CPS students cut class to protest budget mess at Loop rally

Several hundred Chicago Public Schools students risked detention Friday by skipping class to protest budget cuts at a Downtown demonstration, marching with signs and bullhorns in the 90-degree heat.

The decision to cut 8th period music theory wasn’t hard for Lakeview High School junior Sean Valentin.

“It’s my favorite class, but it will probably be cut next year if we don’t do something,” said Valentin, 17, a percussionist in the school band.

CPS officials have warned the district would likely not be able to open schools next fall if the Legislature and Gov. Bruce Rauner can’t pass a school funding budget, a process that has been hung up by the war between the Republican governor and Democratic leaders. Rauner, who on Monday referred to some CPS schools as “crumbling prisons,” was the target of insults on many of the signs carried by students as they marched from the Thompson Center to City Hall, CPS headquarters and back.

Among the slurs: “Rauner is the Nickelback of politicians” and “Rauner puts ketchup on his hotdog.”

A handful of adults hung around the periphery of the throng of students, and though the teens’ frequent calls for the “20 for 20” funding plan that CPS leaders are lobbying for, Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep junior Aaliyah Pearson said there was no coordination with teachers or CPS — and no approval for the walkout.

Pearson said MLK has endured cuts during her three years at the school, and said the building lost all but one guidance counselor mid-year, which makes her wonder if her “college prep” high school will have any staff dedicated to helping her enroll in college when she starts her senior year. And, come Monday, Pearson has more immediate concerns thanks to her unexcused absence from Friday’s 8th period physics class.

“We will probably be getting a detention,” she said.

As the students paused in front of the school board offices on North Dearborn, students on bullhorns called for an elected school board, and complained that the current CPS board appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a “puppet show.”

The district faces a $1 billion-plus deficit in the new fiscal year starting July 1, and already has cut staff from the central office and announced changes to summer school to preserve cash. Schools CEO Forrest Claypool has joined the call for parity in school funding statewide, claiming that while the city has 20 percent of the state’s students, it receives only 15 percent of state spending on schools.

Rauner has proposed a school funding bill that would increase school funding by $55 million, but CPS leaders say the funding formula would actually rob the district of $74 million.