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Read the press release here.

CPS School Closings List, Map: 54 To Be Shuttered

By  Lizzie Schiffman Tufano and Alex Parker  | March 21, 2013 2:31pm | Updated on March 22, 2013 11:17am

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CHICAGO — Fifty-four schools would be closed under a proposal released by Chicago Public Schools Thursday.

Six schools would be placed on turnaround status, and 11 schools would be merged, some of them with charter schools. In all, 61 buildings would be closed, which includes campuses that have more than one building. In all, 30,000 students and at least 1,000 teachers would be affected.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett defended the move to close what she called “underutilized, under-resourced schools.”

See the details of the closures from CPS.

“This is needed,” she said on WVON-AM 1690, as CPS officials held a conference call with reporters. There will be a five-year moratorium on school closures after this plan is implemented, and none of the closed buildings will be used to house charter schools, Byrd-Bennett said.

 Laura Martinez hugs her son, Cesar, a student at Peabody School  Thursday afternoon.  The sixth-grader had just learned that his school would be closing.
Laura Martinez hugs her son, Cesar, a student at Peabody School  Thursday afternoon.  The sixth-grader had just learned that his school would be closing.
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The list is not final: Two more community meetings are planned for each proposed closure or co-location, as well as a meeting with a hearing officer. Then the Chicago Board of Education will vote on the proposal.

CPS said the closures would save $560 million over 10 years, as well as annual savings of $43 million. CPS now faces a budget deficit of $1 billion, said CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll. It will cost $233 million to complete the process, CPS said.

CPS welcoming schools are no more than a mile away from schools slated for closure, it said.

"We heard repeatedly, 'We don't want our students shipped all over the city,' and we agree," said Adam Anderson, CPS officer of portfolio, planning and strategy.

Staff members at the targeted schools expressed anger at the news, which came after two months of community meetings.

“All of the staff, we don't know what's gonna happen," said Maria Cifuentes, a clerk at Near North Elementary School, 729 N. Ada. "Well, we do: They already told us — we don't have a job.

"It's horrible."

Tenured teachers who have high performance ratings will keep their jobs, said Alicia Winkler, CPS chief talent officer. Those who are losing their jobs will be retained through Oct. 31, she said, adding that CPS will provide "job search support."

Hardest hit were schools on the South and West sides.

Flanked by fellow union leaders, aldermen, clergymen and children, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis called the school closings an "abomination."

Lewis held a rally at Mahaila Jackson Elementary School, 917 W. 88th St., one of the 54 schools CPS has decided to shutter. Lewis and others said claims that schools like Jackson are underutilized are false.

They also said claims that closures will enable CPS to provide air conditioning, more libraries and even iPads to students were "all rhetoric" and "spin."

"This will not save money. It's going to cost money, and it's going to leave abandoned buildings, which are another recipe for disaster," she said.

Lewis lashed out at Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was out of town on a family vacation.

"This is cowardly and it's the ultimate bullying job. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, you should be ashamed of yourself," Lewis said.

The following schools are on the final Chicago Public Schools list of schools to be closed:

Close Altgeld into Wentworth, move into Altgeld building

Close Armstrong and May into Leland, move into May building (Read more about this closing here.)

Phase out Attucks over 2 years, close into Beethoven fall 2015

Close Banneker into Mays, move into Banneker building (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Bethune into Gregory (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Bontemps into Nicholson

Close Calhoun North into Cather

Close Canter Middle School into Harte and Ray

Close De Duprey and Von Humboldt into De Diego (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Delano into Melody, move into Delano building

Close Dumas into Wadsworth, move into Dumas building

Close Emmet into Ellington and DePriest

Close Ericson into Sumner

Close Fermi into South Shore Fine Arts

Close Garfield Park into Faraday

Close Garvey into Mount Vernon

Close Goldblatt into Hefferan

Close Goodlow School into Earle, move into Goodlow building (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Henson into C. Hughes

Close Herbert into Dett, move into Herbert building (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Key into Ellington

Close King into Jensen

Close Kohn into Cullen, Lavizzo, and L. Hughes

Close Lafayette into Chopin (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Lawrence into Burnham, move into Lawrence building

Close Jackson, into Fort Dearborn (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Manierre into Jenner (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Marconi into Tilton

Close Mayo into Wells, move into Mayo building (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Morgan into Ryder (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Overton into Mollison

Close Owens into Gompers

Close Paderewski into Cardenas and Castellanos

Close Parkman into Sherwood (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Peabody into Otis (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Pershing West into Pershing East, move into Pershing West building

Close Pope into Johnson

Close Ross into Dulles

Close Ryerson into Ward, move into Ryerson building (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Sexton into Fiske, move into Sexton building

Close Songhai into Curtis

Close Stewart into Brennemann (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Stockton into Courtenay, move into Stockton building (Read more about this closing here and here.)

Close Trumbull into Chappell, McPherson, and McCutcheon (Read more about this closing here.)

Close West Pullman into Haley

Close Williams ES and Williams MS into Drake, move into Williams building; co-locate
with Urban Prep

Close Woods into Bass

Close Yale into Harvard (Read more about this closing here.)

Close Near North and Buckingham into Montefiore (Read more about this closing here.)

Mason moves from K-11 to K-8, program closure only

Proposed co-locations

Richard T. Crane Medical Prep HS with Chicago Talent Development HS and Richard T. Crane Technical Prep HS

Noble-Comer with Revere ES

New Noble HS with Bowen HS

Montessori Charter of Englewood with O’Toole

Kwame Nkrumah Charter with Gresham

New KIPP with Hope HS

Disney II expansion with Marshall Middle

Belmont Cragin K-8 with Northwest Middle (Belmont Cragin pre-K program remains in current location)

New Noble HS with Corliss HS

Dodge with Morton

Drake with Urban Prep Academy for Young Men – Bronzeville

Proposed turnarounds

Barton

Chalmers

Dewey

O’Keefe

Carter

Lewis

CPS earlier this month announced a safety plan for students transitioning to new schools, which includes an expansion of the Safe Passage program. CPS declined to close high schools, citing the possibility of violence associated with students from different neighborhoods mixing. Schools that were successfully turned around at the end of the 2011-12 school year were also exempt from closure, officials said.

The plan would add Science Technology Engineering and Math, International Baccalaureate and Fine Arts schools at 19 schools on the South and West sides. Byrd-Bennett said each new welcoming school would have a library, air conditioning and expanded technological capabilities, such as new computer labs and expanded Internet bandwidth. She said children in grades three through eight would get iPads.