Brizard Wants Teachers To Make House Calls For Students
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Public Schools chief executive officer Jean-Claude Brizard says some likes the idea of teachers house calls, as one group of charter schools has suggested.
As WBBM Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports, teachers at UNO Charter Schools try to make two visits to students' homes a year to keep families involved.
Brizard says he'd like to see something like that systemwide someday.
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"We need to have a much better connection between the homes and the schools, so I don't know how we could actually implement that, but it's possible, when you look at the number of adults in our system, the number of kids, and the ratio between the two," Brizard said.
A reporter noted that some kids live in dangerous neighborhoods. Would he ask teachers to go those areas?
"Our kids go there every single day, so why not? As a teacher, I visited schools; I visited homes. I'd go through Bushwick, Brooklyn; it was not a cupcake neighborhood," Brizard said. "So if our kids go there every single day, why shouldn't our adults go there too? Why shouldn't we walk in those neighborhoods too?"
The nine UNO Charter Schools are also lengthening their school year without making teachers work more days, and Brizard likes that innovation too. The UNO schools plan to convert days when teachers had worked when students were not in the classroom.
But the Chicago Teachers Union, whose members have just had a promised pay raise taken away, says the Emanuel Administration is coming up with half-baked ideas.
