The Chicago Public Schools has announced plans to close 61 school buildings, which is about 13 percent of the schools in the system. Fifty-two elementary schools will close after this school year and one will close in two years' time. Additionally, one high school will be shuttered.

Overall, 54 school programs will close completely and 11 will see consolidations. The district also has plans to turnaround six schools, meaning the entire staff will be fired and replaced.

The changes will affect some 30,000 students in the Chicago Public Schools system.

CTU President Karen Lewis made the following statements during a speech at a press conference the union held shortly before the school closure list was made public:

Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care anything about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them. There is no way people of conscious will stand by and allow these people to shut down nearly a third of our school district without putting up a fight. Most of these campuses are in the Black community. Since 2001 88% of students impacted by CPS School Actions are African-American. And this is by design. ... These actions unnecessarily expose our students to gang violence, turf wars and peer-to-peer conflict. Some of our students have been seriously injured as a result of school closings. One died. Putting thousands of small children in harm’s way is not laudatory.

There is no safety plan. There is no transportation plan. The city has already raised CTA fares and now they expect parents to put their five-year-old on a crowded city bus in order for them to get to school, when they used to be able to walk to a school in their neighborhood. The way this is being done is an insult and it is disrespectful. ... I also find it extremely cowardly for the Mayor’s administration to announce these actions while he is vacationing out of town. They are also making this announcement days before people are headed into spring break. CPS has spun our entire district into utter chaos, a management model perfected on Clark Street where they are headquartered.

This city cannot destroy that many schools at one time; and, we contend that no school should be closed in the city of Chicago. These actions will not only put our students’ safety and academics careers at risk but also further destabilize our neighborhoods.

This is why we intend to rally, united and strong, on Wednesday, March 27 to send a signal that we are sick and tired of being bullied and betrayed. Some of us are going to put our bodies on the line—because a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

This is a full list of the closings and consolidations as seen in the Chicago Sun-Times:

• Altgeld Elementary School will be closed into Wentworth
• Armstrong Elementary Math and Science will be closed into Leland
• Attucks Elementary School will be phased out over two years and closed into Beethoven
• Banneker Elementary School will be closed into Mays
• Bethune Elementary School will be closed into Gregory
• Bontemps Elementary School will be closed into Nicholson
• Buckingham will be closed into Montefiore
• Calhoun North Elementary School will be closed into Cather
• Canter Middle School will be closed into Hart, Ray
• Delano Elementary School will be closed into Melody
• Dumas Technology Elementary School will be closed into Wadsworth
• Roque De Duprey Elementary School will be closed into DeDiego
• Emmet Elementary School will be closed into Ellington, DePriest
• Ericson Elementary Scholastic Academy will be closed into Sumner
• Fermi Elementary School will be closed into South Shore Fine Arts
• Garfield Park Prep Academy Elementary School will be closed into Faraday
• Garvey M Elementary School will be closed into Mount Vernon
• Goldblatt Elementary School will be closed into Hefferan
• Goodlow Elementary Magnet School will be closed into Earle
• Henson Elementary School will be closed into C. Hughes
• Herbert Elementary School will be closed into Dett
• Jackson M Elementary School will be closed into Fort Dearborn
• Key Elementary School will be closed into Ellington
• King Elementary School will be closed into Jensen
• Kohn Elementary School will be closed into Cullen, Lavizzo, L. Hughes
• Lafayette Elementary School will be closed into Chopin
• Lawrence Elementary School will be closed into Burnham
• Manierre Elementary School will be closed into Jenner
• Marconi Elementary Community Academy will be closed into Tilton
• May Elementary Community Academy will be closed into Leland
• Mayo Elementary School will be closed into Wells
• Morgan Elementary School will be closed into Ryder
• Near North will be closed into Montefiore
• Overton Elementary School will be closed into Mollison
• Owens Elementary Community Academy will be closed into Gompers
• Paderewski Elementary Learning Academy will be closed into Cardenas and Castellanos
• Parkman Elementary School will be closed into Sherwood
• Peabody Elementary School will be closed into Otis
• Pershing West Elementary Magnet School will be closed into Pershing East
• Pope Elementary School will be closed into Johnson
• Ross Elementary School will be closed into Dulles
• Ryerson Elementary School will be closed into Ward
• Sexton Elementary School will be closed into Fiske
• Songhai Elementary Learning Institute will be closed into Curtis
• Stewart Elementary School will be closed into Brennemann
• Stockton Elementary School will be closed into Courtenay
• Trumbull Elementary School will be closed into Chappell, McPherson, McCutcheon
• Von Humboldt Elementary School will be closed into De Diego
• West Pullman Elementary School will be closed into Haley
• Williams Middle Prep Academy will be closed into Drake
• Williams Multiplex Elementary School will be closed into Drake
• Woods Elementary Math & Science Academy will be closed into Bass
• Yale Elementary School will be closed into Harvard

Check back with progress Illinois for continuing coverage of the CPS school actions.