As you may have heard, Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently jetted in from his Utah ski vacation to tell the city—particularly south- and west-siders—that he’d done them a big favor by closing 54 of their schools.
For starters, though, I should note that despite it being packed to the gills, Dever parents and students love their school, which may explain why it’s packed to the gills. It’s also one of the city’s higher-scoring neighborhood schools, with a student body about 60 percent low-income and an almost even split of whites and Hispanics.
“You walk down the hallways and you see kids sitting on the floor with their teachers,” says Tilly Tremmel, another parent. “It’s really hard to concentrate and really easy for them to get distracted.”
“We call it art on a cart,” says Murphy.
And when the deal was done, Mayor Daley and William Banks, the alderman at the time, promised they’d extend Dever into the parking lot, if only to add a cafeteria and some extra classrooms. But Banks and Daley are long gone. So much for that promise.
On inclement days—like all of winter and much of spring—students are sent to the gym, which doubles as the auditorium, and told to sit and not make any noise. As fun as that sounds.
