Students Fight for Fired Teachers at School Board

Almost one week after dozens of Austin Polytechnical Academy students were suspended for protesting the firing of their teachers, a group from the school took their fight to the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday.

Wearing a red Austin Polytech sweatshirt with “Save Austin’s Teachers” written on the back in black marker, junior Cuauhtemoc Mendoza, 16, used his two minutes of public comment at the board meeting to explain why more than 100 students staged a walkout last Monday and a sit-in Thursday after hearing that a quarter of their teachers were being let-go. Mendoza and 35 other students were suspended over the protests.

“The students, in so many words, were bamboozled,” said Mendoza, who spoke on behalf of the students who protested the dismissals. “These actions are not that of a fair and good system.”

Two weeks ago staff and students at Austin Polytech were informed that interim principal Fabby Williams had fired seven of the West Side school’s 30 teachers. Five of the dismissed teachers were given the district’s “do not hire” designation—making them ineligible to be hired by CPS again. The Chicago News Cooperative first reported the dismissals and student suspensions on Friday.

Williams told students and parents Tuesday morning that the suspensions would be rescinded and stricken from the students’ records. His decision, which came after some students had been kept out of school for three days, did not temper the campaign to have the fired teachers reinstated.

A group that included three students, one parent and Lillian Kass, the school’s caseworker and union delegate, left Austin at 6 a.m. Wednesday to secure a speaking slot at the board meeting. They were joined there by Ald. Jason Ervin, whose 28th Ward includes the school, who said that his office was never informed of the mass suspensions.

Mendoza said at the meeting that protocol had not been followed in issuing their suspensions. Reading from his iPad, Mendoza said that under the student code of conduct the number of student violations did not warrant five days of out of school suspension.

In an email, Williams said protocol was followed. He said the students had committed two violations during the walkout: Leaving school without permission and the act of walking out of the building.

Williams also said that his remarks to students over a megaphone during the Monday walkout constituted a principal-student conference, which is required before suspensions are issued.

“While it happened on the street, it is still considered the conference because the behavior was addressed and they were informed that there would be no consequences,” Williams wrote in an email. “The sit-in was considered another violation based on my understanding of the code of conduct.”

Outgoing school board president Mary Richardson-Lowry said that a meeting should be scheduled with students, parents, the administration, CPS and others, “so that this dialogue can continue” after the new school board appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel begins its term.

In a tacit show of support for the suspended students, seven Austin Polytech teachers held tutoring sessions at the Austin public library on Monday and Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

For two hours, students rotated through six stations of subjects set up by teachers—reviewing trigonometry, precision machine technology, genetics, Spanish verb endings, Boolean algebra and “Romeo and Juliet.”

“We’re going to get you back on,” said Melvin Slater, the engineering teacher. “We’re not going to have you drown.”

Despite threats of suspension, students had stood by the teachers, so the teachers were standing by their students, they said.

“As you take your civic duty seriously,” math teacher Steve McIlrath said before tutoring began on Monday, “take your academic duty seriously, too.”