very existence as a neighborhood public school serving low-income African American and Latina/o students with the vision of community self-determination-as exemplified by its inspiring and dignified student sit-in-is antithetical and a threat to the current top-down, CPS corporate model of schooling. Read the rest here.

The Race To The Top teacher purges at LVHS actually began two years ago at the Multi-Cultural Arts School. The recent firings at SoJo are a continuation of CPS' top-down "reform" plan which leaves out the community when it comes to real decision-making. CPS has been trying to wrestle back complete authority over LVHS since it opened as a campus of small schools in 2005.

The SoJo students' action yesterday was heroic. But the students can't do it alone.