Back of the Yards Newspaper Hit the Streets Today

Congratulations to the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council on the successful launch of the new community newspaper. Currently, it's a newspaper in search of a name/un periodico en busca de un nombre (please excuse the lack of correct accent marks--I really must learn how to do that on Blogger).

Unfortunately, I missed the launch party yesterday evening, but my copy was in front of my house by about 10:30 this morning. If you don't live in the neighborhood and haven't received a hard copy, you can click here here to read the issue online as a pdf.

The lead story is about the delay in building the long-awaited new high school at 47th and Hoyne. 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas is quoted saying, "We need a high school now. We need to put pressure on CPS and particularly the Board. I want to take a group of students and a group of parents to the board meetings."

Just say the word, Ald. Cardenas. I'll be happy to bring my six-month-old son along, in hopes the neighborhood gets this school before he's a freshman.

Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, I'm very happy they chose to print an edited version of my post about our local post office, which was recently saved from the chopping block.

Maritza Seeks Help for School Phobia

Dear Readers:

This afternoon/evening, Abuela and I sat out on the step with Sarah, her neices, her mom and her big sister and had a big chat. Sarah has started at Orozco but she is having a lot of anxiety about it. The orientation went ok, but on the first day of school she got so nervous she threw up. The second day it happened again. Today her mom let her stay home and called me for advice. They're going to try to send her tomorrow but maybe she will just talk with someone and not go to class. On Monday her mom intends to speak with her teacher.

I asked Sarah to tell me about her experience. She said the building is very big and unfamiliar and they didn;t really walk around it during orientation. She made some friends during orientation and two of them are in her class, but they sit pretty far away from her. I gather on the first day the bus was late--it's supposed to pick her up from Chavez at 7:45 but it didn't arrive until 8:20, so she was late to class. Perhaps that was also a factor. She said she got nervous when the teacher gave homework, although when she got home and tried it she found it was pretty easy. She clearly misses her friends and teachers at Chavez andwants to go back there.

The problem is, as Tom Wolfe said, you can't go home again. Her mom tells me Mr. Correa has left Chavez and things are very disorganized now. She's also heard the stories about drugs and gang recruitment in the upper grade center (Sarah wouldn't be there yet, but soon) and she won't have her daughter go there. This sounds like a fairly titanic struggle of wills between mother and daughter. Sarah, like her mom, is a pretty determined person, but it's not in her long-term best interest to go back to Chavez. How to help her understand that, I'm not too sure.

If anyone has tips on dealing with school phobia, new school anxiety, etc., we are all ears here on Marshfield Avenue. Thanks!

Dual Language School Info from a Reader

Somosamerica sent in this comment for an earlier post, but so people can see it I'll repost it here as an entry:

Maritza et al...

In Chicago, I'd like to make sure parents know that to get into Inter-American's school's dual language program, you need to apply for preschool (4yo), not kindergarten. By the time kindergarten rolls around, all our preschool slots are filled -- no one leaves and there's no room.

In reality there should be more programs like this. There is a dual language strand at Talcott and heritage language programs at Tepochcalli and Whittier that I know of.

Good luck! ,

Beauty in the Yards

(Photo courtesy Beauty in the Yards web site. It's a north-facing view of Ashland Avenue taken from the railroad viaduct at 49th Street. It looks like it doesn't fit well into the Blogger layout, so all the more reason to go see these on the host web site itself.)


As part of their work through the Mikva Challenge Issues to Action program, Big Picture High School students took photos around the neighborhood this spring. Their goal was to offer a different perspective on Back of the Yards from the shootings and other negative images of the area most commonly found in mainstream media. Photos were auctioned as part of the Big Picture scholarship fundraiser held in May.

You can see more digital images at Beauty in the Yards, and I hear the webmaster has more yet to put up, so check back there more than once if you like.

Recent Graduations: Big Picture HS and Chavez Elem

Unfortunately, my camera is having problems, so I don't have pictures of graduation ceremonies right now (I may be able to retrieve one from Big Picture), but wanted to write up a little about each of the graduations.

Big Picture graduated its last class of 20 students on Friday , June 5. The vast majority of the graduates will be entering a number of two- and four-year colleges, including Northern Illinois University, Northeastern Illinois University, St. Xavier University, Chicago State University, Morton College, Daley College and Harold Washington College. The class valedictorian was Gleidy Flores, who won both a Mikva Challenge scholarship and a Big Picture scholarship toward her expenses at Northern Illinois University next fall. Salutatorian Arlet Correa won four scholarships, including one from Big Picture, and will be attending St. Xavier University in the fall.

At Big Picture graduations around the country, the tradition is for each student to say a few words upon receiving his/her diploma. Here are some quotes from the graduates:

"I didn't think I was gonna make it, and here I am." Juan Serrano

"Daddy, thank you for always pushing me to do better. Mom, gracias por apoyarme." Zuleyma Alatorre

"Big Picture has helped me discover my passions....Thanks to [College Bridge] I'm confident on attending college next fall." Jonathan Salgado

"I want to thank my son, whom I did this for, to prove no matter what, you can always make it in life." Elsa Gomez

"I never imagined myself up here. I wouldn't have made it without Alfredo [Nambo, principal]. He never gave up on me," Martha Bacilio

"I would like to thank my classmates, especially the ones who encouraged me to continue my education." Mara Jimenez

"My teachers encouraged me to pursue college. I became a responsible, organized and strong person. If it wasn't for all of you, I wouldn't be here giving this speech." Gladys Medel

"Education is the most powerful weapon in life." Mayra Banuelos

This afternoon Chavez Elementary held its 8th-grade graduation ceremony. There were four students from our block walking across the stage today: Peter Pan and his brother, the third of the four girls down the block-Meg's little sister Beth, and a girl I didn't know. (I think she's the younger sister of the boy who was sneaking into his girlfriend's window at night. She is now pregnant.) I knew a couple of other grads from nearby blocks as well. Oldest Brady Boy did not get to cross the stage today. He will be in summer school for math. I saw Mr. Correa today, who told me his test scores are OK, so all he needs to do is show up and he will graduate in August. Oldest Brady says as long as he graduates in August he is OK to go to Rauner.

Meanwhile, Beth will be going to Curie High School in the fall, and her older sister Jo is doing fine at Kennedy. Meg has moved in with a guy up in Logan Square and is expecting a baby in September. After the baby is born she is planning to go to the Northeastern Illinois University extension campus near there to get her GED and then go on to college. I hope it works out for her.

Richards LSC Meeting Postponed

Well, I got to Richards this afternoon, and one LSC member was there. She told me the meeting has been postponed until next week. Unfortunately, if it's next Thursday at the same time I won't be able to attend.

I will keep in contact with her and other LSC members to find out what happens at the next meeting.

LSC Meeting at Richards High School Today, 4 p.m.

Today's LSC meeting at Richards should be a doozy. I spoke with some LSC members earlier this week who told me the main item on the agenda is principal evaluation. It looks like Principal O. Joyce Smith got sent to the woodshed. Her contract is not up for renewal until next year, but if I were here I'd start thinking about the next thing now.

Readers of this blog have seen posts here in the past about safety issues, high dropout rates, lack of academic progress and extracurricular activities at Richards. Other than their well-regarded culinary program, I can't see a reason to put a young person in the school right now. Many community leaders, LSC members, and neighbors of mine who have children who have attended Richards have complained about the principal's lack of leadership and reluctance to work with the community over the nearly five years since I moved here.

To see for yourself, come to Richards High School, 5009 S. Laflin, 4 p.m. today, Thursday, May 21.

Ted O'Keefe, Art Velasquez Honored @ Peace & Education Fundraiser

Ted O'Keefe of the Chicago Police Department received the 2009 Arturo Velasquez Community Leadership Award tonight at U.S. Cellular Field during the 12th annual Peace and Education Coalition of Back of the Yards scholarship fundraiser. O'Keefe is known as the founder of CAPS (Community Alternative Policing Strategy). Mayor Richard M. Daley and Fr. Bruce Wellems of Holy Cross/IHM Parish are with him in this photo.




CAPS Coordinator Marina Alonso hugs 9th District Commander Eugene Roy. Alonso was instrumental in building the community-police relationships necessary to solve the 2007 murder of Leticia Barrera on the 4800 block of South Seeley.

Arturo Velasquez, Sr., who died recently, was an important figure in Back of the Yards and a mainstay of education and scholarship efforts in the neighborhood. He was honored with a video tribute. His family turned out in great numbers for the event, including his daughter Carmen, who founded Alivio Medical Center.

Year after year, Mayor Daley has consistently attended the event, although he did miss last year, if memory serves. The year before, there was a lot of media attention and he had to dash out pretty quickly. This year there was no mainstream media present that I'm aware of and he was able to relax and stick around a bit longer. I'm guessing he may have wanted it this way to spend a bit more time with the Velasquez family.

His remarks also seemed more relaxed than I've seen in some of his public appearances. Right off the bat he teased Fr. Bruce, who has been exercising and losing weight to control diabetes. "I thought he was getting ready for 2016," the mayor joked.

Daley went on to express his appreciation for all the people in Back of the Yards who offer a helping hand to young people, especially those who are most in need of help. "There are many great stories in Back of the Yards that I wish the media would tell. When a kid falls down, there's a helping hand to get him up. You all are the helping hands, and I want to thank you for your passion," he told the crowd.

This year, 61 college and graduate students who have served the Back of the Yards community are applying for Peace and Education scholarships. Another nine students in private high schools have also applied. One of the college applicants is Melissa Rodriguez, who is planning to return to the University of Illinois and study biochemistry after having to shift her studies to community college in order to save money. In her application essay, she writes, "I had the choice of quitting school and finding a job or continuing my education but in a community college where the tuition would be more bearable. I chose to continue my education. I refused to surrender in defeat."

Sarah's Test Date

I was out of town most of this week, but Thursday morning while waiting for breakfast in an airport restaurant, my cell phone rang. It was Sarah's mom from next door. Sarah's test date for the Orozco bilingual gifted program is in mid-February. She wondered if I had had a chance to talk to the principal about Sarah. Not yet, I told her. It may not matter anyway if they don't have space, but it doesn't hurt to try. We agreed to get together early next week to talk about the test.

It was funny when I explained I wasn't in Chicago, I was in Baltimore.

"Is that far?" she asked.

"Yes. I'm flying back to Chicago today," I answered. (Since she wasn't born here, I don't expect her to have a strong grip on US geography. But it still surprises me sometimes when moments like this pop up.)

Right after we hung up, I called a friend of mine who has had two sons go through the gifted testing process. She asked if Sarah would be going to IIT. I didn't know but said I'd find out next week. My friend's kids both took their tests at IIT. With the older son it was a cattle call--every kid had a number, there was a lot of waiting, it felt very impersonal. This year, with her younger son, she said it went much more smoothly. The wait was short and they called the kids by name. Apparently with the four-year-olds they just take them in a room and an IIT psychology grad student asks them questions until the kid can't answer any more. I wonder if it's different with the school-age kids who don't have standardized test scores yet. I guess we'll find out in February.

Junior's Report Card

Well, I went to Golder today with Junior and his dad to get his report card for second quarter. The good news is his math teacher picked him as her student of the quarter for outstanding improvement in math. (This is the basic math backup class, not algebra, but he got a C in algebra, so I'm happy.)

The other good news is he brought his civics grade up from a D to a C-. That may not seem like a lot, but I know he had to work hard to do it because the class isn't easy.

Now for the bad news. His other D last quarter, in physics, sank to an F because he bombed the final. He got less than half the questions right. We talked to his teacher and she said she knows he is trying but he just didn't get it. This quarter Junior will stop in and see her after school on Tuesdays to go over the homework with her and make sure he gets help on the parts he doesn't understand. Wednesday is her office hours, and he may go see her then, too. The thing is, he'll also have to take a make-up class after school to earn the quarter-credit he missed in physics. The class will either be on Mondays or Wednesdays-they don't know yet.

The other bad thing about failing physics is he will have to pay for the makeup class. It costs $140, which is a lot of money for his family. His dad wasn't too happy about that, as he noted in the car on the way home. "Junior plays Nintendo three, four hours a day. Too much," he said. Dad's right.

The last bad thing is that Junior still hasn't gotten paid for the After School Matters program he did back in the fall and early winter. An administrator assured us she has done all she could to get the debit card from ASM to the handful of kids who haven't received theirs yet, including Junior. Maybe if we're lucky he'll get it in time to use some of it to pay for the makeup class.

Physics Homework Help

Gotta say it's really sad that I'm Junior's lifeline when it comes to getting physics homework done. When I left the gym early this evening, I turned on my phone and there were four messages from Junior and his little brother asking when I was getting home and could I help them with their homework.

"I have physics, and I don't understand it," Junior told me. When I called him back, it was pretty late and I asked if he had gotten any of it done. "Yeah, some," he said. "There's just two parts I don't understand."

One of them was scientific notation and how to convert back and forth between scientific and standard. There were some problems where you had to multiply and divide numbers in scientific notation and I vaguely remembered you could just add and subtract the powers of 10 (the integers), but I wasn't really sure.

"Call Picasso," suggested Junior. "He's smart."

"Yeah, you're right," I said, and we called him. He's done it at Curie, too, and he thought yes, we could do that. So we did. (If we were wrong, you can call us out in the comments.)

Then we went back and checked something he had done earlier. Junior was supposed to explain and make a sample graph of a direct relationship between two things. He explained it in general and made a general graph, but he hadn't given a specific example. When we looked back, he came up with a good one: "The more kids you have, the more you have to do laundry."

"You see that from having your little brother around, right?" I said. They laughed. (There's nothing like a new baby in the house for laundry.) So he put labels on his graph--I think loads of laundry was the x-axis and number of kids was the y-axis.

Dawn Update

Sorry, dear readers--there's Internet trouble at Chez Maritza, which delayed this post. Here goes:

I saw Dawn's mom at the Guadalupe Mass at Holy Cross on Friday night. She came with Angel. Dawn didn't want to come because she didn't take a bath this morning?...something like that, which I didn't catch clearly. I do know she likes a long soak, especially in the winter.

I got to church really late myself, after the fun part--the dancing. Bummer! I didn't see Dawn's mom with Angelito until the sign of peace. After Mass, she asked me if I wanted to go get something to eat downstairs in the hall and I said sure. So we went down and got plates with chicken in mole, rice, a tostada and a tamal. Angel really liked the music--the marimbas were playing, and he was banging along on the table. I played a little table marimba with him, and his mom and I were cracking up watching him.

After we left, she gave me a ride home--she's got a car that works, mas o menos--and she told me a bit more about Joey and Dawn. She's working weekends now at a Food 4 Less (not the one here in our neighborhood), but she's working 11 to 7 and she doesn't like it because that leaves Joey unsupervised all weekend long. She's been trying to get him to stay with his dad but it sounded like that's not working well--I'm not sure if it's because Joey won't go or his dad is busy or some of both.

This is all leading up to the big news about Dawn. It probably won't surprise longtime readers of this blog to hear Dawn will not be staying at Big Picture. Her mom is supposed to come in to school on Monday to sign her out and work out the details of transferring her to another program. Her mom couldn't remember the name of the new school, but supposedly it has early morning and evening hours so students can work during the day. Dawn and her mother agree that she wants to work and should be working to help support the family. It sounds like Alfredo and her teachers support this because she has continued to be iffy about attendance and classwork

Of course I'm really disappointed, but since she and I have hardly been in contact--I think we have spoken less than five times since August--I don't have the right to say a danged thing about it. All I know is that Dawn's chances of ever getting a high school diploma are about to drop substantially.

Will she even show up at the new program? Is it really any good? I don't know, and at this point I also don't know if I have it in me to push much to find out. I hope she pulls a Meg and finds herself happy and working hard in her new school, but I somehow suspect the road for Dawn will take a few more twists and turns--Meg didn't get back in school right away and being out for a while and really understanding what a dead end life is without a diploma made her much more motivated to go back.

When Dawn started at Big Picture, I chose 2009 for a four-digit sequence I use all the time in honor of her graduation year. It was sort of a promise to her, and myself, that I would be there when she crossed that stage. She might cross a stage and get a diploma yet, but it won't be that one. I'll be there at Big Picture in June, crying happy tears for all the graduates, but part of me will be crying other tears for Dawn, too.

Magnet Madness

Sarah's mom just stopped by. I did some research on potential magnet schools for Sarah--ones with decent-to-excellent test scores within the six-mile limit for transportation. The four I found were, in order of reputation/test scores: Murray, Sheridan, Saucedo and Gunsaulus. Sarah's mom is most interested in Sheridan because it's the second closest, she knows about where it is off the top of her head, and it has good test scores. I managed to tell her it would be good to apply to all four of them at this point because she can always say no later if she gets it. She's getting the point that Sarah may not get into Orozco.

She is really worried about high school for Sarah. "This neighborhood isn't the greatest, and neither are the high schools," she said. "Richards isn't very good, is it?" [all quotations are very loosely translated from Spanish]

"No, it's not."

"I need to know more about high schools."

"Jones College Prep is very good. It's downtown, so it's not hard to get to. Whitney Young is another good one."

"Better than Juarez?" [Juarez is where her older kids went. At least one of them was in the top 10 percent there.]

"Yes," I told her. "All the students in these schools have to take an exam to get in, so they are all very intelligent."

"Oh."

"I think Sarah has the mind to go to a school like that, but I'm afraid if she stays where she is they won't prepare her well enough to go there."

"Yes! I want her to be well prepared, and I don't think they are giving her enough homework." [She used a word I didn't recognize here--often people say tarea/chores for homework, but homework or assignments or challenging stuff do seemed to be the point from the context].

So I only have two Options applications in the house and no printer. I'm going downtown tomorrow and will run off some more copies of the form. We'll fill them out over the weekend and get them in the mail Monday. Applications must be postmarked by Friday December 19.

Orozco or Bust

Well, its Orozco or bust for Sarah next door. If you click on the link, you'll see why--parents like it and they have good test scores. As they should, since they are a bilingual gifted center as well as a neighborhood school.

Her mother came over earlier this week to get help filling out the GEAP application. I was trying to persuade her to look at some schools besides Orozco, but the other bilingual gifted centers are on the North Side and beyond the six-mile zone in which CPS will provide bus service.

Elementary school applications are a whole new world for me. I've always been more on top of high schools: which ones are good, how you apply, these days who I know that I can talk to about particular kids, etc. To help Sarah's mom, I called a friend of mine in Chicago Lawn who has been through the drill a couple of times. The first gifted program she had her son in was fine in the early grades, but she heard they hadn't worked out the upper elementary part so well, so she applied to Lenart and moved her child between kindergarten and first grade a while back. It's a long drive for them but they do it.

Sarah's mom was not interested in a long drive. Between the work schedules of everyone in the house, driving Sarah back and forth to school does not seem to be a very realistic option, though they do have a functioning car. Her approach is to just be determined and apply every year from now through 7th grade. She is open to some magnet school options in Pilsen and Little Village, so I hope to persuade her to send in a few more applications between now and the December 19 deadline.

In a way, I'm kind of glad her mother doesn't read English. She was spared the sight of these contradictory and somewhat confusing "Tips for Applying to Options for Knowledge Schools."

Tip #1: Do not apply to just one or two schools! Apply to as many schools as you would be happy to have your child attend.

Tip #2: Don not submit applications to schools that you would not want to have your child attend. If a school is too far from your home...then do not apply to that school.

Since we're not especially close to anything but Orozco, it would seem Tip 2 outweighs Tip 1.

A few years ago, IFF put out a report on the areas of the city with the greatest need for better-performing elmentary schools. New City (which includes Back of the Yards) ranked 23 of the top 25 neediest areas. South Shore ranked number 1. If we're only 23rd highest in need, I really feel for those South Shore people.

A few years ago

Oldest Brady Boy's High School Applications

Here are some excerpts from Oldest Brady Boy's drafts of his applications for the Noble Network schools.

For the teacher who helped him, he wrote about his social studies teacher, who had him stay after school when he failed the Constitution test on the first try. She worked with him after school to make sure he knew what he needed to know, and on the second try, he passed. "Today I feel confident because I have a good teacher I can trust. She helps me on things that I don't know."

His best one was about how Peter Pan helped him learn how to be a goalie on their soccer team at Davis Square Park. I can't quote from his draft because it was so good he didn't have to rewrite it much, so I don't have the copy any more.

At first, Oldest Brady hated playing goalie because he didn't know how to do it. He would cry when the other team scored on him. Peter Pan showed him how to block, how to throw the ball back out to get it away from the goal after an attempt, and told him that the goalie is the most important person on the team, so he should be proud to play the position. They won their division last year and made it to the finals this year.

And my fans from the Museum of Science and Industry would probably like to know that he wrote about our trip to the museum in his third essay, which was about somebody in the community who has helped him out. It's a little weird proofreading an essay about yourself, but whatever it takes to get this kid into high school, right? My favorite part of this essay was his honest confession, "When I needed help filling out my applications for high schools, she was the one who helped me. I'm really happy because I got that over with."

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

Well, Marshfield Avenue had to get along without me for a week while I was out of town on business. Since I got back I've been scrambling to keep up on the work and home fronts (meaning housecleaning, and failing miserably), so community relations haven't been the highest priority.

But of course, when you make friends, they show up whether you wanted them to or not. So last night Junior and his little brother, plus Oldest Brady Boy, two of his sisters and his mom, all arrived on the doorstep within 15 minutes of each other. Junior needed help understanding the difference between to/two/too, your/you're and their/they're/there, which is something I have spent more than my share of time teaching people, so I couldn't say no when he asked for help. Even though the Bradys had already come by earlier asking me to help them with high school applications for Oldest Brady Boy. He's interested in the Noble Network schools, especially Rauner, since his cousins go there. I hear the Nobles will be opening three new schools next year, which will be the easiest to get into since there won't be siblings getting preference, but I don't know how to get those applications. Yet.

Oldest Brady Boy has his hands full this Thanksgiving--he has to write three 150-word essays, one for each of the Nobles for which he does have applications. Rauner asks him to talk about a teacher who has helped him succeed. The others ask about a friend (peer) or someone in the community who has helped you succeed.

Brady Mom is the first mom I've talked with who was really open about being uncomfortable writing much. She said she read the parent handbook in Spanish, but while filling out the application she was talking about how she doesn't write much and how happy she is her son can write more than she can. She did fine, though. The application was in English only, so I didn't expect she would be able to figure out how to fill it out without some explanation.

Meanwhile, Junior got his latest progress report yesterday from Golder. He has As and Bs in everything but--you guessed it--civics and physics, where he has Ds. I think he needs more help in both those subjects than he is getting. I need to email his civics teacher now to see if she has any ideas.

Supposedly Picasso, Junior and his brother are coming over tonight to make chocolate chip cookies with me. For the occasion, I just washed the kitchen floor for the first time in over a month. Let's just say I was a little embarrassed to have Brady Mom in here yesterday, but it was all fine in the end.

High School Admissions Counseling

Yes, it's that time of year again, when the 8th graders and their parents are all trying to figure out what to do about high schools. There's a girl south of 51st who is friends with the Brady Girls and with the girl whose mom put her in Perspectives Math & Science Academy. She's her mom's oldest daughter and her mother is very concerned about what high school she attends. She's been bugging me about when we could start talking about high schools--we ran into each other at the Ashland bus at 47th--I was getting off, she was getting on--and promised we would get it together.

Today we finally did. 51st Girl, her mother and I sat on my paper-strewn sofa and talked about schools and looked them up on the Internet for admissions info. Did you know Morgan Park High School has a lottery for the kids within its attendance area? I didn't know that until today.

51st Girl is a budding actress with reading scores above the 75th percentile but math scores below the 40th. Kids like her have a tough time getting into schools with special programs that say they want kids at the 50th percentile or higher in both math and reading.

"I want her to go some place she can get in, but that will help her graduate," her mom said. "I went to a not-so-good high school myself. At least I finished. I want more for her. I want her to look beyond what's here. I want her to go to college."

So here are all the schools we thought of for her so far. The really long shots: King, Curie and Lincoln Park because they all emphasize performing arts, even though her math scores aren't good enough. Lincoln Park includes an audition in its admissions process so she'd have a chance to prove herself that way. Also Kenwood, because it's good, even though she's out of area.

The maybe not as long shots: Kennedy and Hancock. Although they are out of area, we could try. Beth from our block got into Kennedy last year off the waiting list (I called the principal and pleaded her case--one more reason I want to know how her grades are so far).

Ones I hope are solid options: Simeon and Dunbar. Simeon now requires an application and an essay for everybody.

Pretty much all the charters since they can't exclude by test score: the Nobles (most likely UIC College Prep because it's closest. Also her mom is studying for some kind of health career and 51st Girl has picked up some interest in that area), Perspectives Math & Science (because it's new and accepts citywide with no geographic preference), U of C Woodlawn even though it's almost impossible with all the kids who have preference, DuSable Leadership, even the new UNO way west on 47th.

Readers, if you have any more ideas, please comment. And if anybody knows which is harder to get into, King or Lindblom, I'd be interested to hear the scoop. I think Lindblom is still the easiest selective enrollment to get into, but 51st Girl is way more suited to King, with its emphasis on performing arts. They have an open house November 1st, which I just spotted and will have to tell her mother ASAP. It's a long shot, but hey, you might as well apply to everything possible and see what you get.

Books for Big Picture

I saw Gladys on the street this afternoon as I was coming home from the post office. She must have just been leaving school.

"Hey Maritza!" she yelled from across the street.

"Hey Gladys!" I yelled back. "Hey, I'll be at school this week. I got a donation of books for Big Picture."

She flashed a grin and pumped a fist in the air.

Back to School Update and a Philanthropic Idea

So far everybody's back in school. Meg is really enjoying Lozano Alternative High School. Her sister Jo at Kennedy is determined to make straight As and earn all the financial incentive she can out of the new "pay for grades" program in CPS. A straight-A student could earn $4000 by the end of sophomore year, and that's what Jo is after: $4000 for college sounds pretty good to her. I'm willing to be the homework helpline for this endeavor. I gave Meg my cell number and told her to give it to Jo if she needs help.

Dawn is back in school though she's missed a couple of days already. Joey is going but he's more interested in graffiti than school or respecting his mother; she's at her wits end and frankly, so am I. Junior likes Golder College Prep but he's not getting there on time; he already had to serve a suspension because he racked up too many tardy demerits. He says his grades so far are Cs or higher--whew. I ran into my neighbor up the block with her daughter from Perspectives the other day; their ride never showed up and she missed a whole day of school.

Surely there is some charter-school-loving business leader in the transportation industry who wants to give money so charters can run buses, right? David Leach, Mr. Greyhound, I know you've got a lot on your plate right now with gas prices and all, but think about it, OK? Or how about you, Dale Moser at Megabus?

Saturday Night Live

...from Marshfield Avenue, where somebody is having a very loud DJ for their birthday party.

I was out in front of my house, talking with Sarah's dad, who was sitting on his porch and then came down to chat across our fences. He has been trying to keep the kids out of my yard when I'm not home, which I appreciate.

We were talking about the block for a while. He was happy to hear about the block party next weekend. I thought Sarah would have told him but it seemed he didn't know what was going on. We were talking about safety and the recent reduction in problems at the corner. He asked about last summer, when we didn't do a party, and I said we didn't do it because of security problems (the blue house across the street). He got it.

Then we talked about school and Sarah. At her old school in Pilsen (Perez) they recommended she go to Orozco, which has a bilingual gifted program. He and his wife decided not to do it--I didn't quite understand what he was saying about why, but I'm pretty sure it was the usual reasons parents who don't understand how the Chicago school system works decide not to jump on that kind of opportunity--it's farther from home, they don't really know how much better it is, they just see all the hassle involved and they think their neighborhood school is OK because they have no base for comparison. I was just looking on line, and using test scores as a measure for academics (knowing that's a problem but also knowing it tells you something), Chavez is better than Perez but Orozco is better than both.

His wife is pretty frustrated with Chavez. The LSC is factionalized and there aren't very many opportunities for new parents to break into what's happening there. I should introduce her to someone I know on the Chavez LSC who's a get-it-done kind of person and not interested in the factional fighting.

Today at Costco (more block party purchasing, thanks to a friend with a membership) I spotted Brain Quest for 4th graders on sale and picked up the questions and the workbook that goes with them. Sarah wrote down a list of things the kids want to do at the block party and it had some spelling errors, which surprised me because her language skills are so good. (They were common bilingual errors, like "Balley ball" for volleyball but I was still surprised to see them.)

I told her dad I got this book today because I think she's smart enough to know fourth grade work already and if she doesn't know it (and Chavez for some reason doesn't teach all of it, especially spelling), at least there's a small sort of backup. I don't want her to be at a disadvantage when it's time to take the high school entrance exam.

Her dad was saying they don't know anything about the high schools. Their daughter was top 10 percent at Juarez, but I think Sarah is smart enough to go to a selective enrollment high school if she gets the appropriate education between now and then. I also mentioned San Miguel just to put the idea in their heads. Grades 6-8 are where kids in CPS lose a lot of ground.

In April I went to visit friends with a fifth-grade son in the Palo Alto public school system. I think about what he's reading and doing and I think about my kids here, especially Sarah and some of the Bradys, and I'm ready to out-helicopter the most helicopter parent.