A $4.5 million field renovation for Steinmetz was announced at a press conference on June 19.

The project, to be finished by summer 2018, includes an artificial turf football/soccer field, natural grass baseball and softball fields, drainage infrastructure, an asphalt running track with rubberized surface, fencing, seating and equipment, a public address system and electronic scoreboards and drinking fountains.

(Principal Stephen Ngo speaks at the June press conference. Photo by Tyrek Gates.)

“In addition to the mayor and CPS, we need to thank the Chicago Cubs, LISC, Northwest Side Housing, Alderman Villegas’ participatory budget proceedings and our own students and LSC, especially Ms. Valentin,” Principal Stephen Ngo said.

Prior to CPS budgeting the project in its capital building plans, Ms. Valentin had headed an effort that obtained a $50,000 grant from the LISC/Cubs Charity and worked with Alderman Gilbert Villegas to obtain Ward 36 Participatory Funding money for a “field of dreams.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel also spoke about LSC President Vanessa Valentin’s talents in fund raising and school advocacy.

“We could use her in Springfield,” he said.

Mayor Emanuel came to Steinmetz to make the announcement about the field renovation (and Steinmetz’ partnership with Robert Morris University) on one of the last days of the school year when freshmen were receiving year-end awards.

Principal Ngo told the assembled students that he had a special announcement from CPS CEO Forrest Claypool. Mr Claypool described the renovations that would be made to Steinmetz’ front campus. He then introduced Mayor Emanuel.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Alderman Gilbert Villegas (36) and other city and school dignitaries pose with students, many on sports teams that will use the new track and fields. Photo by Tyrek Gates.

“My biggest take away from this is that folks are investing in us because they believe in us,” Principal Ngo said in an email to staff.

Mayor Emanuel said he knew that Steinmetz students and staff have been working to move the school forward and he hopes that the upgrades would help continue that growth. He greeted the freshman teachers, asking about what each taught.

Mayor Emanuel also met with students who were on the stage. Some of the students were surprised to shake his hand because of his missing finger, which he had lost when he worked at Arbys when he was a teen.

When the students grasped what was to come from the upgrades, freshman Litzy Ocon said that Steinmetz needed upgrades inside as well, citing the bathrooms as a particular concern.

Nadig reporter Cyryl Jakubowski, a Steinmetz graduate, wrote the following piece about the press conference, with additional information he obtained in an interview with Principal Ngo.

Steinmetz HS to get new athletic field by next year

http://nadignewspapers.com/2017/06/29/steinmetz-hs-to-get-new-athletic-field-by-next-year/

by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI, June 29, 2017

The aging football field, the dirt and gravel running track and baseball and softball diamonds that have lost their shape over the years will be replaced by next year at Steinmetz Prep High School, 3030 N. Mobile Ave., Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools have announced recently.

Emanuel said that as part of the city’s efforts to modernize city high schools, Steinmetz has entered into partnership with Robert Morris University to bolster post-secondary success and construction of a new state-of-the-art athletic field would enhance recreation at the school and in the community, according to a news release.

“The investments at Steinmetz are crucial in ensuring students and families have access to high quality programs that will increase college and career readiness for our graduates,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “This is yet another example of how we can work together to invest in Chicago’s future and provide students with the resources necessary for a brighter future.”

Work on the athletic field is scheduled to break ground this year and it will be installed by summer of 2018 and cost $4.5 million, funded by proceeds from the capital improvement tax, according to the release. The tax was approved by the City Council in 2015 and can only be used for capital projects.

However, Steinmetz principal Stephen Ngo said that the genesis of this “Field of Dreams” began much earlier in the year. He said that Steinmetz has raised $175,000 for this project inclusive of 36th Ward and 30th Ward menu funds and grants from the LISC/Chicago Cubs Charities and the Northwest Side Housing Center.

“I want Steinmetz to be a community school and I want the school to be a big part of the community. I want the community to use that new field,” Ngo said.

Ngo said that the aging field was “in bad shape when I got there in 1997” and that it needed to be updated. “The track has grass growing all over it,” Ngo said.

The field will replace the school’s existing field and include a football and soccer field made of artificial turf, an 8-lane running track with a high-performance overlay and baseball and softball fields.

Alderman Gilbert Villegas’ (36th) director of policy Justin Heath said that the baseball and softball fields would have natural grass, that the track would be an asphalt track with a rubberized surface, and that there would be athletic field fencing, seating and equipment.

Also, Heath said that the field would have a public address system and electronic scoreboards, ADA improvements, earthwork and sodded lawn, field drainage infrastructure, bleachers with a press box, drinking fountains, safety and security improvements and the removal of furnishings, playground and utilities.

“I’ve worked a lot on this project (with the alderman) and what I don’t like is that this is being characterized in some articles that this is a way of bringing Steinmetz back. Steinmetz has been on its way back for a while and I think that this is rewarding success and making safety improvements to the community rather than because Steinmetz is going down,” Heath said.

Ngo said that enrollment has bee declining at the school. He said that 1,355 students were enrolled at the end of this school year and he was forced to layoff staff, including a librarian. “About 5 years ago there were 1,700 students so there is no question that were are losing enrollment. However, there are a lot of good things happening at the school and the metrics are up.”

Ngo said that he doesn’t know the reasons for the decline in enrollment. “There is no gang problem at Steinmetz. Are there students that might have gang affiliations, sure, but there are no gangs issues here,” he said.

“The biggest problem we do have is social media stuff. Someone posts something on social media and it’s he said she said and they come back Monday morning and there are problems,” Ngo said. “It’s harder to say something to someone’s face and social media creates an opportunity and makes it easier to criticize. I think the students need to learn that that can cause problems in real life.”

The partnership between Robert Morris University and Steinmetz began earlier this year. The partnership provides college credit and higher education experiences for students to ensure that Steinmetz students, their families and students from participating elementary schools have a strong foundation for academic and post-secondary readiness.

“I’ve always wanted for Steinmetz to offer programs that improve the students’ post-secondary education. One of our goals is to prepare students for post-secondary education,” Ngo said

The partnership provides opportunities to earn college credit though dual credit and dual enrollment courses as well as hands-on college readiness experiences to expose students to college life through campus visits, seminars and mentorship programs, according to the news release.

The partnership has involved more than 650 junior and senior students in various activities. Over the course of the school year, students also met with university alumni, explored athletic and performing arts opportunities and were assisted in the college application process.

“As we work toward a future in which every CPS student has a plan for post-secondary success, CPS is committed to leveraging key partnership that will help us provide students the tools needed to pursue their dreams,” said CPS chief executive officer Forrest Claypool. “Through this unique partnership with Robert Morris University, families, educators and the entire school community are coming together to effectively support students as they prepare for a lifetime of success.”

PS chief education officer Dr. Janice Jackson said that preparing students for college should be a community effort.

“From seminars at elementary schools, to college visits, to Parent U courses on financial aid, this groundbreaking partnership is paving the way for the future. Supportive families and communities lead to better outcomes for our children, and we will continue to find innovative ways to bolster opportunities for our students,” Jackson said.

As part of the partnership, 66 students participated in dual enrollment or dual credit courses, 150 juniors and seniors participated in an “on-campus” seminar designed to give students a hands-on understanding of college life, 120 elementary school students from Camras, Locke, Lyon schools participated in a “College Awareness Day,” 150 parents participated in courses at Parent University, 24 students were awarded scholarships totaling $502,000 to attend Robert Morris University and nine student-athletes have signed letters of intent to participate in athletics at RMU this fall.

Ngo said that the school has seen its share of ups and downs. “We go from the opposite ends of the spectrum here. Recently a student was shot. He is fine. But it’s things like that. Last week the mayor came over with his big announcement,” he said.

Ngo said that a number of note worthy events have happened at the school in recent years. He said that when the school’s newspaper, the Steinmetz Star, was having financial trouble, Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner donated funding to keep the newspaper operating and even attended the high school as part of a ceremony with his entourage. Hefner graduated from Steinmetz.

Ngo said that comedian and actor Hannibal Buress, who graduated from Steinmetz, spoke at the graduation ceremony last year after seniors in that graduating class had asked him if he would be the keynote speaker. Buress agreed. Ngo said that media were not allowed at the ceremony because “he was there for the students and the cameras would be there for him. And it was their day.”

Ngo said that Chance the Rapper has donated $10,000 for an arts program at the school this year, one of a handful of schools that he has donated money to this year.

“There is a lot of good opportunity here,” Ngo said. “A staff member once said that ‘In order to have good neighborhoods you need to have good schools and to have good schools you need to have good neighborhoods.’ It’s an exciting time.”

The new field at Steinmetz follows the recent opening of the PCC Community Wellness Center at the school. In September 2016, Steinmetz partnered with PCC Community Wellness Center to open its first school-based community health center. The facility provides access to comprehensive primary care and behavioral health services to residents of the Belmont-Cragin, Dunning and Montclare communities as well as Steinmetz high school students.

The Steinmetz community has come together to demand fairness. Alderman Gilbert Villegas (36), students, teachers, parents, Local School Council (LSC) members and community members are protesting a $75 million CPS building proposal that would hurt Steinmetz.

The proposal calls for taking away three elementary feeder schools – Dever, Bridge and Canty – from the Steinmetz boundaries as part of  a “Taft South” grades 7-9 school to be built at Oak Park Ave. and Irving Park Rd. Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38) has presented the proposal as a solution to overcrowding at Taft High School, 6530 West Bryn Mawr. 

Senior Ryan Allibone (being interviewed by DNAinfo’s Alex Nitkin) and 20 other students went to the Jan. 25 Board meeting to show their concern, and stand with their teachers as they testified during public participation. Half of the students were turned away from CPS headquarters at 42 W. Madison St. because the Board seating is so limited. (Star photo)

The Dec. 1, 2016, CPS Supplemental Capital Budget slates $75 million for “New Northwest Middle Grades School Construction.” 

Teachers Sharon Schmidt and Renato Roldan testified at the Jan. 25 Board of Education meeting that the school would decrease Steinmetz’ enrollment. See cpsboe.org for the video, beginning at 2:12.

They questioned how the Board could afford to build a new school it does not need; Steinmetz and other neighborhood area high schools are under-enrolled.

“When we barely have enough money to pay our light bill, why are we buying a new Corvette?” Mr. Roldan said.

Ms. Schmidt said the plan would divert white students from Steinmetz, a school that currently serves 75 percent Hispanic students, 14 percent Black, 9 percent White and 2 percent Asian.

“We want to celebrate diversity, not sabotage it,” she said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is working with Alderman Nick Sposato to expand Taft High School, already the largest and whitest general high school in Chicago, in a plan that would decrease Steinmetz enrollment and take its white population. (Photo by Steven Nunez)

Katie M. Ellis, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Board, followed up with Ms. Schmidt in a phone conversation and email exchange on Jan. 27.

“The Board certainly heard your concerns and multiple Board members asked for more information on this issue,” Ms. Ellis wrote. “In general, they are very concerned with matters of race and equity, and your report that this move would create less equity at Steinmetz was of concern to them.  Please note that the Board would have to vote on any change in attendance boundaries, so they will certainly have to weigh in on this issue.”

Alderman Sposato is working with CPS Dept. of Operations manager James Dispensa to show a need for the new school. Mr. Dispensa spoke at the Taft meeting on Feb. 7 and the next night at Steinmetz, claiming a high school “capacity deficit” on the northwest side. Since the 1990s, Schurz, Foreman and Steinmetz high schools have lost thousands of students while Taft has doubled its enrollement. (Substancenews.net photo)

After DNAinfo and WBEZ reported their remarks, and statements by senior Ryan Allibone, many more Steinmetz community members spoke out against the proposal at three additional meetings held in the next two weeks.  

Mr. Sposato announced his proposal to the wider public on Jan. 31 at a community meeting attended by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. 

When he spoke a week later at the Taft LSC meeting on Feb. 7, Mr. Sposato said the mayor was in favor of the plan: “I’ve got the mayor’s ear,” he said, explaining that he and Mayor Emanuel have talked about the proposal for months. Mr. Sposato also said he has been in regular talks with Alderman Anthony Napolitano (41), whose ward includes Taft.

Alderman Villegas said he was “not happy” at the Feb. 8 Steinmetz LSC meeting, where CPS was represented by James Dispensa, manager in the Dept. of Operations.  Mr. Villegas said that he had been “left out of the conversation” of a proposal that would dramatically decrease Steinmetz’ enrollment. Currently, about 160 students who went to Dever, Canty and Bridge attend Steinmetz.

Mr. Sposato, Mr. Napolitano and Mr. Emanuel did not contact Principal Stephen Ngo or Alderman Villegas while creating the proposal.

“I went to the [Jan. 31] meeting to find out what the hell was going on,” Mr. Villegas said.

Alderman Gil Villegas speaks about the programs and staff at Steinmetz at Alderman Sposato’s Jan. 31 meeting. Plans affecting Steinmetz were made without his input. (Photo by Steven Nunez)

Mr. Villegas said CPS has disinvested in the 36th Ward that includes Steinmetz and Prosser High School, both which could use “dollars and infrastructure work.” The plan to award the 38th Ward a $75 million building “gives me pause,” he said.

For several years, some residents who have not wanted to send their students to Steinmetz have lobbied for a Dunning neighborhood high school. Sposato’s proposal is an attempt to appease these constituents by taking away the Dunning feeder schools from Steinmetz, and using Taft’s overcrowding problem to help justify a new school.

Critics of the plan, including Mr. Villegas, have said that Taft’s overcrowding problem was created by choice. According to numbers provided by Taft principal Mark Girshaber at the Feb. 7 LSC meeting, 13 percent of the students live outside the Taft boundaries.

“Why did CPS allow Taft to accept so many kids?” Mr. Villegas asked. “CPS did a horrible job with overcrowding and creating this situation.”

Mr. Villegas said that Steinmetz is a great neighborhood school that hasn’t done a good job marketing itself. He called on the parents and community members in the audience to be positive: “I challenge you: Help us make Steinmetz a better school.”

The proposal to build a new school in a white neighborhood, to alleviate overcrowding of a majority white school, is typical of Chicago. A July 7, 2016, WBEZ report, “How Chicago School Construction Furthers Race and Class Segregation,” shows the pattern.  The beginning of the report by Sara Karp and Becky Vevea follows:

Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Public Schools has spent millions on brand new schools and expensive additions, even in places where neighboring schools have plenty of space for extra students. This new construction is disproportionately going to schools that serve the white, middle class, sometimes ignoring opportunities to create more diverse schools.

What’s more, Emanuel plans to keep doing this, using revenue from a record property tax hike passed last year, documents obtained by WBEZ show.

Emanuel justifies this spending because the schools are overflowing with students and are short on space.

Some Dunning area residents (many of whom attended Alderman Sposato’s community meeting on Jan. 31, above) have criticized Steinmetz as being gang-infested and violent, despite words to the contrary by actual Steinmetz students and parents who also live in Dunning. (Photo by Steven Nunez)

But there’s been little effort during his tenure to try to get these white, middle- and upper-middle-class students to attend one of the more than 300 Chicago schools that are deemed underused, even when those schools are nearby.

Most of the district’s underused schools serve poor, black and Latino students.

The result is that those under enrolled schools are kept racially and economically isolated and that’s not only expensive, it’s bad for children, says Richard Kahlenberg, an expert on economic integration who works for the bipartisan think tank The Century Foundation.

“We know that in trying to raise academic achievement, providing an economically integrated environment for students is far more powerful than spending extra resources in high poverty schools,” he adds.

William Fleischer, father of a freshman at Steinmetz who attended Bridge elementary, spoke at both the Taft and Steinmetz February meetings. He told Alderman Sposato that he had let him down because the proposal would hurt Steinmetz. It’s a case of “haves and have nots.” (Substancenews.net photo)

Over the past six years, under Emanuel, the school district has spent $320 million on new school construction and is planning to spend another $330 million.

A WBEZ analysis of the $650 million in new school construction shows $475 million or 73 percent of all money went to schools where white students make up more than a quarter of the student body. That’s in a school system in which only 12 percent of Chicago’s schools have more than 25 percent white students.

The WBEZ report includes many examples, including the situation with Taft:

Another one of the mayor’s ideas would be to add a $50 million junior high through high school on the Northwest Side that would likely go toward relieving crowding at Taft High School. Taft is half white and 50 percent low income. Yet, many of the high schools around it are seeing dwindling enrollment and could comfortably serve hundreds more students.

Dan Zimmerman, who resigned his post as principal of Foreman High School this Spring, says he has suggested to officials that they should move Taft’s boundaries and route more students to Foreman. With Foreman struggling to attract students, he doesn’t understand the hesitance.

Some of the LSC members on Feb. 8 – teacher Robin Russo, parent Cassandra Hernandez, student Crystal Roman, President Vanessa Valentin, community rep Jose Quiles, Principal Stephen Ngo, with Alderman Gil Villegas. Ms. Valentin demanded of CPS: “How does this plan benefit Steinmetz?” (Substancenews.net photo)

* Jade Aguilar, Ryan Allibone, Lexi Rosch and Star adviser Sharon Schmidt contributed to this piece.