In the two years since its ballyhooed birth, the Chicago Public School Alumni Association has held a student luncheon and a dance and has given away 30 summer school scholarships worth $65 to $115 apiece.
Though its early efforts have fallen short of its initial promise, the volunteer group charged with mobilizing the public schools` most ignored resource finally may be emerging from its malaise and neglect, according to insiders and observers.
”The association was like a picture, with nothing behind the picture,”
said George Munoz, school board president. ”Luckily, some of the people who were brought together around this idea have taken it seriously. They`re picking up the scraps. I think they`re on their way to bringing graduates back to help the schools, and that`s the kind of support we really need.”
The most visible sign of the rejuvenated effort is a slick newsletter recently mailed to 2,000 members and education and civic leaders. The publication, which contains a comparison of the dropout rates in Chicago and Boston, comments from School Supt. Manford Byrd Jr. and a call for volunteers, may be most important as an impetus for foundation grants.
A second student luncheon, to honor National Merit and National Achievement scholarship semifinalists, is scheduled for Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
”We`ve been scraping by, month to month, on volunteered time and about $12,000 in membership fees and donations,” said Elaine Soloway, interim executive director of the group, who conceived the alumni idea while working as public relations director under former School Supt. Ruth Love. Though Soloway later joined a publicity firm and then started her own firm, she has remained an active volunteer in the group.
”What we need is a funding from foundations so that we can hire a full-time director,” she said.
Richard Gray, interim chairman, said the newsletter will go a long way toward showing potential foundation donors ”what we can do on our own and that we`ve really got some committed people working on this.”
The alumni association was begun in August, 1983, by Love as a means to bring back an estimated 1 million Chicago public school graduates to tutor and inspire current students, to lobby lawmakers and to raise money. It is separate from the school system and has never received school funding.
The organization has 500 members but no existing in-school volunteer programs. An executive director could establish such efforts and solicit additional donations, Soloway said.
Prominent public school graduates, including Mayor Harold Washington, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon and businessman A.N. Pritzker, lent their names to the alumni effort, but the political turmoil that followed the school board`s decision in July, 1984, not to renew Love`s contract left the group in limbo, Soloway said. Love`s lame-duck superintendency ended last March, when Byrd took over and reasserted his support for the program.
By reminding graduates of their stake in the schools and the city through the alumni association, pressure might be exerted on schools to improve, said Donald Moore, executive director of Designs for Change, an education and research organization.
”An alumni group that was more than just a booster organization could be an important force,” he said.
”The public schools are in a state of crisis. Kids aren`t learning to read, and half of the high school kids are dropping out. Alums going back to schools and asking hard questions about why those schools are not working could make a real difference.”
