Clouds dotted the Chicago sky on Tuesday, blocking out the sun and spreading a chill over what for many Chicago Public Schools students was the first day of the new year.
For some parents on the city’s South Side, concerns about an impending teachers strike that could begin Monday, September 10 gave the day an overcast hue.
Other parents worried about something more basic: their children’s safety.
On the Sept. 2 edition of
Meet the Press with David Gregory
, Chicago Mayor
to a question about Chicago’s violence by saying the following:
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure every child, when they’re going to school, can think about their studies not their safety, regardless of where they live, and that’s my first priority.”
But we heard a different story when we drove to the 6300 and 6400 blocks of South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
We chose those blocks because they had the highest number of non-homicide gun crimes in the entire city between January 1, 2010 and August 23, 2012.
That means assaults, robberies, batteries and other crimes.
With 42 and 39 non-homicide gun crimes respectively, these two blocks alone had more of these crimes than the entire 41st Ward.
As you’ll hear, we spoke to parents waiting for a bus with the children outside of the
housing development.
Several described hearing a shooting the night before.
We also walked to nearby Betsy Ross Elementary School, 6059 S. Wabash Ave.
We also visited the community on the morning of Tuesday, September 4, the first day of school for many children in the city.
Candace Rogers, who dropped her first and third grade students at the school, said she does not allow her children to go outside unless she goes with them.
“My kids is not allowed in this area,” said Rogers, who instead takes her children to Princeton Park in Englewood. “It unfortunate that they can’t enjoy their life. They ask me a lot.”
The sense of danger has mental health consequences for her and her children, according to Rogers. “We don’t live in a good neighborhood where you don’t have to worry,” she said she tells her children. “Not only am I worried, they’re worried.”
Sandra Walker, who dropped off her first grade and sixth grade boys at Ross, adopts a similar approach and has seen a similar mental toll. She moved to the area a couple of years with her children and husband, she said, because of the housing they got through St. Edmund’s Redevelopment Corporation, just a block north.
“I like the home,” she said. “I didn’t know about the crime.”
The number of shootings was so high the first year that Walker said her children became shell-shocked. Each time they heard a car backfire, they ran inside to tell her. This past summer has been better on her block, she said, but she does not allow her children to go outside unless she is with them.
“I don’t like bullets and all that,” said Walker, who plans to join her husband in Dallas after the first semester.
But Marcus Alston, whose son Marcus, Jr. woke him at 7:00 a.m., said it’s important to strike a balance between educating children about the environment in which they live so that they are prepared to handle the dangers they encounter and protecting them from those same hazards.
“I don’t try to hide him from what’s in the environment because I want him to know,” Alston said about the 9-year-old boy. “When they do actually go inside involved, they do want to be entwined with it because you covered them so much.
“So I try to keep it on a 50-50 basis,” Alston said.
