AUSTIN — At a meeting Tuesday to discuss why many Austin parents are choosing to send their children to high schools outside the neighborhood, one principal argued that there has been improvement in local options.
Wayne Issa, principal of Austin Business Entrepreneurship Academy, said the quality of his school is "moving upward."
He said teachers and parents were frustrated when teachers had to teach multiple subjects in the past, but now more Austin teachers are able to focus on one subject.
When Austin Community Academy, 231 N. Pine St., closed in 2007 due to low test scores and violence, three high schools took its place: Austin Polytechnical Academy, Austin Business Entrepreneurship Academy and VOISE Academy High School. The schools now make up the Austin High School Campus.
Administrators at the three schools are working together better, Issa said, describing it as "a synergy."
Attendence is up, misconducts and suspensions are down, Issa said, adding, "When you look at freshmen on track, they're up across the campus."
"As our chief said, we get the students that are the most difficult students from the different elementary schools and we take them and we move them," he said.
Randel Josserand, chief of the Austin Community Action Council, said as recently as last year, Austin students had to take a lot of basic classes online and elective classes were nil. Today, they can take drama, music, art and band, he said.
The Council organized the meeting, which was held at Michele Clark High School, 5101 W. Harrison St., to get suggestions on how to improve the neighborhood's high schools plagued with declining enrollment.
A negative perception, among other things, is hurting Austin schools, which are continuing to lose enrollment. Austin Business, for example, has less than 200 students.
"Most of our kids don't want to go to the home schools because they're familiar with the gangs in the neighborhood," longtime Austin resident Sherman Reed said. "You can have great teachers, but you got to change our neighborhood."
Ivory Banks, 18, a senior at Steinmetz College Prep, 3300 N. Mobile Ave., said reasons for enrolling in different schools vary. Banks said her mom would not let her go to Frederick Douglass Academy High School, 543 N. Waller Ave., because the mother, a Douglass grad, didn't have a positive experience.
"Some students go to high schools so they can be with their friends, and some don't," Banks said. "I know for a fact that a lot of students from the Austin community have gone to schools like Taft [High School at 6530 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.], Catholic schools and other schools out of the district because it's a new experience for them."
Josserand said Chicago Public Schools data showed many elementary students in Austin are not enrolling in the neighborhood high schools. Some are families fleeing Chicago for bordering states like Indiana or Iowa to find affordable housing, he said.
Declining enrollment is a broader issue affecting neighborhoods across the city, not just Austin. Across the city, less than a quarter of 8th graders chose to attend their neighborhood high school last year, according to CPS strategy and planning manager Patrick Payne.
"They're going to magnet schools, charter schools, etc. They have all of those options. Even schools that have really strong brands or strong community ties," he said. George Washington High School, 3535 E. 114th St., is the highest with 64 percent of students that live in the boundary choosing to go there, he said.
There's a lot of work to be done, Austin residents and community leaders said. One resident asked for a fixed asset inventory report for each high school, and another argued that Austin high schools need to develop a strong marketing campaign.
Dwayne Truss, 51, said "until we take control of this process, it's an exercise in futility."
Truss, 51, a board member at Raise Your Hand For Illinois Public Education, added, "the effort is sincere, but everything begins and ends Downtown," referring to the top administration at CPS.
