CPS runners get to starting line after legal battle, ruling
The mood was one of resignation when the Taft High School girls crosscountry team finished practice Friday evening.
The girls commiserated with one another, noting that it was unfortunate their season would end without hopes of competing in the postseason due to Illinois High School Association rules regarding the teachers strike. They knew there may be a slim chance of a last-minute ruling in their favor, but they believed it was all but a lost cause.
Still, they congratulated one another on a good season, happy to practice together one last time during the cross-country season.
But about 15 minutes after Taft senior Marie Keating arrived home after practice, she got a call.
“You can run,” a coach told her.
Keating stood with her teammates Saturday morning, mud-spattered and shivering after finishing the girls sectional race at Lake Park High School in northwest suburban Roselle. The runners were triumphant and grateful to participate after a group of CPS students just the evening before won a hard-fought legal battle that allowed CPS students to compete in the IHSA cross-country sectionals Saturday. State finals will be held in Peoria on Nov. 9.
“It was really hard to know that something completely out of my control could take something that’s part of me away,” Keating said.
The student-athletes won the right to run in the meets late Friday after a string of losses during the longest teachers strike in decades. The strike, which began Oct. 17 and ended Thursday, spanned for 11 missed school days and won teachers a historic contract.
In the middle of the strike, 14 students from Jones College Prep lost a suit they filed late last month against the IHSA that sought a temporary restraining order to allow the runners to participate in postseason competition. The IHSA does not allow athletes to enter postseason competition if their districts are embroiled in a strike, or to join in the middle once a strike has settled.
The IHSA board rejected an appeal from the students on Friday morning, saying it wouldn’t be fair to athletes in other sports, but a judge ruled in favor of the runners on Friday night.
“I’m tired of adults determining whether a child gets to have a childhood,” Associate Judge Neil Cohen said when giving his ruling.
Sophia Rivera, a 16-yearold junior at Lane Tech High School, was checking her email nearly every hour Friday evening, waiting to hear whether she would be allowed to run.
Finally, word came through that CPS students would be allowed in the race.
“It was definitely a shock,” she said.
Dozens of CPS students ran a muddy and waterlogged course, one day after returning to school following 11 missed days.
Keating said it was good to see her teachers again who told their students they felt bad they had to miss postseason competitions. She was touched that teachers, with worries about missed paychecks and catching up on the curriculum, were concerned about their students’ extracurriculars.
“It’s been a wash of excitement and apprehension,” she said.