A new Chicago Public Schools charter that would educate students online from home is illegal, the Chicago Teachers Union said Thursday, threatening a court challenge to the school, which has yet to receive state approval.

“This is not the answer for our students,” teachers union President Marilyn Stewart said at a press conference Thursday at the union’s Merchandise Mart headquarters. “This school is a step back in education reform.”

The Chicago Virtual Academy was approved by the School Board in January and plans to enroll 600 K-8 students this fall.
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The union contends the online setting would violate a state school code that mandates “non-home based” charter schools. Virtual Academy president Sharon Hayes denied the program would be “home schooling children” since they would learn in the classroom as well.

The planned school would enroll students citywide and serve physically disabled and gifted students or those from underperforming schools as part of the city’s Renaissance 2010 initiative. Students would work primarily from home with the help of a parent or another responsible adult.

One of the union’s biggest concerns is that students would be hindered socially and academically.

Jones is in no mood to celebrate.

She’s upset about bad behavior she’s seen. When she picks Amare up after school, she spots kids in the office, sent there for fighting. The other day, Amare came home with a bloody welt.

“It’s in the classroom, after school,” Jones says over the din in the library, which has no books yet. “Why did [their parents] waste time applying to get here? If they’re going to act the way they did at their old schools, why come here?”
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“It scares me because it’s wasting educational time, and some are coming from a place where they’re already behind,” Jones says.
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Makela Howard and another Room 206 student were banished one day for fighting.
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A few poor kids interrupt instruction, but two of her biggest troublemakers are middle-class.

There’s Justyn, whose mom has a college degree. Another girl, whose mother also has a degree and a professional job, knows just which students to needle to cause a fight. She hasn’t progressed academically.
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Amare, it turns out, is half a grade level behind in reading and math. She’s not at the top of the class.

“It makes me question what we’ve been doing the past two years,” a shaken Jones says after hearing the news during a conference at the school. “Apparently we’re not as up to snuff as we thought we were.”
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Donoghue’s two third-grade rooms have more kids significantly below level than any other grade in the building. They also fight, disobey and get in trouble the most.
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Over the next 20 minutes, instead of paying exclusive attention to her group, Brady physically forces one student to sit by himself on the floor, banishes two boys goofing off to their desks and jots down the names of two other troublemakers for lost recess time.
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Miller likes the academics, but Justyn is “hanging out with the quote unquote bad boys, and he’s picking up their bad behavior,” said Miller
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Since November, Empress’ “little tiffs” have grown in frequency. She hoards her materials and lashes out if she feels anyone has wronged her.

On Feb. 6, she hit two students — one who she says hit her first. “I had the right to hit her like my mother told me,” Empress explains to Brady.

And in early February, Amare hit a boy to defend a friend and faced suspension.
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Later, Joslyn is still fuming. Amare follows the crowd, and Jones doesn’t like what she’s picking up at Donoghue. Since enrolling, she uses more street talk — “I be here,” “where she live at?” — and the other day, she told her mom she didn’t like white people.
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“At [Chicago Public Schools], you have to fight all the time — on your way to school, to get your pencil. It’s a mode of survival,” says Howard, who has squeezed into a tiny blue chair before Brady.