Lisa Brock feels like she’s in the ’50s. The Fulbright scholar and mother of Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences’ highest ranking sophomore is at the center of what she called a “racialized” fight, sparked by her recently won Local S
Supported by scores of African American and Latino parents, Brock was elected to the LSC at CHSAS, a magnet school in the predominantly white community of Mt. Greenwoodûa Southwest Side neighborhood that is home to several Chicago policemen and firemen. Last Tuesday, four white parents along with members of the the Mt. Greenwood community, appeared before a Board of Education attorney requesting a recount of the April 16 vote.
They accused Brock and her supporters of fraud and intimidation, and the election judges of negligence. The real issue, Brock said, is what she represents. CHSAS, which draws some of city’s brightest students, is 55 percent Black, 29.5 percent white and 11.6 Hispanic, according to Chicago Public Schools data.
However nine of the 12 LSC members are white and male, a reflection of Mt. Greenwood which is 91 percent white, according to 2000 census data. Six parents, two community members, two teachers, the principal and a student sit on the LSC, which selects principals, and approves the school’s budget and improvement plans.
Brock did not pay much attention to her LSC until last fall when the principal’s post became open. The the council selected William Hook, a white man with no high school administration experience, over Martha Hamiltonûa popular Black assistant principal, who had been at CSHAS 12 years. A Black staff member at CHSAS, who did not wished to be identified, said that the LSC fought Hamilton’s candidacy in a three-hour closed session.
“It was really about an urban school being in a predominantly white neighborhood. They don’t want too many of “us” to take over,” the staffer said. Students were disappointed, Hamilton left the school and Brock decided to run for a LSC position. “I ran (because) one quarter of the school’s demography had disproportionate influence,” she explained.
She reached out to Black and Latino parents, and formed a voting slate with Milton Garrett, Barbara DeKerf-Simoda and Elizabeth Perrine ûwho had all supported Hamilton. The election was hotly contested with a record 771 votes castûdouble the previous election year.
When the dust settled, Brock, Garrett and DeKerf-Simoda were elected, and members of the current council served them with a petition for a recount. At a May 19 hearing, protestors claimed that Perrine was soliciting votes, described a supporter of Brock’s as “intimidating,” and pointed out that two of five LSC election judges left early.
Perrine and Brock denied all allegations, and countered that the election results were certified on the day they were tallied. But Michael McGrath, a white Mt. Greenwood resident who supports the recount, admitted that Brock and her slate’s support of Hamilton is at the heart of the issue. “(Under Hamilton) the school didn’t give the community members, from what I understand, the choice of getting their kids in there. It was open lottery.
The newer principal, Mr. Hook, straightened everything out and didn’t make a general lottery,” said McGrath, a fireman with a 14-year-old daughter at CHSAS. “We have to live in the City of Chicago, because we’re firemen. I can’t afford to send my kid to a Catholic school, and (CHSAS) is a very good schoolÃ
There’s no reason we should send our kids 15 miles on a bus when there’s a school in our neighborhood. That’s crazy,” he said. But according to CPS spokesperson Malon Edwards, the lottery process did not change under Hook. Forty-five percent of students are selected by sibling lottery, 30 percent by proximity lottery, 20 percent by citywide lottery and 5 percent at the principal’s discretion.
On June 4, the Board of Education will decide if there will be a recount. In the meantime Brock, who chairs Columbia College’s Liberal Education Department, is incredulous. “I’m an educator, I got a Ph.D. from Northwestern, you’d think they’d want me on the LSC,” she said with a wry laugh. “Their concerns are just racialized code for, ‘We don’t want Black kids in our neighborhood.’”
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