Thanks Rahm and Magic Johnson!: Parents at west side Pre K school clean their children's washrooms

[mucifer]

On Saturday, a handful of pre-kindergarten parents packed yellow rubber gloves and spray bottles of vinegar and baking soda solution and headed to Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School, 2022 W. Washington Blvd., on the Near West Side, where they spent the morning cleaning their children's washrooms.

The parents felt they didn't have a choice: Upon entering the bathrooms, they found pools of day-old urine on the floor, feces smeared on the walls and clogged, stinking toilet bowls. In the past few weeks, the school had an E. coli outbreak and more than half of the kindergarten students missed school because of various diseases, including a stomach bug, diarrhea or vomiting, said Michelle Burgess, head of the school’s parent-teacher association.

Parents claim the unsanitary bathroom conditions, overflowing garbage cans and soiled napping cots are the result of inadequate custodial care following the Chicago Board of Education’s decision last spring to award multi-million dollar custodial management contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.

The decision to privatize much of the custodial work was made in light of "daunting financial challenges" faced by the district, CPS officials have said. Surveys conducted by principals and parent organizations at the beginning of the school year aired numerous complaints of filthy conditions inside some school buildings after the custodial changes.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-parents-clean-west-side-school-20151219-story.html

Magic Johnson's company made millions off this privatization deal. It's sick. It was an $80,000,000 deal. Magic gave $250,000 to Rahm's campaign.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-mayors-race-met-0320-20150319-story.html

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. Are the parents going to clean every Saturday?

I doubt if the bathrooms will stay clean by themselves, or with the services of the two private firms.

[mucifer]

3. I don't know. I think part of the goal was to get media attention.

This made page one of the Trib. I doubt a press conference would have gotten such attention. The dirty schools has been an issue since the privatization nothing was getting done about it.

Kudos to the parents!

[monmouth4]

2. It seems like everything Rahm touches eventually becomes dirty....n/t

[stillwaiting]

4. I'm sure the homes of the 1% are quite clean. Feel better? nt

[FrodosPet]

5. Saginaw school board seeks $450,000 refund from Magic Johnson's company SodexoMAGIC

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2014/02/saginaw_school_board_seeks_450.html

By Lindsay Knake
February 20, 2014

SAGINAW, MI — The Saginaw School District is seeking a refund of $700,000 from food service company SodexoMAGIC and may pursue legal action to get it.

Former professional basketball star and Michigan native Earvin “Magic” Johnson owns 51 percent of SodexoMAGIC.

Saginaw School District in 2011 signed a $3.6 million contract for the company to run the district's food services. The company guaranteed the district an annual savings of $700,000. So far, SodexoMAGIC has paid $250,000 of that total, said board member Rudy Patterson, who made the motion.

The Saginaw Board of Education voted unanimously to aggressively pursue the money owed, resorting to legal action if necessary.

~ snip ~

[Snarkoleptic]

6. "Magic Johnson's company made millions off this privatization deal."

When discussing privatization, I tend to pause the discussion and change the term to "Profitization", then ask for specifics on how adding a profit motive is supposed to lower costs without compromising service.

[CrispyQ]

8. +1

Profitization - I love it & am going to use it! Love your screen name, too!

[KG]

7. rahm is a shitbag.

learned everything i needed to know about the obama adimin when rahm was appointed cos.

[Octafish]

9. Friends.

You gotta go along to get along. Heh heh heh.

[rusty fender]

10. I thought that Montessori schools were private, for profits

[Coventina]

11. Maybe some are, but my niece and nephew attended a public Montessori school here in AZ.

I think "Montessori" refers to a teaching philosophy, and is not a "brand name."

[rusty fender]

12. Thanks for the clarification!

I did not know that

If the conditions described in the post existed in a private home in which kids resided, the state would remove the kids and charge the parents with child endangerment. The State of Illinois should arrest school officials and remove stewardship from local authorities.

[Initech]

16. Well they're not spending their profits on janitorial, that's for sure!

[hunter]

13. When I was a student, later as a teacher, and then as a parent...

... custodians were respected members of public school staff, and paid fairly well too... so far as anyone in public education is.

Privatization sucks. The "profits" are in doing crappy work, and underpaying or otherwise abusing workers.

Privatization is simply another flavor of "woo," nastier than most.

Ayn Rand was no goddess, Rahm's no angel.

Libertarianism, hell modern capitalist economic theory, is all a sick religion.

The lady wearing the purple robes with a house full of crystals and pyramids is probably harmless, so long as her kids are vaccinated.

It's Big Money that's going to kill you.

[Initech]

17. Wish I could rec this post!

Privatization is going to kill us all.

[Initech]

14. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

Rahm is a shitbag, he's the one who should clean that shit up himself. It would be a fitting punishment.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

15. Rahm is in full PR restoration mode

...expect more out of character "come to Jesus" acts. He's about the douchiest Machiavellian around, but at least he's got a reason to pay attention to the invisible, now, and do good deeds. There's no tolerance for his bullying, standoffish shtick. Time to play it humble. After all, the AG took control of the city after he said a federal investigation would be "misguided."

[romanic]

18. Privitization of custodial services is insiduious

and quite popular among school boards and higher education institutions to "save money". I have relatives that used to be custodians for a local university near my hometown. They went from being paid $16 an hour with decent benefits to only getting $9.88 an hour with a skimpy healthcare plan and nothing else. Their equipment got replaced with "newer" models that are harder to use and break easy, and the schedule for shifts were changed to where half of the staff were downgraded to part-time status; working less with less money.

Of course a lot of people quit and were replaced with people who didn't give a damn about the meager wage and the job that came with, and several departments have complained about the poor cleaning around campus. Of course the fat cats blame the workers (the ones that are full-time and still care).

This isn't just a Rahm problem or a Magic Johnson problem; this is all over the country. Private services of any kind ruin wages, services, and standards in general.

[LeftyMom]

19. Uh, if they're concerned about e. coli shouldn't they have used bleach and disinfectant?

I know vinegar is a decent cleaner, but it's hard to make the case that you're concerned about communicable diseases when you're not using readily available germicides.