Catalyst
The fledgling Little Village Community Development Corp. did not intend to get involved in schools when it set up shop in 1998. Rather, like most such organizations, it had its sights set on improving housing and supporting local businesses.
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Catalyst
On the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend, community members and friends gathered on an empty lot at the western edge of Little Village for an anniversary celebration: Two years ago, 14 parents and grandparents put up tents on that lot and began a hunger strike to get a new high school built there.
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Chicago Sun Times
Seven years after the first promises were made, the new Little Village/Lawndale High School Campus opens Tuesday.
At a cost of $63 million, it's the most expensive Chicago public school building ever built, with a swimming pool, two gyms, a distance-learning lab and a small day care. Its architecture pays tribute to Mexican culture and is packed with reminders of the hunger strike, including a massive sundial that highlights the 19-day fast.
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Chicago Tribune
Many of the people who live in the South Lawndale neighborhood, also known as Little Village, work at downtown Chicago hotels and restaurants. The falloff in tourism after Sept. 11 hit the community hard, landing pink slips in the hands of many industrious Little Village residents.
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EDUCATION-US: Social Justice Schools Shape New Wave of Activists
Students at the Social Justice High School learn a very different version of U.S. history than most pupils, including the near-genocide of the Native Americans by European colonisers and the murder of union leaders by the U.S. government in the early 1900s. "I think they´re hungry for it," Potter said. "Deep in their consciousness they have a lot of questions about it, based on their experiences in a community that´s marginalised."
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Essential Schools
The small schools movement has always been the place where the Coalition's principles can really come alive, where big ideas about personalization and democratic education can translate into strategies for substantive and meaningful change, where school and community can come together and new leadership can emerge.
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Hungry For High School in Chicago's Little Village
Historically, a hunger strike is a drastic non-conventional method employed to give a voice to and champion the causes of marginalized and disenfranchised peoples. We have taken lessons learned from the legacy of Cesar Chavez to heart and now to practice. On Mother's Day, May 13th we declared our community in an educational crisis and consequently a hunger strike to bring attention to this blatant disregard to our children's educational needs. This strike was one that initiated the demand that the high school that was promised three an a half years ago is built as soon as possible here at 31st and Kostner.
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In These Times
Starting on Mother's Day, 17 members of the Little Village community, a Mexican neighborhood in southwest Chicago, drank only water and juice for 19 days. They camped out in unseasonably cold and rainy weather on a vacant strip of land across from a demolished cooking-oil factory.
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Indy Media Print Project
On Mothers' Day, Little Village residents began a hunger strike at 31st and Kostner to protest the City's failure to build a much-needed high school at the site. Schools Chief Paul Vallas promised the school 3 years ago but has since stalled the project. Residents blame local politicians for the delay -- and their patience has been exhausted. Photos: Dawn Roberts
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Inside The Violence: It Takes A Village
Inside The Violence: It Takes A Village
June 5, 2008
NBC5's Alex Perez reports on how one community is making its school a safe haven.
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