On a Friday afternoon in early 2010, then-Ald. Manny Flores (1st) stopped in at George Schneider Elementary to meet with a group of faculty and parent leaders from the school, located in the city’s Hamlin Park neighborhood.

Flores, who was just weeks away from taking up his new appointment as head of the Illinois Commerce Commission, was there not only to say his farewells but to discuss the pending redevelopment of the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, a public housing complex located just down the street. A day earlier, the Chicago Housing Authority had formally opened the pre-bidding process for the project, which, at the onset, appeared to be a vehicle for reworking the resident makeup of the 925-unit development.

Nearly all of the parents present were from Lathrop. But despite the news, they had more pressing issues at hand.

The Chicago Public Schools Board of Education had recently marked Schneider as one of a few schools that the district was eyeing for closure, citing low test scores and dipping attendance. At the time, enrollment at the school was around 110 students in a building with a 495-student capacity.

Parents and other representatives from the community asked the alderman to do everything in his power to stop the closure. Flores, who had been actively working with Lathrop residents, pledged that he would continue to advocate for the school — but couldn’t promise anything.

“I won’t be the alderman, but I’ll still be a person,” he said.

In the coming months, the school board approved the consolidation of Schneider into the attendance territory of the nearby Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Elementary School, at 3149 N. Walcott Ave.

Cynthia Scott, a Lathrop resident, remembered that decision as a moment of defeat.

“We fought long and hard to keep [Schneider] open,” said Scott, who had one grandchild at the school at the time.

But the consolidation turned out to be something of windfall for parents at Lathrop. Scott said that, comparatively, Jahn seemed to be a better school for her two grandchildren, who began attending kindergarten and fourth grade at the school in August, following the closing of Schneider.

“Academically, it’s more challenging,” she said. “My [grandkids] get more homework than they would have gotten if they continued at Schneider,” she said.

Mary Thomas, who has a first grader at the school, said that the differences between Jahn and Schneider were immediately apparent.

“Schneider was just going down,” said Thomas. “[At Jahn] there are a lot more teachers, there’s a lot more classrooms — there’s just more going on.”

Data from the Illinois State Board of Education showed that the merging of Schneider into Jahn couldn’t have come at a better time for students of the former school.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Schneider fell well below district averages for students meeting or exceeding the state’s testing standards, with only 53 percent of students achieving sufficient scores in reading, mathematics, and science. Across the district, 64 percent of students hit those goals for that period.

The following year, district scores rose while Schneider continued to underperform, hitting a low 49.3 percent achievement average.

At Jahn, 79 percent of the student body met or exceeded state standards this past school year.

Calls to Jahn Principal Sulma Rodriguez Grigalunas were not returned for this story.

While the move seemed to favor all sides, the transition of Lathrop students to Jahn was not entirely smooth.

At the beginning of the school year, parents at Lathrop called foul on CPS after learning that students at the development wouldn’t be provided with a bus to Jahn.

“The only ones who were bused were in special ed, which was four kids,” said Thomas. “They had no plans on giving the other kids any busing to school.”

According to parents, about thirty children from the development are currently attending the school.

After negotiating with residents, Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno (1st) and some local religious leaders, CPS agreed to send a bus to pick up Jahn students at Lathrop starting in early October.

“We fought for the bus, and we got it,” said Thomas.

After Schneider closed, about 27 of the school’s Lathrop students went to the neighboring William H. Prescott Elementary magnet cluster school, at 1632 West Wrightwood Ave. These students have yet to receive a bus to the school, according to residents.

CPS spokesman Frank Shuftan said the bus from Lathop to Jahn was “part of the transitional support the District has provided,” seeing as that Jahn was the designated receiving “home” school for Schneider students in the consolidation.

He explained that Prescott did not get a bus from Lathrop because this was not a home school for the area.

The busing issue at Lathrop was first reported by the Resident’s Journal, a public housing news site, in September.

Though late most days, Thomas said that the bus to Jahn has been consistent. She added that CPS officials have stated that they would grant the bus service for this school year only, with no promises made about the coming semesters.

However, a bus from Lathrop to Jahn may not be needed next year, as residents could be reaching the end of their stay at the development.

For years, CHA has told residents at Lathrop that the 75-year-old development is due for a makeover, pointing to the site’s low occupancy rate — currently at around 22 percent — and the safety issues that come with that gap in tenantship.

But so far little has emerged about the nature of that renovation, except that the amount of public housing at Lathrop will drop from 100 percent to no more than one-third of the development’s units — a formula that is in keeping with most of CHA’s redevelopment efforts in Chicago over the past decade.

By looking at other public housing renewal projects in the city — namely the clearing of the high-rises at Cabrini-Green, located a few miles southeast of Lathrop — one thing does seem certain: when construction begins at Lathrop, residents will be elsewhere.

What this means for the students at Jahn is still undetermined, but Scott guessed that parents at Lathrop won’t be thrilled to again uproot their children from the new school.

“Jahn will be there,” she said. “The problem will be whether Lathrop will still be here.”

CPS spokesman Shuftan said that the future enrollment of Lathrop students would depend heavily on where families relocate and whether they choose to attend schools in those communities.

“Both Jahn and Prescott are open enrollment schools — neither is a magnet or selective enrollment school — and they accept students from both within and outside their established attendance areas,” Shuftan wrote in an email.

Residents are expected to meet with CHA officials in coming weeks to discuss plans for the redevelopment.

According to a website for the Lathrop development team, the planning process for the redevelopment is expected to be completed in 2012.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 11/03/2011 1:28 PM

I hope the southern half of the Lathrop homes which is surrounded by market-rate house, is at least converted to half affordable half market rate. This could help with the crime issues in the Lathrop area.