Parents and community activists in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Bronzeville on Chicago’s south side, as of Sept. 1, were in the third week of a hunger strike that began on Aug. 17 to demand the reopening of a neighborhood high school as an open-enrollment, district-run school.

Chicago Public Schools announced in 2012 that it was phasing out Dyett HS due to low test scores. New students were not admitted after that, and in June the school’s final graduating class had only 13 seniors.

The fate of Dyett has become a rallying point in a community that has seen more than 15 schools close in just over a decade. Open-enrollment high schools in particular have become few and far between.

“The city has sabotaged our community, which we know is undergoing gentrification. Why would they close the only neighborhood high school left for our children?” asked grandparent Irene Robinson, one of the group engaging in the hunger strike.

Robinson and other members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School have submitted a proposal for the school system to reopen Dyett as a district-run, green-technology school with partners that include the Chicago Botanic Gardens, the DuSable Museum of African American History and others.

In These Times, Aug. 24
Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 24