Photo by: Jackson A. Thomas

The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC,) 1751 W. 47th St., is one of the oldest nonprofit community organizations in the United States. The council serves a great area of Chicago’s South Side and neighborhoods within the community. Residents of these communities experience high unemployment, juvenile delinquency, poor housing and education problems.

The BYNC after-school tutoring programs offer children and students with potential the hope they need to dismiss negative images and stereotypes of the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

According to David Lopez, a tutoring instructor in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, the BYNC’s programs are designed to aid students from local schools and help them improve in their homework and study skills.

Lopez said the program focuses mainly on math and reading because these are the subjects he and other volunteers find students need the most help in.

“When we get the report cards, we actually assess what they are doing good in and they are doing not so good in,” Lopez said. “Most the time, like 80 percent of the time, we find math and reading to be the bigger problems.”

While most would assume an after-school tutoring problem would strictly serve students who are close in proximity to the building it is held in, BYNC is not confined to providing help to only those in the neighborhood.

“A majority of students come from local schools,” Lopez said. “We have about 18 students [who] attend here we are currently serving. An average of between four and five [come from] Lara, Hedges, Chavez and Hamline. Other schools we serve are Uno Charter schools. A few students do come from there, such as Marias El Sego, Alexander Graham, Dallas Academy. We use to serve a school by Gold Coast too.”

Lopez said children in this neighborhood need tutoring because of the peer pressure put on them and violence in the neighborhood. Many students have a hard time paying attention or staying focused on what is being taught.

“It can be hard to actually find the time do homework in a violent area,” he said. “It becomes a little difficult, and some students can become inattentive when they are at school.”

Lopez said the after-school tutoring programs were created more than 10 years ago, and they came about because a necessity from students they were actually serving was seen.

“We’re an agency that provides tutoring, after-school computer classes and after-school dance classes. There was a need for students who were in those programs, so out of that came a need that was filled in.”

Samantha Raynoso, a secretary for BYNC, said the programs aim toward children who are between the ages of 8 and 13 years old and are divided into three different groups: 8- and 9-year-olds, 10- and 11-year-olds and 12- and 13-year-olds. She said third- and fourth-graders usually come in from 3 to 4 p.m., fifth- and sixth-graders come from 4 to 5 p.m. and seventh- and eighth-graders come from 5 to 6 p.m. There are a few high school students who come as well, and it’s all based around a class-like structure.

Lopez oversees the process and development of all the students who attend, and he said he has certain volunteers who come in to help. He said some are actually students who have been in the programs before, completed part of or majority of the programs and have moved on to high school.

“They usually come back because they like the program so much,” he said. “Now they want to give help to other students who are here, and some might need community service hours to graduate.”

Although the Back of the Yards neighborhood is predominantly Hispanic, Lopez said the council doesn’t discriminate against anyone, and other students from other ethnic groups have come into the programs in the past. The council does have open registration, so a student would easily be able to join the tutoring programs.

“Students just need to come in and fill out an application,” he said. “The space is kind of small, but we try to take in as many as we can because it’s quality versus quantity.”

Bond said in a phone interview recently that while most schools without libraries do have a “books section” in the classroom, they do not have access to a librarian.

While having librarians in all the schools would be beneficial to teachers and would help to balance their workload, the school system’s current financial restraints would not allow for it, she said.

“There are so many constraints right now with budget cutbacks,” she said. “We’re doing pretty good to even have a teacher available to monitor and to be in the classroom and multi-task.”

Currently, Bond said, students do generally have access to computer labs and online technology, but it is their teacher, and not a designated aide or librarian, who monitors and assists the students online.

In one of the more prominent battles currently being waged against CPS, parents and residents at Whittier School in Pilsen continue to protest by refusing to leave a building on school property that they want converted into a library. On Oct. 7, the city council ordered CPS to halt demolition of the field house. The protesters had been appealing to CEO Ron Huberman with no results.

Ald. Patrick J. O’Connor (40^th) said if necessary, Chicago public libraries would suffice in place of a school library.

“It wasn’t designed that all schools had to have huge libraries because we actually have a library system that is located geographically to serve a lot of schools,” he said.  “So I’m not sure that whether or not there is a library in the building is an indication of whether the building is a good educational center or not.”

He went on to say that having a library was not necessarily key to the success of a school.

“I think the real issue is if they’re going to be looking at school improvements as we have been in the past, you put what they need … It might not be a library they need. They might need a lunch room; they might need an activity center,” O’Connor said.

But Gail Bush, director of the Center for Teaching Through Children’s Books, said libraries are crucial in schools.

She said the way students obtain and sift through knowledge has changed dramatically compared to when O’Connor was in grade school.

“When he was a student, he had to answer the question. Now the students have to question the answer,” she said. “Sources he used were vetted … now sources are vetted by students.”

Bush said this is where younger students need the most help: expanding their research skills, both online and off, developing appropriate online behavior, and determining the credibility of a source. These are all valuable skills that Bush said teachers just don’t have time to focus on.

“In many ways the librarian has become the technological instructor,” she said. “Teachers can no longer close their door and think they can teach students everything. That door has to be open to the librarians whose job is more critical than ever.”

In November 2009, the Illinois attorney general’s office conducted a Cyber Safety Survey of nearly 4,200 Illinois youth from 3^rd to 12^th grades, in an attempt to better understand what communication technology they use and how they use it.

The results indicated that students were an average of 12 years old when they started their first MySpace/Facebook page and an average of 11 when they received their first cell phone. Nearly one-third said they had Internet access on their cell phones.

Beginning with the 2009‑2010 school year, the Illinois School Code states that “a school district must incorporate into the school curriculum a component on Internet safety to be taught at least once each school year to students in grades 3 through 12.”

But Bush said teachers are overwhelmed as it is, and this additional Internet safety teaching will be difficult to accomplish without the assistance of a librarian.

“They (teachers) already have the curriculum they need to cover, so who’s going to do it? It’s not going to be fully developed if you don’t have a school librarian helping to implement it,” she said.

Zebra mussel, sea lamprey, round goby – they’re household names when it comes to Great Lakes invasive species – but which one is the worst for the ecosystem?

That’s what the “Great Lakes SmackDown!” will find out.

We chose eight of the Great Lakes’ most formidable invasive species and we’ll pit them against each other in “lake fights” over the next few weeks. We’ll introduce the contenders – including weight class, fighting skill sets and other information. But you make the  case for which  is the most ecologically destructive for the lakes.

Read more here.

Cover of Historic Photos of the Chicago World's Fair by Russell Lewis

Chicago’s 1893 Columbian World’s Fair, or the World’s Columbian Exposition, was known popularly as Chicago World’s Fair introduced Chicago and the world to the 20th century.

It was the first event of its kind to have a publicity department, and an organized promotional campaign that included two official photographers who were licensed to produce images. Photography by the public was limited and cost $2 a day.

Electric lighting was still novel on a large scale, but was featured throughout the White City and the rest of the Fair. Even State Street was draped with electric lights to promote the Columbia Exposition, as the fair was called.

My grand-parents’ parents met at the World’s Fair, as did my husband’s grand-parents’ parents. For these and many other young immigrants in Chicago in the 1890s, women found work “in service” as ladies, maids or nannies, and men were journeymen, tradesmen, chauffeurs or manual laborers. The World’s Fair was an escape from life’s drudgeries. For less than one dollar a day, you could enter the White City, stroll along the Midway and spend the day in what must have seemed like a dream of a distant future.

The photos in this book chronicle the wonder that was the Columbian Exposition, which was built on the shore of Lake Michigan, rose to shine brightly and literally, with an unprecedented display of electric lighting, and then burst into flames to disappear into the collective memories of Chicagoans and the world.

Russell Lewis’ access to the most extensive collection of photographs of the 1893 World’s Fair held by the Chicago History Museum where he is  chief historian, allowed him to go seek out images that weren’t part of the fair’s official promotion. These  images are not available online, and the images by Arnold, the official fair photographer, are available only from other libraries and archives. Only a single structure from the 1893 World’s Fair, the Museum of Science and Industry, survived into the 21st century. Typically, we see photos of the fair’s lost buildings, most of which burned down in a series of fires between 1893 and 1894.

Lewis chooses a different set of photos that put the fair into a geographic context. Through photos of the “intramural elevated railway” and the electric shuttle trains that moved attendees from the 63rd St. pier, where many arrived by the ferry from downtown, to the fair grounds, we can map the World’s Fair onto the Chicago of the 21st century. The origins of public transportation are evident in photos of the the South Side Rapid Transit, the first elevated line put in operation, built and put into operation to take people from the Loop to the fair. It was originally pulled by small steam locomotive and it was electrified in the late 1890s. The intramural was built for the fair. There are several photos that allow the viewer to see the fair in relation to Hyde Park and downtown.

The photos have been cropped, and some have been cleaned up, but the prints have not been otherwise digitally altered. The captions are informative, but not exhaustive. This makes the book accessible to someone who is new to the World’s Fair, as well as making it a quick reference for those who are interested in architecture or history. The chapter called  “Building the White City” makes Historic Photos of the Chicago World’s Fair a visual companion piece for the exhaustive information about the construction and site preparation in “Devil in the White City.”

The Chicago History Museum has a set of the official images as well as professional images by a number of prominent photographers of the day. If you have any photos of the fair taken by amateurs, the staff would love for you to click on “About the Collection” and then click on “Artifact Donation.” Scroll down to “How to donate artifacts and documents” and fill out the online donation form. Attach a copy of the photograph for the curatorial staff to review.

The book can be purchased from Amazon.com or from Turner Publishing.

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The Judicial Performance Commission Pilot Project is a joint effort by the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a research and advocacy organization focusing on criminal justice reform, judicial election and selection reform, and government effectiveness and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, a public interest bar association dedicated to improving the quality of the legal system by advocating for fair and efficient administration of justice in Chicago.

The two organizations often work together to further our mutual goals of reform, accountability and justice. Together, Chicago Appleseed and the Council comprise a public interest partnership working together through joint projects and publications including:

• The 2009 edition of the Legal Services Directory of free and low cost legal services is now on the website, www.chicagoappleseed.org, and is available in a hard copy edition. We have been publishing this listing and description of free and low cost legal services since 1982.
• A brochure on consumer fraud, Consumer Rights in Illinois, a full-color brochure that includes state and citywide information for Illinois residents to use when reporting complaints. This brochure is printed in English and Spanish, and is distributed free of charge.
• A new edition of the Judicial Directory containing the Chicago Council of Lawyers’ judicial evaluations of all judges sitting in Cook County through March 2009.  The Directory is published both on the website and in hard copy.
• And the soon to be published, 2010 edition of the Tenant-Landlord Handbook, a discussion of rights and obligations for Chicago tenants and landlords that has been publishing for more than 25 years.

Chicago Appleseed’s comprehensive examination of Chicago’s felony trial courtrooms, supported by the Chicago Community Trust, has led to these changes:

• Successfully negotiated the end of videoconferencing in bond court.
• Created an ongoing court watching program at the Criminal Courts Building.
• The addition of five  judges assigned to the Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California.

Chicago Appleseed works with the national Appleseed organization and its pro bono partners, Latham & Watkins LLC and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP,  on immigration reform and issues. They produced a comprehensive report on the immigration courts, Assembly Line Injustice. The Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council are working with the Chicago Kent College of Law to operate a court watching program for the immigration courts in Chicago, and working with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago on self-help materials for immigrants appearing pro se (represent yourself) immigration courts.

The free event will be held at V-live/Fuego on July 29, 2010 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.  All Chicagoland professionals are invited for an evening of networking, appetizers and cocktails.  Our guest speakers will be discussing their career paths and the secrest to their success. Additionally, attendess will have the opportunity to network with our guests and speak one on one to answer any questions.

Special Guests Include:

Keynote speaker – Gery H. Chico
City Colleges of Chicago Chairman and Partner at Chico & Nunes, P.C.

Joseph Chico
Administrative Law Judge, City of Chicago

Sergeant Marco A. Tirado
Intergovernmental Liaison for the Chicago Police Department

Lizveth Mendez
Latino Affairs Liaison in the Strategic Communications Bureau, Office of the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan

Jesse H. Ruiz
Illinois State Board of Education Chairman and Partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath, LLP

Sophie Marie Martinez
Program Manager/Projects Administrator for the Green Permit Program, City of Chicago Department of Buildings
The purpose of LLAA’s Networking Series’ is to both educate alumni and chicagoland professionals but to also bring awareness to the vision and mission of LLAA.

For more information or to RSVP please visit IllinoisLLAA.org and click on their events page.

Old Town School of Folk Music

The Old Town School of Folk Music is planning an August 5 groundbreaking on a new arts education facility at 4543 North Lincoln Avenue.

Read more at Center Square Journal

The Chicago Public Library has resources to not only help get your business started, but help your business grow once up and running.

Here are just a few of the free resources available with your Chicago Public Library card:

- Business Plans Handbooks Database, hundreds of actual business plans which are a model to help you write your own

- Reference USA, a database listing companies throughout the United States, allowing you to create a list of competitors in your zip code or create a mailing list to potential customers

- Access to hundreds of articles from business newspapers and journals, like the Wall Street Journal and Crain’s Chicago Business, this will allow you to search articles about your industry or any other business topic

- Access to hundreds of books about every aspect of small business including, marketing, hiring and motivating employees

Get down to business at the Chicago Public Library. Click here for more information.
Visit the Business Department located on the 4th floor of the Harold Washington Library Center.
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