Supporting Brentano School

A letter from neighbor Kate Kindleberger.Hi Friends and Neighbors,I'm on the Local School Council at Brentano and part of its "Friends of" group, and have started to invest a lot of time and energy in helping make Brentano even stronger than it already is. This week, we need your help.Brentano is a local school that's safe, inviting, and pretty good academically though rapidly becoming much better. It's also a small school with plenty of room to grow without displacing anyone. Unfortunately, the very thing that makes Brentano attractive -- that it has room to grow -- has made it a target for CPS. CPS has labeled Brentano under-enrolled and is looking to close under-enrolled schools.Logan Square has four neighborhood schools you might be considering for your kid: Logandale, Goethe, Darwin and Brentano. The first two are currently full.  If Brentano closes, its students will funnel into Darwin and Darwin will be full also.This week, we really need your help in showing CPS that a diverse group of Logan Square residents wants Brentano to stay. This Friday, from 7pm and 9pm, CPS is running a "School Utilization Meeting" in Horner Park (about 10 minutes north of LS). Brentano parents and teachers will be there to support the school. We are looking for community members to help this cause by coming to the meeting and standing with Brentano parents. It's also possible that if we show strong enough neighborhood support in these coming months, we can persuade CPS to invest in a program (like International Baccalaureate, gifted, or dual-language immersion) that would make the school even more attractive to neighborhood families.The event will be held Friday, December 14 at Horner Park (near the corner of California and Montrose) from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm.  The address is 2741 W. Montrose Ave.,Chicago, IL 60618. Children are welcome to attend.