West Side Health Authority, South Austin Community Coalition Council, Westside Ministers Coalition, and the NAACP, West Side Branch are hosting an education town hall meeting on Austin High School next Thursday, June 15. The meeting will take place at the Austin Town Hall Park, 5610 W. Lake St., at 6:30 p.m. Michael Scott, president, Chicago Board of Education, is the invited guest of honor. The local aldermen, state senators, state representatives, and local school principals will also be invited.

The groups are proposing that the Chicago Board of Education vote to permit Austin High School to enroll a minimum of 200 freshmen students this fall 2006 and those students remain at Austin High School until they graduate. The purpose of our proposal is to minimize the displacement of students to other schools outside the Austin community.

The Chicago Board of Education voted in May to modify the attendance boundaries so that Austin community freshmen students will be sent to Orr Campus, Marshall, and Manley High Schools.

Austin High School is being converted to a campus building which will house three small schools. Although one school will open this fall to 200 students, there is no guarantee that two other proposals will successfully emerge from the CPS Request for Proposal process.