On August 16, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, public school officials showed up with an order to vacate the building known as “La Casita.” La Casita is a former field house on the Whittier Elementary School property that parents, students and teachers have fought to keep open.
In 2010, parents occupied the structure for 43 days and won the right to make the building into a library and community center. In the past two years, parents have raised money to make renovations on the building and bring it up to code. Since the building has been made available to the community, books, furniture and an accessibility ramp have been installed.
The Chicago Public School officials showed up just as a community dance class was starting. They issued the order to vacate because the demolition was going to begin. Parents and students began protesting the order and called on community members to join in.
The Chicago Police Department sent over 30 officers to enforce the rule of CPS and pushed protesters out of the building, arresting three people for not vacating. A private construction company, protected by the police, threw away the donated books and removed all materials from La Casita.
Community responds with protest
The community responded, surrounding the school as barricades and construction fences were put up to block the view of La Casita. The protest grew as the night went on, with about 75 parents, students, teachers and community activists gathered outside the school to demand an end to the demolition. At around midnight, the construction company left and CPS promised a meeting with parents.
The next morning, demolition crews arrived at La Casita to begin the final stages of the demolition. The bulldozers were met with a picket line formed by students, teachers and parents. Seven more people were arrested while blocking the entrance to La Casita. Within an hour, the demolition began as parents and students watched from behind barricades. Parents and teachers cried and chanted, “Destroyers of libraries, destroyers of lives!” as they watched La Casita turned to rubble. The parents, students and teachers began marching on the streets in anger and frustration at a system that is taking away their future.
Emmanuel’s assault on schools and teachers
It is highly likely that Mayor Rahm Emmanuel gave the orders, especially considering that CPS signed a letter to the Whittier students and parents in 2010 promising that the center would not be demolished.
In line with national corporate “education reform,” Emmanuel clearly aims to demolish public education and smash or greatly weaken the teachers’ union. The provocation of the teachers, the school closings, the mass layoff and now the demolition of La Casita, seemingly out of the blue, highlight a clear progression of aggression.
Emanuel has shown that he has no respect for legality, from the cancelation of teachers’ raises, to the demolition of La Casita, to the school closings.
The only way to save public education is to build a mass movement, with the teachers’ union as a principal component, to wage a broad, political class struggle against the assault on public education.
