1991 | 'Schools in Ruins' series got results
Decades of neglect had left Chicago's public schools in need of more than $1 billion in repairs, renovations and replacements.
That was the key finding of the April 1991 Sun-Times series "Schools in Ruins."
Reporters Maribeth Vander Weele and Maureen O'Donnell did more than catalog a litany of fire and building code violations, faulty wiring and malfunctioning heating systems. They got people's attention.
One result: The stories prompted a national review of school-repair needs.
More important to Chicagoans, they prompted those in power to find money to fix crumbling schools. Not all of them. And not immediately.
But at schools like Van Vlissingen (now Lavizzo) on West 108th Place, where a sixth-grader had complained in a 1990 essay of rain pouring in through the leaky ceiling and rotted windows, the work prompted by the Sun-Times' stories made a big difference. The leaks stopped. And bathrooms were added.
"It's much better," an assistant principal said in early 1995. "Much, much, much better."