Parents in Chicago Worry Safe Passage Won't Last

Concerned Chicago parents took time off work or recruited other family members to make sure students got to class safely as school opened Monday.

The first day of school in Chicago also saw an expanded Safe Passage program with hundreds of newly hired guards watching over designated routes.

Chicago Public Schools announced in May it would close about 50 schools. Critics worried kids would have to cross gang boundaries traveling to schools in neighborhoods farther from home.

Annie Stoball walked her granddaughter, 9-year-old Kayla Porter, to Gresham Elementary School in the Gresham neighborhood, about 4 miles south of O'Toole Elementary.

Stoball said she's skeptical Chicago's first-day show of force will last.

"I think it's just show-and-tell right now," Stoball said. "Five, six weeks down the road, let's see what's going to happen."

One of the guards in the Gresham neighborhood, 57-year-old Rochelle Nicholson, said their presence is reassuring to students and is needed "for the children's safety."

There have been a number of shootings along the Safe Passage routes this summer, including one in the Uptown neighborhood on the North Side last Monday. Five were injured and one of the men died last week.

Jennifer Press, who drove her 4-year-old daughter to a preschool program at Gresham Elementary, said gang violence is a concern for her. She has two other young children.

"They will ride to school for the rest of their lives, as long as I'm in Chicago," Press said.

CPS hired an additional 600 workers at a rate of $10 per hour to supplement an existing program known as Safe Passage. The newly hired workers include includes Chicago firefighters and even security guards from local public libraries.

"Safe Passage is about more than just building a route to school," Emanuel told about 1,000 people during a training session last week. "It is about building a route to college, career and beyond, so that once our kids get to school, they get the world-class education they deserve.

"That's a new chapter," Emanuel said. "There is a new beginning."