Instead of enjoying the 5th grade in class, Elizabeth Becerril of the Southwest Side is getting her school lesson in a parking lot.
Over the weekend she watched her mother becoming weak from a hunger strike that’s supposed to get the girl back in the classroom without having to put her on a bus to another neighborhood.
“She looks very tired to me, and I hope she’s not going to get sick,” said Elizabeth, 10, formerly a student at Richard J. Daley school, 5017 S. Hermitage Ave.
“It would be terrible if something bad were to happen to her,” said Elizabeth of her mother, one of four women on a hunger strike outside the Chicago Board of Education headquarters at 1819 W. Pershing Rd.
The strike began Thursday when Hispanic parents rejected the school board’s plan to have Daley students bused to Washington School, 838 W. Marquette Rd., in Englewood. Parents said the Englewood neighborhood is not safe for their children.
Late Sunday, there was some indication the issue could be resolved within the next few days as political pressure and attention to the hunger strike continue to grow. And, the cause got a bit of a boost when four of the five Hispanic state legislators pledged not to eat until the matter is resolved.
Sens. Jesus Garcia and Miguel del Valle, and Reps. Ray Frias and Edgar Lopez, all Democrats, joined in the fast Saturday night, but none of them stayed overnight in front of school headquarters with the parents.
Garcia said he expects the the city’s building committee to take some action early in the week.
“I believe they are getting the message. If not, we are ready to stay with this for a long time,” he said.
One mother dropped out of the strike on advice from her doctor Saturday night.
Since the school’s closing, parents have kept their children out of school, teaching them themselves in a parking lot. About 100 students have remained out of school.
Enedina Becerril, 34, said she’s feeling fine despite four days without food.
“We just want what’s best for the children in our community, not putting them in the way of harm,” she said.
School board officials have asked the parents to end their protest because they contend fears about children’s safety are unfounded.
In addition, they said, the busing measure is only temporary until a new school is built in two years to replace the aging Daley School.
Ruby Wallace, president of Daley’s local school council, has said the move to Washington School, would be an improvement over the existing Daley School building, which needs substantial roof repairs and contains hazardous asbestos.
The school council voted last week to back the controversial plan to bus 475 pupils to Washington School.
“We believe there will be no safety problems with this temporary solution,” Dawne Simmons, a school spokeswoman.
Simmons said most parents are sending their children by bus to Washington School.
But parents outside the school headquarters, surviving on water and living in makeshift tents, said they have not received a commitment from school officials that a replacement for Daley will be built.
“I want to see this on paper, that this new school will be built in our neighborhood,” said Guillermina Romero, 27.
Linda Coronado, a community activist who backs the hunger strike, said the school board has the money to build the school but the city building committee-which has the final say in school construction-has been slow to approve it.
“This all could have been avoided if the school board would only tell these parents a new school will be built and that it will be built close to the old school. Then the parents would be glad to put their kids on a bus,” she said.
The striking parents have rejected a school board plan to build a new school seven blocks away from Daley, because they favor a site near 50th and Hermitage, which is closer to their neighborhood.
