Chad Cooper was on spring break with his kids when his teenage son ripped the headphones from his ears and announced that his old Blaine Elementary School principal, Troy LaRaviere, had been fired.
“I was crushed, shocked and angry,” he said. Cooper’s eldest son, a high school sophomore, attended Blaine from second through eighth grade. Cooper’s other son is a current eighth grader at Blaine who has attended since the first grade.
“My oldest son was shocked too, the younger one didn’t quite understand,” he said.“We had a long talk about injustice and corruption after that.”
Chicago Public Schools announced on April 20 that LaRaviere had been relieved of his duties. CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner said in an email statement to Reboot Illinois that LaRaviere had been removed for “alleged acts of misconduct, including violations of a previous warning resolution passed by the Board of Education. A hearing will be held to determine his employment status.”
When school resumed on April 25, parents, community members and CPS employees rallied their support, culminating in a public forum at the Lakeview school hosted by CPS in the evening.
“(LaRaviere) spoke of problems district wide, not just on the North Side,” said Vanessa Herman, a CPS parent who attended the protests with her family in support of LaRaviere.
“I’m unsurprised and furious,” she said. “He has a first amendment right, but he’s being punished. I’m devastated that he’s no longer leading the school.”
But Herman is among some who smell a rat in LaRaviere’s dismissal. LaRaviere is a widely respected member of the CPS community. In the first four years at Blaine, he was awarded Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $10,000 principal merit award three years in a row.
LaRaviere is known to be outspoken, often framed as a critic of the current CPS administration. In 2014, LaRaviere criticized two multi-million dollar deals between Emanuel’s hand picked school board and food service and facilities management giants Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.
“This is an attack on someone who is critical of real problems,” said Anton Miglietta, who is an assistant to the seventh grade science classes at Blaine. His students are building a tour of Lakeview to educate teachers, peers, and new families, and voted to include Blaine right after Wrigley Field. Miglietta spoke to the important role LaRaviere played with his students.
“Young people need someone like him as a role model. This will be a huge hole to fill,” he said.
Sauntering in from the next door over was Corinna Demma holding her young daughter. Demma is a community member and ex-CPS teacher who was attending the forum in solidarity.
“I grew up in CPS, I taught at CPS, and I plan to send my daughter to a CPS school,” she said. “This is completely unjust. They’re going after an advocate.”
When she was nine months pregnant, the city shut down Lafayette Elementary School where she was teaching. She said the school was a beacon in Humboldt Park and had a renowned orchestra, which had received invitations to perform at the Capitol Rotunda in Springfield.
Because she was pregnant, Demma could not find employment. Her termination also came the day before her tenure, and she was forced to start over from scratch.
“I lost everything,” she said. “I started an in-home daycare to provide for myself. It’s these kinds of blow backs that make it worse.”
LaRaviere may lose everything, too, and feels as though he has been blindsided. Late after the news was announced, CPS sent an email 12 hours in advance requesting LaRaviere attend a meeting to discuss his removal, an email he never read because he took the day off to take care of his son.
“I therefore could not attend a meeting that I didn’t know about. Based on the last minute email-only notification, it appears this was the result CPS officials were hoping for,” he wrote on his personal blog. “I still have not been informed of the charges against me”
“We talk about these big abstract problems,” said Cooper, donning a “Stand with Blaine” shirt, which were handed out earlier in the day to protest attendees. “They’re just a bunch of little problems, and they keep letting them slide. It’s heartbreaking.”