Dear Madame Secretary,

I heard you speak at the AFT National Conference this summer, where you promised us that you are on our side. Well, in Chicago we are under attack, an attack led by your party's out-of-favor embarrassment, Rahm Emanuel.

I am writ­ing to you today from Chica­go on behalf of all the chil­dren, fam­i­lies and staff in the mid­dle of a mas­sive man­u­fac­tured cri­sis brew­ing in the Chica­go Pub­lic Schools (CPS). A cri­sis in major part wors­ened by your friend, May­or Rahm Emanuel.

I am a spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher at an ele­men­tary school on the far South Side of the city in a high-pover­ty African-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty. Thanks to Rahm Emanuel’s increased attacks on neigh­bor­hood pub­lic schools like ours, we are liv­ing under tru­ly abhor­rent con­di­tions for teach­ers and stu­dents alike. My school is a sur­vivor of his vicious, racist school clos­ings from 2013. The school down the street was forced into ours, cre­at­ing chaos and dis­rup­tion for all involved. We have been beat­en down by at least five sep­a­rate rounds of bud­get cuts over the past two years, with yet anoth­er round of cuts on the way. The cuts to teach­ing posi­tions have caused large class sizes (41 kinder­gart­ners in one class­room!) and split class­rooms (more than one grade in a class). Then there are the lay-offs of oth­er vital staff mem­bers. We no longer have a librar­i­an. We lost a much-need­ed clerk. We lost our cli­mate and cul­ture coor­di­na­tor and our men­tor­ing pro­gram. CPS even has stolen our social work­er and psy­chol­o­gist for all but a day or two a week, despite the high num­ber of chil­dren who have expe­ri­enced trau­ma and need ther­a­peu­tic services.

And we are indeed expe­ri­enc­ing trau­ma. We are a school locat­ed in the mid­dle of a neigh­bor­hood fac­ing mas­sive spikes in vio­lence, thanks to Rah­m’s racist poli­cies caus­ing a lack of hous­ing, jobs and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Just yes­ter­day, I sat hud­dled in my class­room, pro­tect­ing my stu­dents dur­ing a lock­down as vio­lence swirled around us, leav­ing a man dead on our streets just down the block and two oth­ers injured. As I com­fort­ed my stu­dents, cry­ing and scared in the dark, the obscen­i­ty of Rah­m’s call for teach­ers to sac­ri­fice more tore through my thoughts. Chil­dren at my school are in men­tal health cri­sis. Yet Rahm and his unelect­ed school board have cut the very heal­ing ser­vices we need now more than ever. As teach­ers, how can we allow these hor­rid con­di­tions to stand?

Not only has Rahm gone after neigh­bor­hood schools, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Black com­mu­ni­ties, but now he and CPS are com­ing after our most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion: stu­dents with spe­cial needs. CPS has changed fund­ing for­mu­las and pro­ce­dures to access vital spe­cial edu­ca­tion ser­vices in an attempt to save mon­ey for their cri­sis off the backs of our most frag­ile learn­ers. We have seen harm­ful dis­rup­tion in spe­cial ed ser­vices, with mas­sive law­suits brew­ing. Teach­ers are being laid off, sup­port per­son­nel are being lost, bus­ing and trans­porta­tion is being cut, and CPS has cre­at­ed a moun­tain of bureau­cra­cy designed to pre­vent access to ser­vices. We are at crim­i­nal lev­els of harm to students.

Would you allow your grand­daugh­ter to attend a school suf­fer­ing these types of assaults?

You say, ​“Black Lives Mat­ter.” Well, now is the time for you to show that the Black Lives of chil­dren, chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, chil­dren liv­ing in pover­ty here in Chica­go … that those lives mat­ter to you. That the lives of Black edu­ca­tors who are being laid off or pushed out of teach­ing in droves mat­ter to you.

You say to teach­ers, ​“I’m with you.” I heard you speak at the AFT Nation­al Con­fer­ence this sum­mer, where you promised us that you are on our side. Well, in Chica­go we are under attack, an attack led by your par­ty’s out-of-favor embar­rass­ment, Rahm Emanuel. As the cho­sen can­di­date of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, we ask that you inter­vene direct­ly. If you ask teach­ers to say, ​“I’m with her” then you need to show us that you tru­ly are with us in our time of dire need.

Teach­ers in Chica­go are on the eve of the sec­ond teach­ers’ strike in four years. Mem­bers vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to autho­rize a strike because we see the unac­cept­able real­i­ty of under­fund­ed, sab­o­taged schools every day. We are will­ing to stand up and fight for the schools our stu­dents deserve. While we deserve fair com­pen­sa­tion and should not shoul­der the bur­den of the elite’s cre­at­ed fis­cal crises, this strike is about so much more than our pay.

Sec­re­tary Clin­ton, I invite you to come walk the pick­et line at my school should we go out on strike begin­ning on Octo­ber 11th. Show us which side you are on. The wealthy bankers that prof­it off of Rahm Emanuel’s pri­va­ti­za­tion schemes or the fam­i­lies and teach­ers of Chicago?

It’s time for you step up and show what kind of pres­i­dent you will be.