Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Parents at a Chicago elementary school are irate after their children were questioned at school Thursday by CPS officials investigating their teachers,” Linda Lutton reports for WBEZ.
“The district is looking into potential ‘teacher misconduct’ around recent boycotts of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test.”
And hopefully an inspector general is looking into potential “administrative misconduct” over these interviews.


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“Parents at Drummond Montessori in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood say they found out through parent e-mails, texts and Facebook messages that Chicago Public Schools Law Department officials were ‘interrogating’ their children at school. Parents say they had no knowledge the interviews were going to take place, and did not give any prior consent.
“CPS spokesman [and former Tribune reporter] Joel Hood acknowledged that investigators from the district’s law department questioned students ‘about how their teachers had conducted themselves during ISAT testing.'”
Again, the real question is how CPS conducted themselves during ISAT testing. Their coercive measures towards students whose parents had opted them out was bad enough, but now CPS has turned itself into a police state.
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“The chair of Drummond’s local school council, Jonathan Goldman, said he was at the school in the morning and spoke with one of the two investigators he saw there. He said the investigator told him that ‘CPS had authority to do this, acting under the doctrine of in loco parentis, which means that the Board can stand in for the parents,’ said Goldman. ‘Their moral grounds for doing this is certainly very questionable.'”
Certainly. The doctrine of in loco parentis usually applies when parents can’t be found and time is of the essence, or more popularly, on college campuses where parents no longer have live-in authority over their kids. In the case of Drummond, parents were just a phone call away – or even just yards away dropping off kids!
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Neither CPS lawyer Raymond Poloko, who was at the school Thursday, nor interim principal Colette Unger-Teasley would comment, according to DNAinfo Chicago.
Under the in loco parentis doctrine, students were allowed to comment for them since Poloko and Unger-Teasley were acting like children.
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CPS administrators blame outsourced legal staff for interpreting the doctrine as “crazy stand-ins for parents.”
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Meanwhile, sources close to my imagination say CPS is planning to fire a dozen more art teachers to pay for the coming legal settlement.
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Subterranean Homesick Blues
“A parking meter vandalism spree has erupted on the city’s North Side,” the Expired Meter reports.
“CPD reported Monday at least 13 pay boxes were damaged using a heavy blunt object or tool in the Lakeview, Wicker Park, West Town and Andersonville neighborhoods. The damage has been severe enough to disable the unit from working properly.”
Police are asking for the public’s help in apprehending the vandal, but let’s face it: No jury in Chicago would convict.
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Chicagoland 3
It’s just getting boring now.
Beachwood Photo Booth: Liberty
It’s a lie.
The Week In Chicago Rock
Featuring: Childish Gambino & Chance the Rapper, Unwed Sailor, and Lorde.
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BeachBook
* Remembering Odge: Hot Dog Stand Owner Was Beloved West Town Gem.
* The Coming Divvy Disaster.
* Elmhurst Native Jumps Into Shark Tank Tonight.
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TweetWood


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The Beachwood Tip Line: Unmetered.

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Posted on March 21, 2014