Can this issue be fixed?
The grand solution to relieving the pressure of overcrowded schools would be to build another school within the community. The East Side School will be built on 105th and Stateline. This school will be have 4 floors and have an annex for the primary grades. It has to be large in size because it will have approximately 1,300 students. The difference between this school and the other East Side schools is that this building will be made to hold a great amount of students. This building will be equipped with all of the space necessary to comfortably fit all of its' students.
The East Sides School's close proximity to both Jane Addams and Gallistel Elementary School allows easy accessibility to those students who are transferring there. In other words The East Side School is close to all of its' potential students. Students won't have to travel out of their way to get to school and it will feel like they are walking to their old neighborhood school. They would not be forced into a neighborhood unknown to them or have to find means of public transportation.
The East Side school would be a CPS school rather than a charter or private school. As we all know, private schools can be very expensive when it comes to paying tuition. Considering the economic status of most east side residents, building a private school is not logical. Majority of the families make approximately $40,100 year. The minimum tuition price for a a private school is about $10,000 a year. With the stress of paying bills, and caring for children, adding a tuition fee of $10,000 a year is not an extra expense that most people would be willing to take. The East Side School was not chosen to be a charter school because of its lack of regulations and extensive freedom. A charter school in Chicago would not be under the command of CPS. A charter school makes it own contract and decides how the school is to be ran. This seems like a great idea but it can also be very bad. According to metagora.com Charter schools can choose to hire individuals without teacher certification. This is an issue because The East Side school wants to give our students the very best education possible. That would be difficult to achieve instructors who are not certified. Also according to nscl.com charter schools are small in size and don't have many students. The average amount of students at a charter school is 372. The main goal of building a new school was to stop overcrowding, by building a charter school we would not be taking away enough students from Gallistel or Jane Addams to reduce overcrowding.
The East Sides School's close proximity to both Jane Addams and Gallistel Elementary School allows easy accessibility to those students who are transferring there. In other words The East Side School is close to all of its' potential students. Students won't have to travel out of their way to get to school and it will feel like they are walking to their old neighborhood school. They would not be forced into a neighborhood unknown to them or have to find means of public transportation.
The East Side school would be a CPS school rather than a charter or private school. As we all know, private schools can be very expensive when it comes to paying tuition. Considering the economic status of most east side residents, building a private school is not logical. Majority of the families make approximately $40,100 year. The minimum tuition price for a a private school is about $10,000 a year. With the stress of paying bills, and caring for children, adding a tuition fee of $10,000 a year is not an extra expense that most people would be willing to take. The East Side School was not chosen to be a charter school because of its lack of regulations and extensive freedom. A charter school in Chicago would not be under the command of CPS. A charter school makes it own contract and decides how the school is to be ran. This seems like a great idea but it can also be very bad. According to metagora.com Charter schools can choose to hire individuals without teacher certification. This is an issue because The East Side school wants to give our students the very best education possible. That would be difficult to achieve instructors who are not certified. Also according to nscl.com charter schools are small in size and don't have many students. The average amount of students at a charter school is 372. The main goal of building a new school was to stop overcrowding, by building a charter school we would not be taking away enough students from Gallistel or Jane Addams to reduce overcrowding.
Models
Outside of Robert Healy School's Annex building.
It was known early on that The East Side school was going to be a public school. We also knew that its' location had to be near its' incoming students, but then came the question of what kind of education we were going to offer and how we were going to manage such a large number of students. This was where we turned to Robert Healy Elementary school as model of what we wanted our school to be like.
Robert Healy Elementary School located on Parnell and 30th street, is a neighborhood school that is complex and diverse; enabling students to reach their full potential. As of the 2012 overall performance of students at Healy, was that 90.6% of students were meeting or exceeding state standards for the ISAT Composite; surpassing the CPS average of 76.4%. Statistics also reveal that students are exceeding or meeting all main courses in relation to the state standards.
Like Gallistel Language Academy, Healy School was also built over one hundred years old. Because the past structure was not well suited with the present day community, changes have been made over time. The motive of this creation relates to the purpose of The East Side School,"to help restrain growth of overpopulated schools".
Healy was first built in 1886 as a three story building with fifteen classrooms. As the community grew within itself, Healy expanded with the community, reopening in 1960 with its' present day structure. In 1993, an Annex was built to fight overcrowding of the Main Building. The Annex contains sixteen classrooms, an art room, library, gym, and lunchroom. Grade levels were divided as the Annex was built to hold Pre-School - Second Grade as the Main Building taught Third Grade - Eighth Grade. Robert Healy Elementary has about 1,365 students (2012-13 enrollment) combined in both buildings. The East Side School, is far in proximity from the Bridgeport community as of where Healy is located. But that does not let go of the fight to decrease population within schools that are overpopulated. The East Side School looks up to Robert Healy as a model school that shows superior excellence with its' students achievements and not only that, but the changes Healy has went through to fight overcrowding.
As shown Robert Healy Elementary school was once overcrowded just like Gallistel and Jane Addams Elementary. Robert Healy Elementary proved that the best way to fight overcrowding was to build an additional building. Jane Addams Elementary school as well as Gallistel have long ago ran out of space. They have so little space that their students can not even fit within the same building. Building a new and bigger school can easily fix this dilemma. Robert Healy Elementary school was lucky enough to have the area and funds needed to build a additional building, but that simply isn't the case for both overcrowded East Side schools. Therefore, a new school big enough to hold around the same amount of students as Robert Healy is the best solution. The East Side school's enrollment of 1,300 students would relieve both Jane Addams and Gallistel of about 650 students. If both schools were to subtract that said amount of students, they would both no longer be overcrowded. This would also decrease the number of students in a classroom as well.
It is known that it is harder for a teacher to be successful in his or her job when they have an overcrowded class. In my own experience, I know that it is extremely difficult to learn when you have 10 extra people talking along with the teacher. With less people in a class, it is easier for teachers to control the amount of noise that goes around in the room. Translating into better learning for the students, Healy is the perfect example of how a school with such a large amount of students can still be successful academically. Though Healy has many students, it also has the room to support all of them as well as small class sizes. Healy's scores on ISAT are above average for the city of Chicago and that cannot be said for Gallistel and Jane Addams. Our hopes is that with less students in the classrooms teachers can pick out those who are struggling and help them onto the road of success. When a teacher has the time to consult with those who are struggling but also keep those who are not actively learning in the end test scores should improve and it can help get these schools out of probation.
Robert Healy Elementary School located on Parnell and 30th street, is a neighborhood school that is complex and diverse; enabling students to reach their full potential. As of the 2012 overall performance of students at Healy, was that 90.6% of students were meeting or exceeding state standards for the ISAT Composite; surpassing the CPS average of 76.4%. Statistics also reveal that students are exceeding or meeting all main courses in relation to the state standards.
Like Gallistel Language Academy, Healy School was also built over one hundred years old. Because the past structure was not well suited with the present day community, changes have been made over time. The motive of this creation relates to the purpose of The East Side School,"to help restrain growth of overpopulated schools".
Healy was first built in 1886 as a three story building with fifteen classrooms. As the community grew within itself, Healy expanded with the community, reopening in 1960 with its' present day structure. In 1993, an Annex was built to fight overcrowding of the Main Building. The Annex contains sixteen classrooms, an art room, library, gym, and lunchroom. Grade levels were divided as the Annex was built to hold Pre-School - Second Grade as the Main Building taught Third Grade - Eighth Grade. Robert Healy Elementary has about 1,365 students (2012-13 enrollment) combined in both buildings. The East Side School, is far in proximity from the Bridgeport community as of where Healy is located. But that does not let go of the fight to decrease population within schools that are overpopulated. The East Side School looks up to Robert Healy as a model school that shows superior excellence with its' students achievements and not only that, but the changes Healy has went through to fight overcrowding.
As shown Robert Healy Elementary school was once overcrowded just like Gallistel and Jane Addams Elementary. Robert Healy Elementary proved that the best way to fight overcrowding was to build an additional building. Jane Addams Elementary school as well as Gallistel have long ago ran out of space. They have so little space that their students can not even fit within the same building. Building a new and bigger school can easily fix this dilemma. Robert Healy Elementary school was lucky enough to have the area and funds needed to build a additional building, but that simply isn't the case for both overcrowded East Side schools. Therefore, a new school big enough to hold around the same amount of students as Robert Healy is the best solution. The East Side school's enrollment of 1,300 students would relieve both Jane Addams and Gallistel of about 650 students. If both schools were to subtract that said amount of students, they would both no longer be overcrowded. This would also decrease the number of students in a classroom as well.
It is known that it is harder for a teacher to be successful in his or her job when they have an overcrowded class. In my own experience, I know that it is extremely difficult to learn when you have 10 extra people talking along with the teacher. With less people in a class, it is easier for teachers to control the amount of noise that goes around in the room. Translating into better learning for the students, Healy is the perfect example of how a school with such a large amount of students can still be successful academically. Though Healy has many students, it also has the room to support all of them as well as small class sizes. Healy's scores on ISAT are above average for the city of Chicago and that cannot be said for Gallistel and Jane Addams. Our hopes is that with less students in the classrooms teachers can pick out those who are struggling and help them onto the road of success. When a teacher has the time to consult with those who are struggling but also keep those who are not actively learning in the end test scores should improve and it can help get these schools out of probation.
If it isn't fixed..
Gallistel and Jane Addams are already extremely overcrowded and they are showing no signs of stopping. This is evident in the constant growth in the 8th grade graduating class size at Jane Addams. In the year 2008, the graduating class had 84 students. 4 years later in 2012 the graduating class had 111 students. This year, the graduating class has 121 students! This trend shows us that more and more students have been enrolling into the school and the class sizes are increasing. We predict that the numbers of students will not decrease because each year these schools get a new wave of pre-schoolers, even more than the year before. Gallistel and Jane Addams can continue to rent out additional space outside of the school but it wont be long before those are overcrowded as well. The average class size that is currently at 32-35 will surely go up in a few years and it wouldn't be a surprise if it went up to 35-40 students for each class.
As expressed many times before, we feel that class size and learning have a very direct correlation. With more students in the class, the harder it will become for teachers to teach and get things done. That being said, we can't imagine their test scores getting any better. With Gallistel currently on probation and Jane Addams following in their foot steps, these schools have no choice but to make a change or else they will become turn around schools. A turn around school is a school that has been on probation for quite some time and CPS comes and takes over. The school receives a new principal, teachers and general staff in the hopes that they can achieve what the former staff was not able to. This is bad because this will be putting many teachers, many of whom live in the community, out of work. With more people in the East Side out of work, it could turn us into a struggling community because the East Side doesn't have many jobs to offer. The students also don't benefit from a turn around school because most of the teachers hired are newly graduates who don't have classroom experience. In theory, these types of teachers are hired because they get paid a great deal less than veteran teachers. In no way are we saying that these teachers don't have potential, but we feel that it takes a while to become an experienced teacher. Sadly, the students of Jane Addams and Gallistel will have to sit by as all these changes occur without say if it will be successful or not.
The East Side schools' main priority is the students of the East Side. Whether they have a classroom of 20 students or 50, these children deserve to get a quality education. An education that will push them on to high school and beyond to any career they choose to pursue. Building a new school would not just relieve the overcrowding, but it will ease the load on the teachers and give students the one on one time they deserve. It won't be easy, but we truly believe that education is the key to success. So if this could better the education offered to the children on the East Side why not give it a try?
As expressed many times before, we feel that class size and learning have a very direct correlation. With more students in the class, the harder it will become for teachers to teach and get things done. That being said, we can't imagine their test scores getting any better. With Gallistel currently on probation and Jane Addams following in their foot steps, these schools have no choice but to make a change or else they will become turn around schools. A turn around school is a school that has been on probation for quite some time and CPS comes and takes over. The school receives a new principal, teachers and general staff in the hopes that they can achieve what the former staff was not able to. This is bad because this will be putting many teachers, many of whom live in the community, out of work. With more people in the East Side out of work, it could turn us into a struggling community because the East Side doesn't have many jobs to offer. The students also don't benefit from a turn around school because most of the teachers hired are newly graduates who don't have classroom experience. In theory, these types of teachers are hired because they get paid a great deal less than veteran teachers. In no way are we saying that these teachers don't have potential, but we feel that it takes a while to become an experienced teacher. Sadly, the students of Jane Addams and Gallistel will have to sit by as all these changes occur without say if it will be successful or not.
The East Side schools' main priority is the students of the East Side. Whether they have a classroom of 20 students or 50, these children deserve to get a quality education. An education that will push them on to high school and beyond to any career they choose to pursue. Building a new school would not just relieve the overcrowding, but it will ease the load on the teachers and give students the one on one time they deserve. It won't be easy, but we truly believe that education is the key to success. So if this could better the education offered to the children on the East Side why not give it a try?