Parents Want Magnet Schools to Remain Integrated

Parents Want Magnet Schools to Remain Integrated

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Some parents from a north-side magnet school have begun a fight to keep Chicago schools from re-segregating.

Parents from Drummond Montessori Magnet School in Bucktown say they’re concerned about what could happen to their integrated school if a federal desegregation order is ended.

The 28-year-old consent decree requires CPS to desegregate as many schools as possible—that’s how integrated magnet schools began here.

Sabrina Craig has a first-grader at Drummond.

CRAIG: The diversity of the city of Chicago is one of the reasons we live here, we raise our kids here. We don’t want to lose it. We don’t want to go back to the 1950s—separate but unequal.

If the consent decree is dissolved, Chicago might not be allowed to use race as a factor to integrate schools.

This week, the federal judge who oversees the order put off a decision on its dissolution to give the public more time to weigh in.

Here is a Columbia College Chicago student project exploring the reactions of parents, educators and community members, to the new socio-economic admissions plan.