Call to Action
Collins Academy Town Hall high school held a meeting Wednesday night Jan. 24, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. The meeting involved the school board of education, community members, parents, students and anyone who wanted to come and attend the assembly was welcome. The meeting consisted of presenting information, asking questions, and for the students and community to give their insights, perspectives and to bring awareness to their concerns.
Topics Reviewed
- Safety concerns related to the co-location.
- CPS removing School Resources Officers.
- STEM Magnet High School — Changes coming to Collins Academy and what impacts it will have over their CPS safety concerns.
Co-location
Collins Academy High School shares school space with North Lawndale College Prep. This agreement was arranged and negotiated by CPS. In fact, this agreement is managed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). That shows that both schools and stakeholders agreed upon.
To have a better understanding of the school’s structure, NLCP has half of the first floor and all of the third floor. On the other hand, Collins High School has half of the first floor and half of the second floor. There are also some school spaces that they both share, which are the auditorium, gym wing, and elevators.
However, regarding this topic of locations. There are presenting challenges. Especially because there are two schools connected together. In this case, CPS has not done a very effective job on separating Collins Academy from North Lawndale College Prep. Which in result this causes conflict with communication between both schools. Also since there is a lack of actual physical separation it makes it difficult to keep things like events organized, especially to not cross over the other schools agreed on space.
CPS School Resource Officers (SRO’s)
Furthermore, Collins Academy also aims to tackle and discuss the issue of the possibility of losing all SRO’s in their buildings, starting next year and taking the power to vote away from the LSC”s. The lack of school resource officers causes a huge issue to the school system not only for next year but for this year as well.
This is because so far this year there are only two SRO’s in the high school that are responsible for responding to all school incidents. If under the unfortunate circumstance the school is face with loosing there only two school resources officers every time there is an incident the school will have to call the police and an officer will be dispatch. This situation under no circumstance is beneficial for anyone.
On the other hand, there are three actions that are being reinforce to try to prevent the lose of SRO’s. This are as follows:
- ALSC – The Collins Academy Local School Council was involved in planning and facilitating the town hall, and they are now advocating for increased parental involvement to help obtain answers and relief from CPS through their parent petition.
- The CTU is willing to take action by filling union complaints on behalf of its staff members.
- Principal’s Union – CPS principals are currently in discussion with CPS regarding the possibility of filing a union complaint against the CPS for the forced removal of SRO’s if it comes down to it.
S.T.E.A.M. Programming
Collins Academy is also trying to bring in a STEAM Program for students in order for the to receive more resources and become more involved in school. The STEAM programs stand for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. This new course will bring in further benefits for the students at Collins as they will be able to gain and specialize in any area of S.T.E.A.M. The curriculum at the school will also include S.T.E.A.M. thinking in all spaces, partnerships, construction and renovation.
S.T.E.A.M. Co-location Challenges:
Despite the new program being a great idea of inclusion and involvement in the school. There are some challenges and obstacles Collins will be faced with as they move forward with this project. The main issue will be the space around the school. As Collins solves the lack of space situation other problems will arise, these problems include:
- The Parent University: This is a problem because CPS wants to add a parent university space to Collins Academy to support the STEAM program. However, as it has been stated, Collins does not have enough space. Therefore, it is considered to take back space from NLCP.
On the other hand, the other problem is,
- Identity Conflict: Collins Academy High School is having problems identifying itself due to the unclear division, therefore it is something that has to be worked on in order to attract more students to the STEAM programs.
Written By Nohemi Sanchez
Source:
Collins Academy: Town Hall Meeting January 24, 2024
Featured Image Courtesy of Nohemi Sanchez
Inset Image Courtesy of Nohemi Sanchez
