The council at Roosevelt High School followed all the rules last year when they hired two security guards to help keep the peace. They posted the position, solicited applications from a variety of candidates, whittled their choices to three, and eventually selected two nearby residents, to be paid from a pool of discretionary antipoverty funds.
The dispute is yet another example of growing struggle between central-office administrators and school activists over how much power local councils–those elected boards of parents, community representatives, teachers, and principals–can exercise in this age of “reform.”
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“The superintendent is telling local schools how to spend their money, and that’s not right,” says Coretta McFerren, a leader of the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, a coalition of reform activists and business leaders. “I think it’s wrong and maybe illegal.”
The problem is rooted in efforts by the city to stifle an increase in violent crime at local schools. At a press conference last February–about the same time Roosevelt and some other schools were hiring guards–Kimbrough, police superintendent LeRoy Martin, and Mayor Daley vowed to assign at least 90 armed police officers to schools throughout the city. They dubbed their efforts “Operation SAFE.”
After some debate, the Roosevelt council decided to spend roughly $40,000 of its $330,000 in state antipoverty funds on the two security guards.
“Mr. Kimbrough made a decision he felt was in the best interest of the schools,” says Halperin. “He was meeting the need and demand for more security.”
Activists also contend that Kimbrough’s directive is illegal because it treads on the authority of local councils.
