Alexandria Sanchez, a freshman at William Howard Taft High School, stated she goes to highschool scared about whether or not or not President-elect Donald J. Trump will deport her father, who’s undocumented.
Sanchez continues to be formulating his political views, he stated. She and her household are scared, however she stated she believes in the fitting to debate, which she and her classmates did in AP authorities class across the election.
Taft is within the forty first District, the one Chicago district that selected Trump within the 2024 election.
“You can see different individuals’s factors of view,” Sanchez stated. “They actually wish to get their level throughout they usually really need their level to be proper. You can show them flawed, which is good.
Trump has repeatedly expressed disdain for the U.S. Department of Education, not too long ago selecting Linda McMahon, a former wrestling govt, to guide the federal company. McMahon has vowed to show across the very division she was employed to supervise, according to Trump’s repeated guarantees to return training decision-making to the states.
McMahon has expressed help for college alternative — specialty packages, constitution colleges, in addition to magnet and selective enrollment colleges — despite the fact that comparatively little is understood in training circles concerning the new high chief.
On Wednesday, conservative teams celebrated Trump’s alternative of Education Secretary McMahon.
“President Trump and Administrator McMahon will remove indoctrination in our training system, and we’re excited to see how they are going to work collectively to place our kids earlier than bureaucrats,” Kathy Salvi, chair of the Illinois Republican Party, stated in a press release .
Deportation plans
Aside from plans to dismantle the Board of Education, Trump has promised to mount the biggest deportation operation in American historical past, which – if carried out – would have an effect on CPS’s scholar physique, which is about 47% Latino. According to a spokesperson, the district doesn’t have the variety of undocumented college students as a result of it doesn’t observe immigration standing.
While college students like Sanchez concern for his or her households, 17-year-old Taft High scholar Joel Paniagua stated he’s hopeful about what a Trump presidency may imply for immigrants within the United States
Just a few weeks in the past, Paniagua stated, he noticed a video through which Trump promised to supply inexperienced playing cards to male immigrants who graduated from school. Paniagua’s father, who got here to the United States from Mexico within the Nineties, not too long ago acquired citizenship standing.
“If I had been in that state of affairs (as a noncitizen) and Trump supplied me citizenship … it will be a pleasant alternative,” stated Paniagua, who would vote for Trump if she had been of age.
Paniagua’s father works for the meat processing firm OSI Group. His mom runs the door at a nightclub in downtown Chicago. He stated his household was divided in voting for Trump.
Paniagua’s soccer staff has immigrant college students from Venezuela and Ukraine, however Paniagua stated he is not nervous about them being deported or compelled to depart the staff. He believes Trump will solely goal immigrants who’re “criminals.”
Contract negotiations
Trump’s plans current extra uncertainties and challenges for leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union, amid ongoing contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools and a head-to-head struggle for management between the district and the union.
With a change in management on the federal stage, the CTU is beneath stress to stabilize its membership, stated David Stovall, a professor of Black research and criminology, legislation and justice on the University of Illinois at Chicago. The CTU’s contract expired on the finish of June.
“If the bargaining state of affairs continues to be in flux, it will likely be tougher to withstand insurance policies that could be enacted by the feds,” Stovall stated.
Among the problems perpetuating the controversy are the closing of a number of colleges within the Acero constitution community and a latest push to oust CPS Chief Pedro Martinez, who refused Mayor Brandon Johnson’s request to take out a $300 million mortgage for finance a brand new contract for academics. and the cost of the pension to town.
As the CTU negotiates its new contract, the union is acutely conscious that the brand new head of the Department of Education’s imaginative and prescient is immediately opposite to its precedence of strengthening group colleges.
“If this new secretary, as marketed, pushes for vouchers and privatization, we will probably be in large hassle,” stated Jackson Potter, vice chairman of the CTU.
This provides urgency to their negotiations.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates despatched a letter to the mayor dated Monday asking for “motion to make sure the Board of Education upholds commitments to remodel public training.”
Potter stated CTU’s contract proposals for bilingual training, psychological well being helps for college students and workers, immigrant protections and smaller class sizes, amongst different requests, would assist help college students affected by doable redistribution of funds from federal packages: Title I for low-income kids. low-income colleges and the Persons with Disabilities Education Act.
The district stated in a press release that “its capacity to sustainably increase income is proscribed, so CPS management will proceed to work with companions on the metropolis, state and federal ranges who’ve the authorized authority to lift income for the college system”.
Outside a highschool in the one Chicago neighborhood that voted for Trump, college students — like politicians — remained divided.
Taft scholar Gabriel Jackson Schaefer, 17, who got here to Chicago from Ireland when he was seven, stated it was disheartening to see friends who “did not perceive the gravity of the state of affairs” after the election, despite the fact that he is aware of they do not will probably be. moved like some college students in his courses.
“I do not suppose I needed to fear that a lot,” Schaefer stated. “But I attempted to assist different individuals really feel comfy and secure.”
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