The school board wants to close four low-enrollment, aging buildings - William R. Harper High School, John Hope Community Academy, Paul Robeson High School and TEAM Englewood Community Academy - to build a brand new, open-enrollment, multi-million-dollar high school. Under the plan, those schools would close the end of the 2017-2018 school year.
Some parents were angry the existing schools would close a year before the new campus is built. It would not open until the fall of 2019. Other parents felt there has to be a little pain, for a whole lot of gain.
"You put the money into the schools that are existing. Stop closing our schools," one CPS parent said.
"Why not raise up a new school where there's programs that our kids can elevate and continue to elevate in their education. Maybe they could be a representative, a president, a governor, from the Englewood community," another CPS parent said.
CPS officials said over the past ten years, Englewood high schools have seen declines in enrollment of 70 to 85 percent.