At CPS there's a new colonel in town

Rumor has it that there's a shake up brewing atop Byrd-Bennett's CPS bureaucracy. The roundly-despised Tim Cawley appears to be out as BBB's Chief Administrative Officer, replaced by former Marine Col. Tim Tyrrell who is currently running CPS' school closing debacle. 

If true, Tyrrell's appointment could be the colonel's reward to commanding the "successful" closing of 50 Chicago public schools, nearly all in city's African-American community, which was done despite vocal opposition coming from tens of thousands of Chicagoans. With the threat of more school militarization hanging heaving in the air, the appointment of the former leader of prisoner exchanges in Kosovo seems appropriate.

No word yet on where Cawley will end up. I just hope the door doesn't hit him on his way out and back to the northern suburbs.

It was Col.Tyrrell along with Byrd-Bennett, who promised that by the first day of school, “all students attending welcoming schools will experience a safe and seamless transition and have an opportunity at a fresh start.”

As it turned out, only about half of the thousands of kids who were evicted from their former schools, ever made it to their assigned receiving school. Nobody, including Col. Tyrrell, seems to know were the missing children are. Kosovo prisoners apparently were much easier to keep track of.

Tyrrell has already been involved in a CPS hiring scandal involving Catherine Sugrue, the sister of Rahm's City Council floor leader, Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th). Sugrue now holds the newly created title of CPS director of school transition, and reports directly to Tyrell about the Safe Passage program.