SCHOOLHOUSE ROCKED
Fights break out at Lincoln Park High School as students conduct sit-in, rally, march: ‘It just feels like everything is falling apart,’ protest organizer says
A week of turmoil led to more uproar Thursday at Lincoln Park High School as families and teachers continued to face a revolving door of administrators and coaches leaving the school under a cloud of allegations.
Students held protests throughout the day, staging a sit-in in the morning before rallying outside and marching around the school. Inside, chaos ensued after several fights between students broke out. Chicago police officers were called into the school and later put a student into a squad car, but no arrests were made. Some students left early.
Meanwhile a student said Thursday he was “shocked” and “angry” when a new administrator at Lincoln Park grabbed him by the face in an incident that was caught on video earlier in the week.
The widely circulated video showed Judith Gibbs, a retired Chicago Public Schools principal put in charge this week at Lincoln Park in the midst of the scandal, grabbing 17-year-old Jovani Muñoz in a school hallway Tuesday while asking to see his school ID card.
The incident heightened tension after the abrupt firing Friday of beloved interim Principal John Thuet and Assistant Principal Michelle Brumfield, and the suspension of the boys basketball season. CPS officials have released broad allegations of misconduct at the school but have not said what exactly Thuet and Brumfield did that led to their ouster.
Chicago police on Thursday confirmed they were investigating one of the incidents in question, a reported sexual assault inside a classroom after school Jan. 13. Though the case is part of what led to the upheaval at Lincoln Park, CPS hasn’t said if there was any alleged wrongdoing or mishandling of the incident by administrators.
“Students are angry,” said Ella Wong, one of the students who organized the protests. “Usually in the hallways everyone’s smiling, everyone’s happy, everyone’s talking to each other. It’s been dead quiet. Nobody’s communicating with each other. It’s really depressing to be walking through the hallway and everybody’s sad, everybody’s heads are down.
“It doesn’t feel like a real school right now. It just feels like everything is falling apart,” Wong said of the leadership vacuum. “We don’t have anything set in place, so it makes it very chaotic inside the school.”
Muñoz, a senior, said the ordeal involving Gibbs began before his first class Tuesday, when a security guard pulled him aside and asked why he wasn’t wearing his ID around his neck as per school policy. That’s when Gibbs got involved and tried to help Muñoz find a lanyard for his ID, he said.
“She reaches for my pocket and grabs my arm,” Muñoz said Thursday, recalling the incident. “Also she tries snatching it and I flinch, I pull away from it. I got nervous. And right after that she grabbed my face, and I freaked out, I was like, ‘I don’t appreciate being touched like this.’ ”
Muñoz said Gibbs immediately apologized after she grabbed his face, “but the shock had just gotten to me, I couldn’t just accept the apology right there.”
He added: “I went to the meeting on Monday, and their No. 1 priority was the safety of the students. And I find that hard to believe after being grabbed by someone of such high rank, someone you allow in the building, meaning you trust them with these students.” Gibbs could not be reached for comment. A letter sent home to parents Wednesday from Laura LeMone, a CPS official in charge of the school network that includes Lincoln Park, said Gibbs chose to step down because she determined “she was not a good fit” for the school. The letter made no mention of the incident or the video.
“I thought it was kind of a lie,” Muñoz said of the letter.
Wong said of the incident with Gibbs that “CPS put the wrong person in our school, and that’s a very big deal.”
“I hope it brings more attention to what the students are doing to show how much we need our administration back,” Wong said.
Much of the frustration and anger directed at CPS by Lincoln Park families has had to do with the minimal information that has been shared about what exactly led to the administrators’ removal, as well as the earlier suspension of head boys basketball coach Pat Gordon.
CPS officials at a meeting on Monday told families they had four investigations open at the school for allegations that included multiple instances of sexual misconduct, retaliation against witnesses, lying to families and financial mismanagement of the athletics program. But specifics weren’t given, and names weren’t attached to individual allegations.
CPS sources have said officials are worried that releasing more information could put certain students involved in the incidents in danger of being further traumatized and victimized.
But the local school council, made up of elected parents, teachers and community residents, has said even it hasn’t received any details, and was given almost no heads up that Thuet and Brumfield would be fired.
The local school council was set to meet with CPS officials at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, but the district canceled that meeting Wednesday afternoon, just as news was breaking about the incident with Gibbs.