Watching her 5-year-old daughter make friends inside a bounce house at a North Lawndale block party Saturday, Briana Louis savored the last taste of summer before her child begins kindergarten Monday at Lowell Elementary School in Humboldt Park. For much of their summer, Louis and her daughter have spent their time at the beach.
“I’m nervous, but it’s like OK go ahead. She loved (preschool). She’s ready,” Louis, 24, said as others danced, listened to music and watched an enthusiastic breakdancing competition at the Firehouse Community Arts Center.
Before the new year began at Chicago Public Schools, students and their families made the most of their final weekend of summer vacation at various neighborhood gatherings and back-to-school bashes, many of which offered free school supplies and backpacks.
“We’re excited to work together with our school leaders, educators, and parents to continue to put the needs of our students first and build on our academic growth of the past two school years,” the district said.
While fun was top of mind, some parents shared long- and short-term concerns about the upcoming school year, from what will likely be a scorching first week back in the classroom to in-progress contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union to a bus driver shortage.
The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning from Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening, cautioning of extreme heat and humidity that will “significantly increase the potential for heat-related illnesses.” CPS recommended in a letter to parents that students bring full water bottles to school to stay hydrated and wear loose, light clothing.
Maricela Carrillo sat in a folding chair awaiting her children’s folkloric dance performance at a back-to-school event on the Lower West Side Friday. Her youngest son, who will begin kindergarten Monday, bent over a coloring sheet at a nearby table.
Carrillo, 46, has three other children enrolled in CPS who would start seventh, fifth and third grade. She was grateful that her kids could study at Cooper Dual Language Academy, because she wanted them “to be able to write and to understand our language, really good Spanish” even though they were born in the United States.
The need for bilingual or dual language programs across the city has increased as the district welcomed thousands of migrant students over the past year — and has become a sticking point in contract negotiations with the district and teachers union.
Carrillo’s children adored the dance program they were in — a collaboration between their school and the nonprofit Frida Community Organization — which had brought them out to perform that day, she said. She wanted to see CPS expand its extracurricular options for its youngest students.
Carrillo also said she’s taking classes with CPS Parent University and would like to see that programming continue and expand.
Inside the school building, Raquel Mendez listened to the tap of the dancers’ shoes on linoleum. Girls in lime green, pink, turquoise and yellow dresses with ruffled skirts and flowers in their hair hustled into line to run through a few steps one more time.
Mendez, 39, had a 12-year-old daughter performing with the troupe. She has two other girls in high school. Mendez said she wished CPS schools would take a few cues from her oldest daughter’s school, a public charter school.
“They don’t let the students use their phones,” she said. “I feel like every high school should do that to all students.”
Mendez also said she’d like to see CPS institute uniforms, like her oldest daughter’s school did, and wished she could find a reading group for her middle daughter, a rising sophomore who isn’t athletic but loves books. Mendez said she had few worries about her children returning to the classroom beyond “the gangs with guns and all that.”
Ahead of elections for the new, hybrid Chicago Board of Education in November, both Mendez and Carrillo said they had heard about an elected representative school board but knew little more than “a lot of changes are coming,” as Carrillo put it.
Others across the Chicago area have already returned to school, including Brandi Wiley’s 12-year-old daughter, Kalia, who started seventh grade at Eisenhower Junior High School in Darien last week.
Wiley, who watched as Kalia performed with her dance group at the North Lawndale block party, said the start of the year always comes with mixed emotions. While junior high is tough for many kids, she hopes her daughter is set up for success with a good class schedule and after-school activities like dance and cheerleading.
“You’re half relieved but at the same time you’re nervous. She’s in seventh grade, and I drop her off and I still cry. I can’t help it,” Wiley said. “Every time you drop them off at school, it’s like dang you get one less of these.”