CHICAGO -- An alternative high school in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood that has served as a “sanctuary” for hundreds of vulnerable Black and brown youth is losing nearly half of its small teaching staff because of budget cuts — a move that employees and alumni say limits the services they can provide and their ability to recruit more students attempting to reform their lives.
“We are the answer to this gun violence. We are the answer to these unemployment numbers. We are the answer to helping those students because every student deserves to be seen. Every student deserves to be loved, and that’s what we do at Association House,” science teacher Andrea Czarkowski Ng told the Chicago Board of Education at its meeting last month.
Czarkowski Ng and two of seven Association House of Chicago teachers are said to have received pink slips in June. And while Czarkowski Ng worries about her future, she is more concerned about the fate of the students at the Youth Connection Charter school, which is said to offer a “new path” to graduation for 16- to 21-year-olds who have been “left behind” by traditional public schools. The school is also expected to lose one full-time and one part-time child care program aide.
