City has ordered gas turned off at parent sit-in for library. [View All]

[madfloridian]

Here is the breaking news from Chicago.

Gas cut off -- field house sit-in in Pilsen continues

The gas has been cut off at an elementary school field house in Pilsen where dozens of parents have been staging a sit-in for nearly three weeks in hopes of convincing Chicago Public Schools to remake the building into a library. Araceli Gonzalez, a parent who has joined dozens of others in protest at the Whittier Elementary School field house, said three workers arrived at about 8:15 a.m. in a Peoples Gas truck to dig a hole on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, Gonzalez said parents heard a noise coming from the pipes and smelled gas. Then everything went quiet, Gonzalez said, and the crew left.

"We are going to continue being here," said Gonzalez, who has a 10-year-old daughter at Whittier Elementary School, 1900 W. 23rd St. "They are not going to intimidate us."

Peoples Gas said CPS ordered the gas to be turned off so that the field house could be demolished.

Gonzalez and other parents have camped inside the field house for 20 days to keep CPS officials from leveling the building. Instead, they want CPS to use the money it has allocated for the demolition -- about $500,000 -- to fix the building. CPS officials, however, say the field house has become too dangerous to inhabit and must come down to expand the play area with synthetic field grass.

The parents feel repairs can be made much more cheaply than demolition.

I just wrote about this 16th day of the parent sit in in Chicago. They have turned a field house at the school into a library for their children. Since Chicago seems proud that 160 schools don't have libraries they don't seem to appreciate the sit-in.

Here are some pictures and more about the activist parents.


Putting finishing touches on the library


Children race to open the new library.

Surrounded by pots of food and refrigerators filled with milk and pop, Pilsen parents vowed Friday to remain entrenched through the winter in a field house that officials want demolished but parents want converted to a library-parent center.

"We're here, and we're going to stay here until we get the library the way we want it,'' Pilsen resident Evelin Santos said of the Whittier School field house that officials call a safety hazard.

..."The battle entered its 16th day Friday, as dozens of parents and residents refused to vacate the building at 1900 W. 23rd St., known as "La Casita'' -- frustrating a Chicago Public Schools plan to raze it and put down artificial turf. Chicago Teachers Union officials on Friday dropped off more than 500 books to the makeshift library, decorated with handmade curtains and donated bookshelves, that parents opened in La Casita this week.

..."Parents want to continue those services, and add a badly needed library for kids and adults, Santos said. However, CPS spokeswoman Monique Bond said more than 160 CPS schools don't have libraries.