|
|
 |
| Rev. Jesse Jackson.(Getty Images/Spencer Platt FILE) |
Posted: Tuesday, 13 October 2009 9:36AM
Rev. Jackson: teen violence a 'state of emergency'
Bernie Tafoya Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780
|
CHICAGO (WBBM) - Rev. Jesse Jackson says there's a "state of emergency" in Chicago over the issue of students trying to travel safely across neighborhood lines to the schools they attend.
He highlighted that this morning by taking a yellow school bus from the Altgeld Gardens housing development to Fenger High School, the school 16-year old honor student Derrion Albert attended before being beaten to death recently on his way home.
Rev. Jackson says students from Altgeld Gardens should not have to travel 4 1/2 miles away to Fenger High School when Carver Military Academy is a five minute walk from their homes.
Carver is one of the city's selective enrollment schools like Whitney Young, Payton, and North Side Prep.
Rev. Jackson says that, if students must be bussed, they should be bussed "up" to Payton or Nequa Valley (in Naperville), "not over".
The Operation PUSH leader suggests, in the meantime, that parents from Altgeld Gardens be hired to safely ensure student safety to and from school.
He also says he'd like to meet with Mayor Daley about the issue.
One Fenger High School senior who lives in the Gardens, Christina Bass, tells Newsradio 780 she never had a problem at school regarding where she lives until people started making an issue of it following the murder of Derrion Albert. Now, she says, she and other young people who live in public housing are ostracized at Fenger by students who do not live in the CHA.
|
Contents of this site are Copyright 2009 by WBBM.
|
|
|
|
E-Mail Story
Print Story
