Parents, students and community members of a South Side neighborhood brought their demands for a new school and library to Mayor Richard M. Daley's doorstep this morning.
About two dozen residents of the Altgeld Garden neighborhood demonstrated outside the mayor's City Hall office. They're asking for repairs to their library, which was damaged in a spring flood.
Without it, they say, students no longer have a place to access the Internet, do homework and prepare for college-preparatory exams.
They also continued to speak out in favor of a new neighborhood school, which they proposed at this month's school board meeting. Students from the area attend Fenger High School, which residents say has become increasingly dangerous since the beating death this fall of student Derrion Albert.
The proposed new school would be located in the closer Carver Military Academy.
Protesters spent a few minutes this morning at the mayor's door, calling for him to come out and speak with them.
"We don't have no library. We don't have no school. So, Mayor Daley, what you want us to do?" they said.
Residents have been asking to meet with the mayor since Albert's death, says Cheryl Johnson, executive director of People for Community Recovery.
The mayor has instead delegated staff members to hear concerns.
Daly wasn't available Wednesday morning, butspokesman Lance Lewis talked briefly with the protesters.
"I feel like Fenger is not a safe environment," student Deontea Jones told Lewis. "We need some type of support and (the mayor) needs to get back to us as soon as possible."
Lewis took a statement from the community addressed to the mayor and left after about 10 minutes. Community members still want to meet with Daley, Johnson says.
"We're tired. We need some action," Johnson says.
About a dozen Fenger students came to the protest and expressed their frustrations over not having a library or neighborhood school. For the students in Altgeld Gardens, getting to school everyday means taking two buses and walking across gang lines.
"It's not fair that they have to cross gang lines and have their lives threatened to get an education," says Aisha Elamin, who is a member of Teachers for Social Justice.
Teachers for Social Justice is a group of teachers, administrators and educators across the city's universities and public, independent, alternative and charter schools who are committed to education for social justice.
"It's escalated to everybody getting jumped on. It's gotten worse and worse," Laws says.
Alton Spikes is also experiencing violence in his first year of high school. Spikes says he has been in fights and been jumped at school more than once. Although security has increased since Albert's death, violence still exists, Spikes says.
"It doesn't help," he says.
Spikes is attempting to transfer out of the school, and more than 150 have asked to transfer, CPS Chief Administrative Officer Robert Runcie said at this month's school board meeting.