Calling school overcrowding on the Southwest Side of Chicago a cancer, state Sen. Martin Sandoval and others repeated their plea Monday that lawmakers find money for school construction where crowding is most acute.
Speaking to nearly 100 parents, children and others at a public hearing at Sawyer Elementary School, 5248 S. Sawyer Ave., Sandoval (D-Chicago) blasted state officials and Gov. Rod Blagojevich for failing to find adequate funds to pay for new schools. Although other lawmakers have also called for school constructions funds, capital projects are one of a number of competing agendas that appear deadlocked as overtime negotiations on the 2008 state budget continue.
Sandoval said the overcrowding problem is greatest in areas with fast-growing Latino populations on the Southwest Side. He said children there are forced to go to schools outside of their neighborhoods or to attend schools with staggered schedules or “tracks,” where children attend school for three months and get a month off for vacation.
“This is an epidemic that has not been resolved,” Sandoval said. “It’s a cancer on the Southwest Side. … Kids are going to school in closets and in basements.”
In May, Sandoval and members of the Latino Caucus sponsored the Overcrowding Relief Construction Act, currently in committee, a bill that would set up a fund targeting overcrowded schools.
He called for Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) to earmark $250 million a year into a fund to build new schools. Under the proposed bill, the Illinois State Board of Education would oversee the issuance of the money.
According to Chicago Public School officials, about 69 out of the 625 elementary schools systemwide are deemed overcrowded, said Jose Alvarez, a special assistant to Schools Chief Arne Duncan. On the Southwest Side, 21 out of 25 schools, including Sawyer, are considered overcrowded.
School officials are planning to build three high schools and four elementary schools on the Southwest Side. The new schools should be completed in three to five years, primarily using tax-increment financing earmarked by the city, Alvarez said.
The district has not received any capital funds from the state for its buildings in the last four years and is not expected to get any this year, Alvarez said.
“We need help from Springfield, no matter what it is. Even if it’s a casino. We need all the help we can get,” Alvarez said.
Recently, many parents at Hurley Elementary, 3849 W. 69th Pl., kept their children out of school to protest the district’s decision to stagger schedules as a way to ease overcrowding in that Southwest Side school.
Ana Maria Arciga attended the hearing with three of her children, all pupils at Hurley, to get answers about the issue. She said that parents were given less than a month’s notice that their summer vacation this year was only going to last a month, and pointed out that overcrowding has been an issue at Hurley since her oldest child began attending there in 1994.
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