Last night there was a Sullivan Fight School board meeting where Joe Moore brought out is political tool box, including Kevin O'Neil, Jim Ginderske, Jane Hoffman and someone from the Howard Area Community Center. They were there to blow smoke up the school board asses and whoever else would listen. I'm listening to the tapes now.
First up was Joe Moore, who said he backs the commander. Next up was Kevin O'Neil, who said he backs the commander. Howard Area Community Center stepped up and said they backed the commander. Jim Ginderske introduced himself as the publisher of the Urban Coaster and said he backs the commander.
There you have it -- Joe and his tools back the commander.
Seems Joe Moore is backed in the corner for his do-nothing stance with the Sullivan Fight School dismissal. I'll have more from these tapes later.
Update #1: The Commander said more police resources are used at Sullivan than most Fight Schools in the city. Including the west and south sides. One parent asked why officers just sit in their car and do nothing but watch from the squad car.
Update #2: One official said this year has been the most challenging in any year he can remember.
Update #3: Security officers inside the school has been assaulted three times this year, including being bitten by a student.
Update #4: One parent sees kids who claims have either been expelled or don't go to the school, hanging out in front of the school doors 10 minutes before school ends, waiting to start trouble.
Update #5: The b-block boys are the subject of gang talk.
Update #6: Even with all the talk of extra/extra police resources, police say they are outmanned.
Update # 7: Commander and the tool box recommended school uniforms will solve the problem. A teacher gets up and says the uniforms issue won't solve the problem. He knows the problem children if they wear red, black or a school uniform.
Update #8: Officials claim the problem is a small percentage. But then when questioned on the drop out rate, it was said to be 40%. That doesn't sound small to me. Now someone is trying to spin these numbers as to not make it look so bad on the 40% drop out rate at Sullivan Fight School.
Update # 9: One person said the worst kids are the ones that go to night school between 3:30 PM and 5:30 PM. About 200 students attend night school.
Update #10: One official said there are plenty of activities for the kids to do after school and on Saturday's. Gym, computer labs, programs. They just don't use them. There goes Joe Moore's tired old, we need a B&G club mantra.
Update #11: One parent said the violence is out of control around Sullivan.
Update # 12: You go girl. One neighbor gets interrupted by Joe -- Joe gets shut down by the board and the lady chides Joe for bringing in his tool box of backers.
Update #13: Jim Ginderske gets up to defend Joe Moore and gets shot down. One neighbor questions Jim's motives and Jim shuts the fuck up.
Update #14: Jane Hoffman gets up to defend Joe Moore and gets shot down. Crowd gets hostile. Jane shuts her trap.
Update #15: A little bit of internet news information questioning is going on. Joe Moore gets up and said he email tree has 7500 people on it. Joe gives out his web address. Neighbor chides Joe on his email poof, gift card give-aways to get people to attend his meetings. Someone from Sullivan says they have a website too.
Update #16: Teacher chides Joe for showing up to make this a 15 minute dog and pony show. Invites Commander and Joe to sit in on his class.
Update #17: One person says this issue of fighting started young. Blames "poverty in the neighborhood" for the problem.
Update #18: Person asks if there is "anger management" courses for these fighters.
Update # 19: Where are the dead-beat parents? One after one, neighbors who were there not because Joe brought them out, asked where the parents of the troublemakers were? One school board member says he works -- and when his kids get in trouble at school, he's there. He has to take off work, but he's there for his kids. No one else had answers as to where the other parents were. Kudos to the honest school board member.
That's a rap. Meeting over.
Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes.
27 comments:
What's Joe Moore supposed to do, Craig? Show up and castigate the commander?
Im sorry, but I don't get why the alderman voicing his support for the police is a bad thing.
You have to support the commander. We all need to give him a chance to do his job with our support.
That said, under what primise or authority is Jimmy G. attending these meetings? WTF? He is suddenly a point person because he's printing Joe's latest newsletter?
That, my friends, is the biggest crock of you-know-what to hit our neighborhood in a very long time.
Joe couldn't get positive press under any normal circumstances, so he directs his toadies to create a newsletter under the guise of it being a legitimate newspaper! Then Jimmy G. is invited to attend meetings as a spokesperson for the community?
Well, which is it, Jimmy? Are you a true, unbiased, entirely objective news publication? Or are you Joe's supporting newsletter?
What a load.
I'm told there were about 15 people in attendance.
Senator Steans had a rep there. State Rep Harry Osterman had a rep there. Alderman O'Connon had a rep there.
I'm told Jim brought his whole Joe Moore Newsletter staff along to cover this story for Joe from multiple angles.
I wonder if Joe is still working on bringing the Boys and Girls Club to the area, or if he only wanted it because the Park District was going to foot the bill.
well, of course joe should stand up for the commander but...it's just more of the same from him. Don't you think part of the problem at that school comes from the housing that joe has let come into these neighborhoods? And why weren't there more concerned parents there? Were any of the parents there that have these horrible troublemakers at the school? Joe likes to talk a lot but I don't see actual step by step plans that detail results (you know, the things corp america and real jobs judge success on)
Rogers Parking said,..." under what premise or authority is Jimmy G. attending these meetings? WTF? Then Jimmy G. is invited to attend meetings as a spokesperson for the community?"
I, also, would like to know WHO anointed or appointed 'Jimmy G.' to represent or speak for the residents of Rogers Park. It's fine if he wants to speak for himself but in NO WAY DOES HE HAVE ANY STANDING OR AUTHORITY TO SPEAK FOR THE COMMUNITY. Enough already!
Here's the funniest. Joe Moore has NEVER sent out an email poof regarding the Sullivan Fight School situation. Joe has NEVER attended a meeting up until now.
The ONLY one who writes about this Sullivan situation is myself. Just another example of how high I can get Joe Moore to jump. LOL.
Joe Moore is a phony and he knows it.
If Sullivan is such a big problem, why don't I see hundreds of people at these community meetings and CAPS meetings instead of maybe ten?
Joe Moore (pronounced "mor-on") and Commander David Sobczyk (pronounced "soft-on-gangbangers") are not going to repond until lots of citizens chew out their fat asses on a regular basis. CAPS 2431 has only a couple of regular people attending once you subtract the police, the Joe-Moron ass-lickers, the community nut-jobs and the few business owners who may attend. I have heard Commander Soft-on-Gangs speak at least 3 times. Each time he mouths the same old line: "Gangs are a very complex issue...blah, blah blah." Then he tells a sob story about some kid whose family wants him to sell drugs. Boo-Hoo.
Another meeting is scheduled for him to meet with citizens on Monday, March 9, at 7 pm at the Loyola Park fieldhouse. It will be poorly attended as usual. So, people, SHUT UP about Sullivan and crime until YOU START GETTING INVOLVED. You all make me want to puke.
By the way, if Craig attends and confronts him about gangs the way he did at the last safety meeting at the church on Morse/Ashland in December(?), it will be well worth the trip!
About that 40% drop out rate.
We blame the school system for the problems of the kids attending the schools, which started at home. We blame the schools for failing to discipline students and maintain order when they are scarcely allowed to expel students, and when they manage to do that, we blame them for the horrifying drop out rate.
Notice that every time a neighborhood or town loses its middle-class population, and gains a poor, uneducated population, that the schools deteriorate in proportion to the influx of poor students. Do you really think the quality of instruction and materials changes that much in these places? Is funding really the problem here?
The reason the CPS and other school districts fail to expel problem students is because they don't want to make the drop out rate any worse. If they were to expel the troublesome students, they'd probably have a drop out rate of 70%.
But perhaps the remaining students would perform better, and raise the ranking of the schools in their test scores and grades. Maybe we could then restore high school to its previous status, when a high school education actually qualified you to function in the adult world. Right now, our education has become so degraded and compromised by accommodating students who otherwise would have fallen by the wayside, that people now have to go to college, and borrow mucho bucks to do that, in order to get the instruction they should have had by tenth grade.
Update #10: One official said there are plenty of activities for the kids to do after school and on Saturday's. Gym, computer labs, programs. They just don't use them. There goes Joe Moore's tired old, we need a B&G club mantra.
Save this the next time someone says the reason all the gangbangers and wannabes are standing on the street and in the parks flashing signs is because there's nothing else for them to do.
The ONLY one who writes about this Sullivan situation is myself.
Well, you and a certain little blogger named Timmy...
Jim Ginderske? Why was he there? Was his boyfriend there too?
You're not the only one who writes about it, Craig. I also do, unless my observations are nothing more than just observations, and not helping anything, to everyone.
How did you get tapes of the school board meeting? I'd like to listen to them.
I disagree with the number of drop outs. There is almost no way in the world there can be a 40% drop out rate. I would say there's at least a 25% drop out rate, not 40%.
I REALLY disagree with that one person saying all of worst kids are at night school. First of all, they're real bad kids, they would be on the streets causing trouble. Second, I have a few friends who attend night school and they're not troublemakers, so that person is wrong.
Don't forget that the CPS & City of Chicago have a vested interest in keeping daily attendance and enrollment rates as high as possible; each student in attendance = $$$ from the state and federal government under our system of funding. Would that explain a 'lax' attitude in dealing with problem students? Just asking.
For every 1000 people there is one gang member. Illinois is one of the highest in the nation.
Get out of the car and do what ?
Hold hands with the rats ? They have to break the law to get arrested. Hanging out and acting the fool is not breaking the law. Any of you citizens want to be the complainant on a Disorderly Complaint, step right up... As for the suspendees, they have to be on school property to be arrested, which they aren't doing.
Correction. I mentioned I was the only one writing about this fighting issue. I stand corrected. Timmy provides observations also.
And you're doing a great job, Timmy. Please keep up the good work!!
Yes, Timmy, you're doing a great job. I'm still mad at myself for leaving you out of my original statement.
That's okay, Craig. No need to be mad at yourself for making a simple mistake :-).
Something tells me Timmy is not who he says he is.
I think we should investigate!
And what's THAT supposed to mean?? I know who I am and I'm telling the truth when I say I'm a student. Just because I have nice writing doesn't mean I'm NOT a student.
If your "investigating" leads to me being harassed and assaulted, there's going to be a big problem.
Sobczyk and Moore,
The Commander and Thief
chip - i would definitely attend a meeting where they are talking to citizens, however it should really be the parents of the kids in Sullivan that attend the school meetings!
north coast - agree - the kids and the families are probably the major problems here, not the school itself.
I met a teen, a bright, ambitious young girl and the daughter of one of my apt building neighbors, who was attending Sullivan a couple of years ago (since graduated) and she had interesting things to say about the place.
This girl was academically ambitious and intended to go on to major in physics, for which you need a very solid background in the physical sciences and advanced math.
She said she found the instruction available at Sullivan to be absolutely adequate. However, she was sick of being bullied and intimidated in the hallways. She was dismayed over the way classes were disrupted, often by people not in them. From the way she talked, I gathered she spent a lot of her precious energy just dealing with the degraded and violent social atmosphere at the place.
Most adults, especially those middle aged and beyond, don't remember the nasty social atmosphere at their high schools. We lose many bright kids because they can't deal with the commonplace brutality of a typical public high school- look at Columbine.
It's that much worse when your student body is made up mostly of kids with behavior problems, from the worst-run homes in the city. I don't know how a bright, sensitive kid deals in a place like Sullivan, and I really give "timmy" and this young girl, a lot of credit for toughing it out and making their peace with it all well enough to continue their school work and go on to college and to realizing their life goals.
Dear Neighbor,
In a partnership with Sullivan High School to address the increased incidence of violence especially at dismissal time, 24th District Police Commander David Sobczyk and I met recently with Sullivan High School Principal Joseph Atria and the Sullivan High School Local School Council to discuss several proposed safety measures.
Joining us were representatives from the offices of Alderman Patrick O'Connor, State Senator Heather Steans , State Representative Harry Osterman and a dozen community leaders and residents. Although Sullivan is not located in my ward, Sullivan is the local public high school for 49th Ward residents, and many of the after-school disciplinary problems spill over into my ward. Safety at Sullivan High School was the number one concern at a town hall meeting on public safety that State Senator Steans, State Representative Osterman and I hosted last November.
Commander Sobczyk observed that more police resources are used at Sullivan than at high schools in more challenging neighborhoods. All of us agreed that the vast majority of Sullivan students do not cause any problems and are in school to learn, but a small number of young people, many of whom are not Sullivan students, are creating problems outside the school.
The Commander presented a list of recommendations, which have been adopted successfully at other high schools, that he believes will help Sullivan address safety issues:
• Adopt a uniform dress code. The Commander indicated that school uniforms bring a sense of order and discipline to schools and prevent students from displaying gang colors.
• Alternate dismissal procedures. Currently all students leave the building from the same west side doors at the same time. This leads to large congregations of students and increases the potential for after-school fights. The Commander suggested that students be assigned a number of different exits, depending on the direction they will be heading after school.
• Stagger dismissal times. Dismissing some students earlier than others also helps reduce the large congregations of students who gather outside after school, and helps the police better safeguard student safety.
• Increase security staffing. The Commander suggested the school needs to beef up its own security staff.
• Improve student suspension practices. The Commander noted that many of the problems stem from suspended students who return to the school grounds at dismissal time. He suggested the school adopt a rule prohibiting all suspended students from coming within two blocks of the school during their suspension, and to sign criminal complaints against those students who violate the prohibition. Principal Atria said the school already had adopted that practice after meeting with the Commander earlier in the month.
I look forward to working with the Sullivan Local School Council and Principal Atria to adopt Commander Sobczyk's recommendations in their entirety. These recommendations are based on proven track record of results in other city high schools. A secure and safe environment at Sullivan will improve academic performance, as well as enhance the safety of the entire neighborhood.
Obviously, these measures are only part of the solution. We must do more to provide constructive after school activities for our young people. Sullivan High School provides some wonderful after school activities, as do the Howard Area Community Center, the Rogers Park Community Council, and Family Matters , among others, but more needs to be done. I will continue my efforts to enhance the resources of these fine local organizations, as well as bring a full-time Boys and Girls Club to Rogers Park.
I would be interested in your comments. Please feel free to reply to this e-mail with your comments and suggestions, and I will share them with our Commander.
Sincerely,
Joe Moore
Sullivan High School provides some wonderful after school activities, as do the Howard Area Community Center, the Rogers Park Community Council, and Family Matters , among others, but more needs to be done. I will continue my efforts to enhance the resources of these fine local organizations, as well as bring a full-time Boys and Girls Club to Rogers Park....
Once again this alderman refuses to acknowledge the recent opening of the new field house at White Park, formerly Gale Park. If he can't take credit for it, it doesn't exist as far as he is concerned. What a joke he is! We have to vote him out of office.
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