HomeApril 2008 Anchors Away
Senn Strategic Plan Meeting Going Forward in the Face of a New Attack
The April 5th meeting of the Senn Strategic Planning Committee underlined its dedication to the five-year plan to develop every part of the program and environment of Senn High School as a general community high school open to all students. This Committee, created by the Local School Council, and with input from over 2,000 students, parents, teachers, and people from the community, has been working hard for last 19 months.
In spite of this, some other forces have been trying to take steps to stop progress on the plan and break up Senn High School and turn it into three or four schools with selective entrance requirements, including the naval academy. This has been a four-year effort to destroy Senn High School, but Senn supporters have been four years in beating back these forces. We know and take pride in Senn’s diversity and openness to all students. Thousands of people in the community have shown they feel the same. This includes the Editorial Board of the News-Star, which wrote in the March 20th edition–
“Nowhere else in Chicago can young people get a greater lesson in democracy than at Nicholas Senn High School in Edgewater.
“Students have opportunities to brush elbows with students who hail from 60 different countries around the globe. There are also opportunities to learn compassion and understanding through Senn’s open-arm embrace of students from all economic levels and intellectual capacity [at this] … general attendance neighborhood school serving students from all walks of life…
“Senn needs to be restored to its glory days as one of the city’s top public schools. The fortunes of the school have improved over the years thanks to the dedication of students, faculty and parents. To accomplish this goal, Senn should remain open as one school that serves the entire neighborhood….”
The Strategic Plan Roll-out– with over 200 participants held at the school last month, featured, among other things, Gerod Sherley, from the Chicago Public Schools, who said, “We are committed to helping Senn with this plan.”
It is very important for students, parents, teachers and others to insist that a democratic process be carried out. The Save Senn Coalition urges everyone to hang tough in the continuing struggle and insist that the voices of the community be recognized– to build and strengthen Senn High School with the Senn Strategic Plan, and to see to it that the naval military academy be removed from the Senn High School building. We are one with the city-wide demonstrations and protests against the threats to public education posed by the Daley Administration’s taking power from the parents’ and community’s Local School Councils and moves to privatize and militarize public education in Chicago under the name of Renaissance 2010.
RESPONSE TO READERS: We have been asked to explain some of our stands. Here is an example. Feel free to ask about more…
Readers have said– The Save Senn Coalition has called for removing the naval academy from the Senn High School building, but has not worked to remove the Army Junior Reserve Office Training Program from Senn High School.
The readers, who talked with us at different locations during the March distribution of Anchors Away, made it seem as though we are inconsistent in our stand in some way. We think this deserves a reply. Our answer–
The Save Senn Coalition has three main points of unity–
● further development of the quality of Senn High School as a general community high school,
●removing the naval academy from the school building because it squeezes Senn High School programs and interferes with the full development of the Senn student body,
●opposition to militarization of youth
Because we oppose militarization of youth, we have had many articles about how veterans of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have urged others not to join in such wars, and to resist and get out if they are already in the military. We have urged students to fill out the opt out form to keep military recruiters from legally calling or visiting students at home. It follows from this that we urge all students not to join the Army Junior ROTC or to take up some other military programs or be recruited into the military.
Interestingly, and importantly, many of the students in the Senn Army Junior ROTC are loyal to Senn first, and to the military second. Many have actively worked with the Save Senn Coalition and their fellow students on the campaign to remove the naval academy from the Senn High School building and to keep Senn as a general community high school open to all. We support that stand and, as a result, do not give equal weight to fighting every single battle against militarization of youth all at once.
Since we do support all efforts to end all forms of trying to recruit youth into the military, we urge each of our readers to join with us to accomplish this.
For the Rights of Immigrants & All Workers Rally & March Thursday, May 1st Rally 10 a.m. Thursday, May 1 at Lake and Ashland–Union Park; March at noon
Workers, and students who will become workers, and workers’ families have a big struggle for rights– for jobs, for the right to unionize, for a decent wage, foraffordable health care and housing and quality education, to be free of illegal and unjust wars, to decide the future direction of the government.
This takes unity, among all workers, immigrant and non-immigrant, documented and undocumented. It takes overcoming the attempts by those who try to divide workers, such as by those who cover over the fact it is NOT a crime to be undocumented. It is only a civil violation. It takes overcoming the lies that reduced wages or job loss come from immigrants rather than from corporations who want to make maximum profits at the expense of workers.
The government has conducted massive raids on immigrants, broken into homes with guns drawn, detained citizens and non-citizens alike with no warrants and with no crime committed, disappearing thousands, breaking up families. This is a logical extension of the anti-people government branding whole countries as “terrorist” or “evil” and using this as an excuse to conduct illegal and unjust wars, such as against Afghanistan or Iraq, and to threaten Iran.
Just as many immigrants have been denied their human rights, so many workers have been denied their rights to organize, to go on strike, to have a good quality of life. We need to unite to overcome this problem.
So it is fitting that there will be a rally and march this May 1st, International Workers’ Day, May Day, for immigrant and workers’ rights. Students from a number of Chicago area schools have announced their plans to participate. We hope Senn High School folks will also support the May Day actions. If you have questions, call 773.250.3225.
WINTER SOLDIER– Veterans Target the Crimes Of Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), including vets from Chicago, held hearings March 13-16 in Washington, DC o expose the brutal nature of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and show that war crimes against humanity are a necessary and systemic part of these illegal occupations. And they showed that this is the source of a tremendous amount of guilt that veterans are carry around. Theylso focused on the growing resistance among soldiers to committing such crimes.
A number of people at the hearings have written reports (and live video is archived at ivaw.org/wintersoldier). For example, Elaine Brower, mother of a Marine, writes about the testimony showing that Rules of Engagement are not followed. Instead, young men and women talked about how they shot civilians who were holding nothing more threatening than a cell phone, groceries, a shovel, a white flag, or a pair of binoculars. Anyone deemed suspicious by the particular soldier on watch was fair game to the orders, “Take ‘em out!” The Rules of Engagement, as stated by Garrett Rapenhagen were “a joke and disgrace, and ever changing.” Camilo Mejia spoke about how soldiers were trained to dehumanize the opposition, how they are taught to think of Iraqis as “hajjis.”
The hearings are having a powerful effect in uniting veterans in resistance to what the government has made them do, creating sympathy and support for the huge numbers of Iraqis and Afghanis affected, and calling for an end to U.S. wars of aggression and occupation..
Report on March 19 – 20 Demonstrations, Actions– “Stop Funding War and Occupation. Bring All the Troops Home Now”
These demonstrations and actions were quite successful in Chicago, involving thousands of people in rallies, marches, and various forms of direct action. They brought out that we are facing a continuing brutal occupation with no end in sight, hundreds of thousands dead and maimed, and a trillion dollars of American taxpayers’ money spent for death and destruction. Yet what do presidential candidates and prominent Republicans and Democrats stand for--More
military spending, no vigorous opposition to torture, bankrolling Israeli occupation of Palestine and starvation in Gaza; threatening U.S. aggression against other countries including Iran to make them follow U.S. commands. Actions continued into Easter Sunday, with the interruption of service at Holy Name with Cardinal George calling on parishioners to support the aims of the anti-war protesters (although not their methods).
Oppose the Terror Training of the U.S. School of the Americas
The struggle to close down the U.S. government terrorist training facility at Fort Benning, Georgia, called School of the Americas, continues as a number of people enter federal prison for entering the military base and making political statements there. Tens of thousands have been rallying in front of the base each year, with more each year, in an attempt to force closing of this school. In late April there will be an international time of action. Call 250.3225 for more information or see www.soaw.org