Brizard Meets with Community Newspapers

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Jesse H. Ruiz, vice president, Chicago Board of Education and Jean-Claude Brizard, CPS chief executive officers met with a small group of community newspapers for a roundtable discussion on Jun 16. (Photo by Thelma Sardin)
Jesse H. Ruiz, vice president, Chicago Board of Education and Jean-Claude Brizard, CPS chief executive officers met with a small group of community newspapers for a roundtable discussion on Jun 16. (Photo by Thelma Sardin)

by Thelma Sardin

Last Thursday, Chicago Public Schools (CEO) Jean-Claude Brizard and Chicago Board of Education vice president, Jesse H. Ruiz met with several reporters from local community newspapers.

The meeting gave Brizard a chance to discuss some of his ideas and goals for CPS in general. He began his role at the school district on May 26th and since that time, hes visited nearly every school in the system.

Discussion about the CPS budget crisis was a major topic during the meeting. According to CPS, the school district faces a $712 million dollar budget deficit for the 2011-2012 school year. In addition, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Brizard recently announced a $75 million dollar reduction in administrative and non-classroom spending. The reduction is to help fill the $712 million dollar budget gap.

CPS also cites that in early June, school-based budgets were given to principals to prepare the upcoming school year. The school-based budgets mirror CPS ongoing commitment to keep cuts far away from the classroom. The plan maintains core class size, no cuts to early childhood programs, magnet school programming and world language programs.

Were doing everything we can so this wont impact kids in a negative way. With $700 million in budget shortfall, you cant make promises across the board for everything, Brizard said.

The CPS CEO reassured that classroom cuts are not part of the school districts plan.

We dont know what exactly will be reduced as we work through the budget but everything were doing is being done to keep [cuts] away from classrooms, he said.

Ruiz commended the new administration for identifying necessary cuts that need to be made.

I think that is great leadership by example, he said.

In a released statement, Mayor Emanuel also reiterated keeping cuts away from the classroom.

In tackling the CPS budget deficit, we will begin by cutting bureaucracy so that we can focus our resources on supporting students and teachers, said Mayor Emanuel.

Parental involvement was another key issue during the meeting.

Brizard recognizes that it is impossible to get every parent involved in their childs education; however, he wants to develop a group of parents at each school who are involved.

How do we get a critical mass at every school so that we create a layer of accountability? Brizard said the question comes up often when he visits schools. The CPS leader is continuing his ongoing discussion with schools to answer the question.

Brizard recently met with parents to discuss developing parent-teacher agreements to be adopted by schools during the 2011-2012 school year.

According to a CPS press release, these agreements are designed to both empower parents and engage them more fully with teachers and schools by outlining clear expectations on how they will help their child succeed outside the classroom.

The release stated that the agreements are prevalent in high-performing charter and independent schools such as the United Neighborhood Organizations (UNO) charter schools in Chicago. The contracts outline clear expectations for parents on how they should provide extended educational opportunities for their children. They cover issues from how much television children should watch to suggestions for building learning opportunities including reading to children every night.

Additionally, UNOs program was cited in Mayor Rahm Emanuel education transition recommendations as one of the models for CPS to draw from in formulating its own such agreements for schools in the system.

As a former educator, Brizard is a firm believer in the power of dialogue between parents, administration, teachers and the community as a whole.

We want to help empower parents to build strong relationships with teachers and school staff to help improve their childs chance of success in the classroom, Brizard stated in a release. When parents and teachers are working together, students have an even better chance to succeed academically because they have support both at home and at school.

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