Our inaugural The Chicago Community Trust #OnTheTable2017 conversation went really well!
Board members and committee chairs talked about their stories and why they decided to be so involved in the Hermosa community. Subjects of affordability, self determination and empowerment, and youth engagement arose.
There's still plenty of work ahead!
Understanding Chicago Public Schools and its sheer size and numerous requirements can be a difficult task for any parent. In recent years, CPS has closed schools, added testing requirements, created a common application for selective enrollment schools, and even implemented new graduation requirements for 8th and 12th graders. Often, our neighborhood schools are underfunded and understaffed which means students don't have access to rigorous classes, extracurricular activities, or individualized attention or support inside the classroom. All of this, taken together, can be daunting to understand especially if you have students in elementary classrooms. The weight of standardized tests, grades, attendance, and school performance can seem unimportant to a parent of a first or second grader, but is much more relevant to parents of middle schoolers. The goals of this workshop are to: help parents understand how CPS is structured; how schools in our neighborhood are rated and what those ratings mean; how standardized tests impact students at all grade levels; and how the high school application process works.
This Saturday, April 29, 2017, HNA is hosting an Education Workshop for parents of elementary-age children throughout Chicago. Our hosts - board members Jenna Sigman and Alejandra Fleck - want to support parents of elementary-age students as they go through the CPS system from kindergarten to 12th grade and beyond. We will introduce parents to the Illinois School Report Card and how to understand the information contained in their child's school report card. Many of the statistics can seem abstract or confusing so we will shed light on their importance and relevance and how to read the reports to best serve your child's needs. We will also discuss the CPS standardized tests and how they impact a student throughout their elementary and secondary education process. These test scores are especially important for any student applying to selective enrollment, charter, magnet, or other application-based schools in the city of Chicago. These test scores may become even more important as CPS seeks to require all 8th grade students to fill out the CPS common application before they receive their diploma.
This workshop is free and will be in English and Spanish and will offer participants an opportunity to interact with others and discuss topics together. We want to arm you with the tools necessary to take charge of your child's education to ensure he/she is getting the most out of his/her CPS experience. No RSVP is necessary so we hope to see you this Saturday!
Thanks everyone who attended our meeting and our luncheon afterwards! Special thanks to Oak Park Regional Housing Center for talking about how to create inclusionary- and integrated-communities.
We will use this information over the coming months with community planning as well as with how to be a more welcoming organization.
After our meeting, which was held for the first time at Nixon Elementary in the library, some HNA attendees and board members went to El Azteca Poncitlan to debrief and talk about what we learned. Below is an attachment for the meeting notes and the two presentations given.
In this meeting we recapped the agreement we came to with the developer in terms of their responsibility of the site as well as funding. We also reviewed an updated site concept courtesy of Chris Gent, the landscape architect for the site, and provided feedback. Some items that attendees suggested were the addition of a compost and a toolshed.
Our next meeting will be Tuesday, April 18th at 7:00PM. We will decide a meeting location closer to the meeting. In the meantime, please download and review the meeting notes and site design (click on the photo above for site design PDF) as well as answer our poll regarding the best meeting time.
The Board of Directors has been busy over the past few months! We elected new officers, appointed new board members, and past a budget for the year. We will reveal the latest updates from our February 27th board meeting in April. For now please check out our last three previous board meeting minutes.
The Mayor's budget for the rebate property tax amendment passed this afternoon in a 35-10 vote.
While the budget amendment has some good things in it like $2.7M for after school programming through After School Matters and parks programming; the majority of the money is going to projects that won't help mitigate the crippling crime problems plaguing Hermosa.
Only <20% of the funds are going to programs designed to keep youth safe.
We look forward to finding other ways to promote safety in Hermosa going forward.
Our HNA General Meeting on February 4th was well attended! Over 40 neighbors came out to learn about our upcoming meetings, organizing, and actions.
Also, on February 11th we held a special Immigration 101 workshop. You can view the minutes from that meeting here, and download the PowerPoint here.
The Hermosa Neighborhood Association, along with a coalition of elected officials, Local School Councils, school leaders, Chicago Public Schools parents, educators, and community members dedicated to supporting the educational mission of existing Northwest Side public high schools are holding a press conference today to announce their united opposition to the proposed expansion of privately operated Noble ITW-Speer CharterHigh School in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood.
The expansion of the charter would have an adverse impact on high schools in Hermosa, such as Kelvyn Park HS, which is already struggling due to a declining budget and enrollment.
Next Tuesday, Alderman Gilbert Villegas along with a coalition of elected officials, and the Prosser HS LSC are organizing a community meeting to demonstrate opposition to the proposed expansion of Noble StreetCharter School – ITW Speer campus, too.
Please sign and share this petition asking for the mayor to allocate the remaining property tax rebate funds (~$15 million) to youth programing and crime prevention.
Specifically for:
Winter youth employment programs
To create mentorship programs for 5th and 6th graders
To create a residential security pilot program
To establish “street-level violence" prevention programs
Right now the mayor wants to allocate this remaining money to things like trees, parks, business incubators and rehabbing homes but none of those investments will be made in Hermosa or the NWside.
https://www.change.org/p/mayor-rahm-emanuel-invest-in-crime-prevention-programming?source_location=minibar
HNA is an "assoication" of nieghbors. With that in mind, we want to check in from time to time to make sure the subjects of our meetings, the way we communicate, and the timing and locations, are what works for the community. Please fill out this brief survey to help guide HNA's community organizing for 2017!
