Chicago schools CEO: I pushed to roll back longer school day
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter rrossi@suntimes.com April 12, 2012 11:35AM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard announced that elementary schools will adopt a 7-hour day next year. | John H. White~Sun-Times.
Updated: May 14, 2012 8:14AM
Chicago schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard says it was “absolutely’’ his idea to roll back the planned 7 1/2-hour elementary school day to seven hours — a proposal he then took to school board members and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “I’m the CEO of the system. I bring ideas to the mayor, my board, and we talk,’’ Brizard told the Chicago Sun-Times Thursday as he departed a legislative hearing. Actually, he said, “I brought it to my board first.’’ Although Emanuel’s announcement Tuesday that he was skimming back his longer school day proposal came as a surprise to some, Chicago School Board Vice President Jesse Ruiz said Thursday that alternatives to the 7-1/2 hour day that had been bashed by a growing number of parent groups had been discussed internally for weeks. “There were a number of iterations,’’ Ruiz said. “We were evaluating all the options until we reached a general consensus that this was the best approach.’’ Critics had charged Chicago elementary children needed more than the 5 3/4 hours now common across the system, but not what could have been the longest school day among the nation’s big-city districts. In announcing the rollback, Emanuel insisted there was “nothing magical’’ about his original 7 1/2-hour plan. Brizard said the decision to limit the 7-1/2 hour day to only four days a week in high school was intended to give teachers more common planning time — something, he said, he knew as a former high school teacher to be critically important. But in addition, Brizard said, the high school modification also should make it easier for the system’s coveted selective-enrollment high schools to keep their treasured “colloquiums’’— or shortened days, usually once a week, of non-traditional, boutique classes. Defense of colloquiums was especially vocal at Northside College Prep, the state’s highest-scoring high school. There, hundreds of parents and alums signed an online petition opposing the imposition of a 7-1/2 hour day on their school. Ruiz said the new compromise was “a done deal’’ and did not require a board vote. How to pay for it is “the next step on our plate. Those discussions are happening. It’s a matter of priorities,’’ Ruiz said. Meanwhile, critics shifted their focus to what will fill the new, longer day and whether CPS will find any extra dollars to pay for it.
