Opinion: How you can help our kids at Orr High School

Reflecting on Rick Telander’s series of columns in February about Orr Academy High School, our talented basketball team and the circumstances that surround our school, I feel compelled to share some additional thoughts.

As the principal at Orr, I know that my students are immensely talented and capable of overcoming tremendous challenges. I wondered as I read Rick’s words whether your readers felt powerless or wondered what they could do to help our students?

I have a suggestion, but first a little background.

The community surrounding us, filled with the challenges described in Rick’s “A Season Under the Gun” articles, does not reflect the potential in our students — I believe they will “make it.” The key to their success is right here at school. A quality education is the great equalizer, providing them a chance to switch on their potential and create a new reality for themselves.

Through a quality education they can take part in the American Dream, and open up a future that is filled with opportunity. But neighborhood schools like Orr need to be well equipped to provide that quality education, which brings me to my next point.

Schools like ours in disadvantaged communities are desperate for resource equity. The unequal funding Chicago Public Schools receives from the state is just another blow we have to endure as it unfairly limits the resources that reach our students each day. Every new budget cut caused by unequal funding forces me to make choices that are unfair to my students.

We have lost my assistant principal position, my AmeriCorps City Year team, after-school tutoring programs and much more over the course of the last two years. Fortunately, we have been able to sustain the basketball program, which is critical for our school and school spirit.

While CPS has 20 percent of the children in the state, we receive only 15 percent of the funding – this is unequal and discriminatory and it must end. If Illinois would fund CPS at the appropriate 20 percent level, these funds would amount to an additional $500 million each year and allow us to address the needs of our students in a more robust way.

It is shocking to me, especially in the context of the challenges that Telander described, that other districts in Illinois have seen a marked increase in funding over the last school year alone while our funding continues to dwindle. Moreover, with 90 percent of the students in CPS being of color — and here at Orr that number is almost 100 percent — this is true inequality. Our children become the victims yet again, but there is a way to help.

The additional resources we need to make a difference for our students are being hampered by the state’s lack of responsiveness to unequal school funding. I am hopeful that Rick Telander’s series will enlighten people who don’t live and work in neighborhoods such as that in which Orr Academy High School sits, and they will champion our governor and state Legislature to act on behalf of our children.

It is only fair.

Shanele Andrews is the principal at Orr Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side.

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