SC

We got to this point because CPS has been starving our schools for years. It has been death by a thousand cuts. But recently it’s felt more like, I don’t know, chopping off our arms. We’ve seen over the years more layoffs, class sizes increasing, cuts to counselors and clinicians, our schools being closed, private schools and charters opening up. It’s making the learning and working conditions very difficult in the schools.

Just this school year, there have been so many cuts to our schools that it’s hard to keep track of them. At the beginning of the year, there were millions of dollars in cuts to special ed. Our students with disabilities weren’t getting their services that were required by law; parents and teachers and community groups had to go fight the Board of Ed with lawyers to get services back.

Then there were more special ed cuts in the middle of the year, then more general layoffs. A month or two ago, there were even more cuts. My school lost $100,000. Our budgets were already bare bones, and the principals had to cut even more.

And then just two weeks ago, we had another round of cuts. They froze all the funds; my school lost another $80,000. For my school, they’ve cut almost all the before- and after-school programs — intervention programs for kids who were struggling, all types of clubs — plus most of our substitutes.

We’re not able to function with this low level of funding. And the board says they’re going to make more cuts. Being in the school right now, I can’t imagine what else they could cut.

We only have one nurse right now for a couple days a week to serve 1,200 students. If a student is sick — maybe they vomited, maybe they have lice — they’re sent back to the classroom, because there’s no nurse there. The majority of schools only have one counsellor for all their students.

We’ve gotten to this point because we have no funding. CPS, Rahm and his appointed board of education have been using the equivalent of a credit card to pay for everything. They keep taking out loans and loans and loans, and our debt keeps increasing. And we go further into debt, so the cuts keep coming.

This is why we need progressive revenue solutions. We can’t just keep cutting.