Responses to Open Letter

As many of you may know, Chicago Students First posted an open letter to both Mr. Jean-Claude Brizard and Ms. Karen Lewis. In addition to posting that letter here at the Chicago Students First blog, Kim and I also emailed it to them directly.

Here were their responses:

"Ms. Shaver, Thank you for your note As you may know we are committed to parents as true partners in the education of our young people. We look forward to working with you. Jean-Claude"

"Please block this address."

As many of you may know Chicago Students First contacted CPS last week to try to garner their help in organizing a parent voice. The only organization in the city that has a list of all CPS parent contact information is CPS, and Chicago Students First wanted to collaborate with them on contacting parents. When we called CPS, we were ultimately told to call 311.

After posting that information on our blog, Mr. Brizard called Chicago Students First immediately, and apologized over the phone that we were told to call 311. He also personally stated his commitment to getting a parent group off the ground once CPS after the strike is resolved.

(His direct number is  clipped from the message.)

Chicago Students First would like to give Ms. Lewis the opportunity to collaborate with us as well. It is imperative that parent sentiment is included in the conversations regarding our children. While we understand that her primary constituency is teachers, we do hope that she wants to include parents in the dialog. If Ms. Lewis would like to partner with us, the email will be forgiven, just as we did with the CPS 311 call.

Our primary objective here is for parents to have a voice about our children's education. We look forward to working with Ms. Lewis and all teachers. Parents want a place at the table.