CITY HALL — The Dyett High School hunger strikers took their protests to City Hall Friday, but were rebuffed in their efforts to seek a direct meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
On their 12th day without solid food, Dyett protesters met outside Emanuel's office on the fifth floor of City Hall to reject his suggestion Thursday that the Bronzeville and Washington Park areas were already well-served with public high schools.
"The only thing we want is our school," said hunger striker Irene Robinson, who remained seated in a fold-up chair for most of the hourlong protest.
The protesters, part of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School, delivered a letter to the mayor refuting his claim that there are 10 high schools within three miles of Dyett, located at the north end of Washington Park at 555 E. 51st St.
The mayor had specifically cited King College Prep, but the Dyett protesters pointed out that's a selective-enrollment high school, adding that nearby Kenwood Academy is overcrowded and that Phillips High School has seen enrollment plummet since being turned over to the controversial Academy of Urban School Leadership.
Protesters are demanding Chicago Public Schools accept their proposal to convert Dyett into a Global Leadership and Green Technology High School, a plan years in the making, and backed by more than 100 local college and university educators, including those who worked on it at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
It's one of three plans submitted in response to a CPS request for proposals for the school, including a plan from the Little Black Pearl Art and Design Academy and another from former Dyett Principal Charles Campbell to turn it into a sports-oriented academic high school — a proposal actually submitted after an initial deadline had passed.
When CPS deferred a decision on the matter from August to September, that prompted the hunger strike, which began Aug. 17.
Protesters charged the mayor and CPS are now "backpedaling" on that request for proposals.
"The mayor's attempt to once again derail the Dyett RFP process is nothing short of a last-minute ploy to keep the district from giving a predominantly black and low-income community a quality public school," said Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, in speaking for the hunger strikers.
"This is what discrimination looks like," Robinson said.
Deputy Chief of Staff Ken Bennett accepted the group's letter and denied the mayor was "backpedaling" on plans to reopen Dyett, closed this year after graduating its last class of 13 seniors, but given new life with the request for proposals to reopen it next year.
"I'll take it under consideration," Bennett said. "We're working on it."
Yet Bennett subsequently ignored the group's request for an immediate meeting on the matter.
"The time for B.S. is over," hunger striker Jitu Brown told Bennett in a phone conversation as the protesters waited outside the Office of the Mayor. "Let's meet right now," he added. "You can make that happen right now."
The hunger strikers waited for an hour before returning to Dyett.
They insisted they would continue the hunger strike, even as Robinson said she is unable to take required medication that needs to be ingested with food.
"I'm not gonna take that medicine until we get that Global Leadership and Green Technology school," she said.
The Chicago Teachers Union chimed in later Friday, calling on CPS to hold a hearing on Monday.
"The fight for Dyett has been very real for people in Bronzeville for years, but now, it’s become a matter of life or death,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. "The fact that the Dyett 12 has resorted to starving themselves for the future of public education in their community shows just how little their voice has been heard, and not just by the mayor, but by all of the so-called elected officials that should be representing them.
"We know who runs education in this city and who controls the schools, and changing this arbitrary September hearing date could be one of the easiest decisions for City Hall to make, and one that could be done with a wave of the mayor’s hand," he added. "The district needs to hold hearings on Dyett immediately and let the community’s voice make a difference, for a change."
Brown too insisted the hunger strikers would not give in until they prevail, saying, "We're gonna stay the course, man."
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