"A crash course in organizing"

Byron Sigcho-Lopez on the fight for Pilsen schools in 2013 and why Brandon Johnson is our best hope for mayor

Photo by Harry Sawyers, Chicago Magazine, 3/27/13

As we begin our look back at the 2013 school closings, it’s important to remember the context of what was going on in CPS just before the original list of 330 “underutilized” and targeted schools was released in late 2012. 

There are few who know more about that than 25th ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez. At that time, he had finished a masters in economics at UIC and was working on a PhD in policy studies and urban education. I first heard him sharing his research about charter schools in Chicago at a 2014 information session that blew my mind. Dense with data, charts, and analysis, the forum was twice as long as it would have been in just one language, but line by line the information was delivered in English and Spanish. The school cafeteria was packed to standing room only to hear several academics presenting their research—and the crowd was rapt. 

Because Sigcho-Lopez knew, and had the receipts, that the push to bring an increasing number of charter schools to Chicago was terrible for students, communities, and public schools. The now-discredited UNO network run by Juan Rangel—who also served as Rahm Emanuel's mayoral campaign co-chair—was promising the world to parents, including bilingual education and solid special needs services. But these schools delivered little, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars they were getting from the city. Disappointed families often returned to public schools, which now had far fewer resources because of the city's heavy investment in charters. Overstating the virtues of charter schools was one of Emanuel's loudest and wrongest talking points, but the now-discredited/defunded/defunct chains he supported certainly saw huge growth at this time. 

While working on his degrees, Sigcho-Lopez, a member of Teachers for Social Justice and the Pilsen Alliance, volunteered in the schools and worked in Pilsen as an adult education teacher for UIC, offering bilingual leadership programs, GED training, and computer literacy. “This was, I think, one of the reasons I became involved.” 

Involved, that is, in the school closing battle. Early in 2013 the CPS list was pared down to 129 schools slated for closure, and it came to his attention that three Pilsen schools were on it: Pilsen Academy, where he was a volunteer soccer coach, Jungman Elementary, and Smyth Elementary. 

We recently spoke about Sigcho-Lopez's recollections of this time. His memories are clear, detailed, and delivered in rapid-fire present tense, as though this is all still happening right now and of utmost urgency. 

“In hindsight, I would have always regretted it if I hadn't gotten involved,” he observed, given his close connection to the schools and the parents of Pilsen. He saw fairly quickly that his community was unprepared for the moment. “I don't think any of us understood the mass nature of the problem”—the actual scale of 129 schools closing in the most vulnerable communities in the city. He knew he had to reach out others and build new networks. Through his connections on the southwest side he met parents like Nellie Cotton, and Rousemary Vega in Humboldt Park—“parents who were instrumental…We started to see what people were fighting in Humboldt Park, Archer Heights, and on the northwest side.” They needed to hear the perspective of teachers so he became more connected to the LSCs in the Pilsen schools. Teachers who spoke up for their schools were getting in trouble with the district. CPS was misinforming parents about what was happening. And the community hearings were scheduled at awkward times with little notice and in distant locations. 

“Demoralizing--these meetings were demoralizing.” These were the “hearings”scheduled so district representatives could “listen” to parents, students, and teachers argue on behalf of their schools. I attended several of these sessions; my experience was the same as Sigcho-Lopez’s. “The people [from the district] were not paying attention to the testimonies, they were on the phone.” The hearings felt pointless and they weren't well attended in Pilsen. Sigcho-Lopez realized the community needed a different approach. 

“We started going to places where we have friendships in other areas, like with KOCO, or in Humboldt Park. It came to the point where we realized, we’re really going to lose these schools. CPS is ignoring us, gaslighting us….I talked to leaders like Jitu Brown and Jay Travis and Karen Lewis of course, [to ask] well what do we need to do? This was a crash course in organizing.”

So began the phone calling, the door knocking, talking to LSCs, teachers, and organizers—everyone, incessantly. “We needed to mobilize mass numbers of people.” He knew what they were up against: “Of course there were developers talking about turning schools into condos—and it was connected to the charter schools and privatization….The politicians didn’t care. They didn’t even show up. I remember when we went to Solis's office. This is actually what really brought me to be more active electorally because I was more of an organizer….We went to see him to save the schools, and I remember thinking this guy only cares about votes. He doesn’t care about parents.” 

But as momentum grew, and parents and teachers forged stronger connections, the balance began to shift. “When we started really mobilizing people, we forced the alderman to take a position.” At the next community meeting at Arturo Velazquez, the coalition made sure the place would be filled with community members, despite being scheduled at an inconvenient time and location. “We got buses. I remember we had so many people on the buses that I couldn't even fit. We loaded the buses at the library and I had to run back to Pilsen Academy and get my car. And by the time I got to the meeting I couldn't even fit in the door. That gym was packed.”

And now Solis had a problem. Prior to this point, “Solis was noncommittal—he was doing the dirty work of Rahm Emanuel and connected with UNO.” But at this event, when Solis took the podium, before he said anything or answered a single question, “he was met with resounding boos. Resounding boos. He was forced to say he was with us. And after that every single [local] politician said so too. I honestly think the political will was forced to step up. I remember after that I was like, organizing works!”

I didn’t remember the fate of the Pilsen schools slated for closure and I was a little afraid to  ask what had happened in the end. After all, 50 schools did close. But I had to ask.

“All of them stayed open. Pilsen Academy, Jungman, and Smyth. Organizing saved us. It was a grassroots effort like I had never seen before. I was really honored to be a part of that, talking to the LSCs, despite pressure and attacks. People were very courageous. Relentless. Inspiring.”

I asked Sigcho-Lopez what he thought the whole point of this was, ten years ago. “They said ‘underutilization’ and then changed to ‘budget.’ And don't forget, they closed the mental health clinics too. The 50 schools closed in the poorest areas of Chicago. A lot of them were not as fortunate in terms of having an organized effort. School closings happened in areas that needed the most support. It's totally criminal what they did. We've seen violence as a direct result of the school closings and the closings of the mental health clinics. I think Rahm bears direct responsibility for this.”

So many years later, I wonder if our schools are less vulnerable now than they were then, or more so.

Sigcho-Lopez definitely sees cause for worry. “I'm concerned about the mayor's decision to shift $600M in debt to CPS. I have serious concerns in terms of just how dysfunctional CPS leadership is. We cannot wait to have an elected school board. We cannot wait to have parents and teachers at the table. CPS leadership has profited—and bankrupted public schools. I think it is important to have an elected school board to address the issues we have today that have been created by the city. Shifting of pension obligations, debt, all without a plan to look after the well being of public schools.

“Also the fact that people are leaving the city, a big push to get poor people out of the city, that started with Rahm Emanuel. We see it again with the rise in property taxes, the rise in cost of living, and so many measures subsidizing developers and subsidizing corporations at the same time that people are losing their homes, people with families. We can’t let these agendas manipulate us. We are building affordable housing for families in the 25th ward so we can repopulate our schools. The need is dire and urgent. We are well on our way to develop almost 1000 units of affordable housing in the ward, most for families.”

Sigcho-Lopez places a lot of blame for further enrollment drops on CPS’ response to the pandemic: “We've seen schools in the ward's enrollment drop as much as 40% because of corruption in CPS, literally how they mishandled the whole pandemic, they created chaos, when they’re testing kids and sending results through the mail and they never came back, no policies around ventilation, masks; I think we lost about 15,000 students throughout the pandemic because of corruption and dysfunctionality in CPS. We had a plan in March of 2021 to bring vaccinations to the schools, to provide more information to parents, to address issues of mental health--which we already knew was a national crisis among young people, this plan we presented two years ago, and yet CPS failed.”

We return to the ever present topic of violence, a tragedy that’s plaguing our young people. “We know today that between 3 to 5 thousand kids are in imminent risk of being victims or perpetrators of violence. We know who they are, and we know the interventions that they need. What is CPS doing to address that? Look, there's four mass shootings that have happened at our public high schools. Preventable. 14, 15, 16 year old kids. We're failing them every day by not investing in wraparound services and afterschool programming and their mental health.”

Here is where violence and mental health meet—right on our high school campuses. Consider the December shooting at Benito Juarez High School. “A tragedy of immeasurable proportions. Can you believe that two months later, the parents are still waiting for a trauma informed counselor? That's the level of disregard for parents and kids that are in CPS.”

And suddenly the conversation takes a turn from the long-term ramifications of a catastrophic city policy from ten years ago, to the immediate present—the mayoral race. “That's why I’m hoping and I really pray that Brandon Johnson can become mayor of the city of Chicago, because he is the only option that is really going to look after the well being of public schools. I honestly think that's the only hope that we have. I don't see anyone else.” 

Johnson, he reminds me, was part of the effort to save the schools in 2013. Byron Sigcho-Lopez was there, and the folks that battled by his side have earned his long-lasting respect. Yes, he's heard the arguments about the teacher’s union being some kind of dangerous all-powerful monolith, and how can we possibly have a former teacher and organizer for mayor who is backed by the CTU? He’s heard it—“this notion of, well how are you going to deal with the teachers?” But his reply is simple, and readily apparent to most anyone who has ever had a kid in school. “What is good for the teachers is usually what's good for the students.”

There is no hope in candidates who promote failed school reform notions such as privatization and disinvestment that harm cities, families, and students, like Vallas. He sees nothing good coming from those who think the solution to violence is just adding more cops. “We're saying it's okay for the kids to be out on their own with no safety nets” like afterschool programs that used to be provided by the schools, or wraparound services, “and we add another 1600 officers out on the streets. That's not going to work. The city of Chicago just put another thousand officers on at the end of December. We're not safer. Let's start talking about what works.” And as for Chuy? He is “a big disappointment. He’s aligning himself with the people who attacked us” during the closings.

“It’s good to remember the history of how we got here.” Sigcho-Lopez concludes. “What I think is going to change [Chicago] is the care and the attention to public schools, and if people want to talk about violence? That is a significant part of the solution. Significant. Brandon helped save the schools here in Pilsen. I think there is no one else. He was there, he was a teacher who was an organizer. He was there and I respect that.”

Getting the schools right will help our children and families; it will mitigate youth violence; it will help stop the population drain Chicago is reaping from decades of pushing folks out; it will strengthen our neighborhoods instead of shredding them. It's not the only solution. But after watching the slow-motion fallout of a catastrophic urban policy that left rubble in its wake, it's an imperative place to start.