CPS, Montefiore showdown

School district defends use of private providers for troubled students

05/27/2009 10:00 PM

By ANTHONIA AKITUNDE
Medill News Service

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Montefiore has shrunk as CPS shifted troubled boys into schools run by private groups. MICAH MAIDENBERG/Staff

Moses Montefiore Special School will remain open even as more emotionally troubled students are sent to private schools, Chicago Public School officials said last week.

Supporters had feared proposed staff cuts would lead to the closing of the Near West Side school, which serves emotionally troubled fifth through eighth grade boys from neighborhoods across the city.

During a 90-minute meeting of the city council’s Committee on Education and Child Development, Montefiore supporters questioned why CPS is sending emotionally disturbed students to 11 private therapeutic schools instead of existing public institutions that specialize in serving such students.

The hearing was called by Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd), whose ward hosts Montefiore. In his resolution calling for the meeting, Fioretti said CPS needed “to show cause why an excellent and much needed facility such as Montefiore is being considered for elimination.”

CPS awarded $25 million in contract to such schools last year. Public schools including Montefiore currently serve 121 students while private schools under contract with CPS see 670 students.

Montefiore principal Mary Ann Pollett said CPS’s placement policies have crippled the school. Montefiore is on the brink, she said: CPS wanted 10 out of 17 teachers and nine out of 15 educational support personnel to be cut in June.

“Montefiore should be full and with a waiting list,” Pollett said. “We have contributed during the last 80 years a shining piece to the mosaic which is the Chicago Public Schools.”

Deborah Duskey, chief specialized services for CPS, defended the agency’s placement strategy. She said not all of them should automatically be placed in Montefiore because of geographic considerations, age, gender and disabilities such as school phobia.

Duskey said the projections for next school year would be for 11 teachers and 11 support staff to continue at the school. Montefiore has lost 26 teaching positions since 1995.

Private therapeutic schools are needed to provide parents with other options, said Barbara Eason-Watkins, chief education officer of CPS.

“The concerns raised all boil down to educational funding,” Eason-Watkins said. “If we’re going to be increasing social workers and other staff in the schools across the city, we do need additional assistance in that regard.”

Committee chair Ald. Latasha Thomas (17th) set another hearing for further discussion between Montefiore supporters and CPS on June 15.

In an e-mail, a CPS spokesman said Montefiore’s recommendations would be “taken into consideration” and that CPS CEO Ron Huberman has ensured that more public schools would “accept and educate at-risk students.”

Parents and supporters of Montefiore were pleased by the meeting’s results and said they were ready to follow up in June.

Lorita Mersinger, whose 13-year-old son attends Montefiore, said the school kept him off the streets and provided a structure his neighborhood school lacked.

“He’s come a long way,” Mersinger said. “I really love this school because he’s really become a better person.”


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