CPS Coaches, Struggling, Describe Their Frustration

 

Neal Suwe’s job description has changed.  Instead of teaching and mentoring and overseeing his kids at tournaments, as he’s done for most of his 20 years as chess coach at Kelly High School, he now spends his time trying to raise money through candy sales and skating parties.  His chess players have to help.  He told them recently that being in a Chicago Public School is sometimes like being in a Third World country and that to sustain the team they’d have to raise the funds themselves.  But raising money in an urban, low-income school is easier said than done, says Suwe, and many of his efforts fail.  “I feel like Ralph Kramden with his get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out.  I am one CPS chess coach who sees the writing on the wall that I may soon have to give it up.  I need a lifeline."

If Suwe’s team folds, it will be but the latest casualty of a high school program that has shrunk from more than 40 teams in 1997 to fewer than a dozen today.   

Suwe is one of an increasing number of CPS chess coaches speaking out about problems in the district’s existing program.  Most frequently cited are the absence of funds, support and training and the shortage of opportunities to compete.

The concerns being expressed fall against the backdrop of a proposal to set up a new independent citywide chess program that would both support existing clubs and build new ones.  The proposal is the product of a multiyear effort that included input from CPS officials and coaches, other Illinois chess leaders, and directors of programs in other cities.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly voiced support for a strong new independent program.  ICA has offered to raise the money needed and has a team of fundraisers in place.  But CPS, inexplicably, has said it cannot afford the new program, and is not on board.  See “City Sends Mixed Messages on CPS Proposal,” http://bit.ly/1beARFp.  

Coaches representing more than 80% of competitive players in CPS formed an association last year and wrote to Mayor Emanuel and top CPS officials.  Citing the "gross lack of support" for chess in CPS and the small percentage of schools with quality programs, they noted that not a single CPS elementary or middle school team participated in either state championship that year.  They urged the mayor to move chess out of the CPS Sports Department, where it has been "at the bottom of the totem pole" for 90 years, and suggested that a new program be patterned after the Chicago Debate League, which is run by an independent nonprofit and has flourished.  If that happened, said the coaches, "there is no doubt that chess in CPS would rival any other city in the nation."

Paul Kash coaches the Whitney Young High School team and co-chairs the coaches group.  He recalls coaching in 1997, when high schools had after-school matches.  "There's no school matches anymore," he said. "There's no budget for a bus anymore.  And CPS sponsors only one high school tournament every year.  The program has gone from reasonably decent to nothing."  The problem is not just the budget squeeze, he said.  "I think there has been just some basic neglect involved.  [CPS] didn't prioritize chess in any way."

High school teams wanting more competition have little choice but to try to get to the suburbs, but few can afford it.  Chess is thriving in the suburbs, where some coaches are paid stipends as high as $5,500.  CPS stipends are $440.  65% of Illinois coaches outside Chicago receive $2000 or more.  

Kris Harihara, a volunteer parent-coach at Walter Payton High School, says dealing with CPS is frustrating at every turn.  Phone calls and emails rarely get returned, he says, and the process of receiving certification as a volunteer is arduous.  Knowing that funds would not be available from CPS, parents at Payton raised money on their own to start a chess program and to pay for transportation to the state championship in Peoria.  Even the process of getting expenses reimbursed from their own funds can be stifling, if not hair-raising, Harihara says, requiring considerable paperwork and advance approval.  Running a team as a parent is not a task for the faint-of-heart, he says. 

No one has had it tougher than Joseph Ocol, who teaches math at Marshall High School on the west side and coaches the chess teams at Marshall and at Faraday Elementary School across the street. The student population at both schools is 99% low income and African-American.

Ocol began teaching chess in 2005 after one of his Marshall students was shot and killed.  A primary goal was to keep students indoors between 3 and 6 p.m. when street violence is worst.  He was also committed to making a difference in his kids' lives, and he says he knew chess could improve their academic performance, analytic thinking, and strategic planning.

His teams have enjoyed considerable success.  His Marshall team has won awards at the state high school championship and events out of state.  It has been recognized by the Chicago City Council and Mayor Emanuel.  Many of his Marshall team members improved their ACT scores.  President Obama wrote Ocol this year to thank him for his efforts, and Ocol received a Kathy Osterman Award from the city for superior public service.

More than 100 kids have attended the Faraday program.  Last year, Faraday’s chess kids saw increases in their ISAT test scores, gains attributed by many to Ocol's thriving chess program.

Raising money for his teams is an enormous challenge for Ocol, especially after he was told by his principal at Marshall that no funds would be available this year from the school.  He now spends 60% of his time trying to raise money, but often without success.  Over the past year, Ocol has spent more than $5,000 of his own money to support his teams, providing bus fares, snacks, breakfast, books, training materials and even money for sick family members.  “I don't want to disappoint these kids," says Ocol.  "They already face struggles at home that their families can't cope with, and my heart bleeds for them.  I would rather share what I have.  Who knows, one of them may turn out to be a leader of our country.”  Ocol now struggles to meet his financial obligations to his family. 

***

Elementary and middle school coaches are speaking out as well.  Quan Le, a teacher-coach at Goudy Elementary School, believes that the problems in CPS chess are rooted in a fundamental lack of understanding of the game and its benefits.  One problem, Le says, is that chess is administered in the Sports Department by athletic directors who are usually physical education teachers running sports like basketball and football.  Many of them have never visited a club or been to a chess tournament.  Nor are they aware that chess appeals to kids throughout the K-12 age range.  "There is a disconnect," he says, "between those in charge of CPS chess and those who participate. This needs to change."

Julie Vassilatos is a parent–coach who ran a chess club for six years as a volunteer at the Ray School on Chicago's south side.  Of the 40 kids who attended, most were low income, so she couldn’t charge fees.  She did all she could, setting up a small library, a website, doing a weekly newsletter, and asking stronger student players to try to coach beginners.  She was able to get her kids to some of the free tournaments run each year by the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago.  Although she tried to patch together a system of college students, teachers and parents to oversee the club and provide some instruction, often no one was available. 

Vassilatos wished she could do more.   In a letter to Mayor Emanuel, she recalled one young student approaching her and saying, “'Hey lady, I need a teacher.’  We really didn't have a teacher, so I said, 'sorry, no teachers here, but if you go play with that 2nd grader over there, he can tell you what to do.'  That little girl eventually gave up waiting for a teacher and left the club. The long and short of it is, my kids don't learn very much.  And I feel terrible about that!" 

"There are no other resources available," said Vassilatos.  "No advice, no support structures, nothing."  The private chess companies, she said, are far too expensive for kids at her school, leaving chess largely in the domain of wealthy urban and suburban families.”

Michael Bologna is a long time parent-coach at Edgebrook Elementary School who has also played major roles at Northside College Prep High School and at Chicago Chess Kids, a drop-in program at the Edgebrook Library that has launched several top players.  Bologna has found the experience "exhilarating and disheartening."  He is encouraged by the enthusiasm and courage displayed by kids learning the game and competing, but is disheartened by CPS' lack of commitment to chess as a tool for intellectual and creative growth.  "CPS organizes very few opportunities for children to play chess (two tournaments per year) and provides no support to schools interested in hosting programs.  Chess exists as an organized sport at roughly 10 of CPS’ 106 high schools and perhaps 40 of its nearly 500 elementary schools."  Chess would not exist at all in CPS, Bologna says, "but for a few dedicated teachers, parents and chess enthusiasts, who devote their time and personal resources to this activity."  

Bologna doubts the system will change any time soon.  "The CPS Sports Department does not have the resources or the staff to promote a viable chess program. The department has no effective strategy for promoting chess or even communicating its minor efforts to host chess events."  He would welcome an initiative, he says, that would provide schools with a chess curriculum, equipment, and training for teachers and coaches. The initiative should also include opportunities for both informal play and scholastic competition.  “This model would permit thousands of Chicago students to access this remarkable tool for strategic and creative thinking, problem solving, self-confidence and friendship."

Trevor Scott, a former elementary school coach at Walt Disney Magnet School who now coaches at Air Force Academy High School, says it is wrong to even describe CPS chess as a "program."  "There's no support and virtually no communication of any sort with existing coaches," he says.  Even more important, only two competitions are offered by CPS each year to kids in grades K-8: a qualifier for the city championship, and the championship itself.  “They promise every year to run more tournaments, but don’t,” said Scott.  Other major cities in the U.S. offer free tournaments on a weekly or biweekly basis.  

Scott wishes that coaches could have a role in setting the CPS chess rules.  At one point, a CPS official considering improvements in the program called in representatives of the coaches’ association, including Scott, and said they would be included in future meetings.  A year later, the coaches have heard nothing. 

Sometimes, weaknesses in the existing CPS program have had painful results.  In 2011, the team from Cook Elementary School on the south side was encouraged by CPS to participate in the south regional qualifier for the city K-8 championship.  The Cook team worked hard to prepare for the event, and won it.  The team’s coach, Melaniece Abdur-Rahman, was later told her team had been disqualified from participating in the championship because it had not played in a required earlier competition she hadn’t been told about.  Abdur-Rahman remembers the day she had to tell her kids they had been disqualified.  “It was one of the worst days in my 35 years of teaching.  I met the kids in the hallway as they arrived for school.  Many of them cried.  They were all devastated.”  She herself was still crying when she drove home that night.  An appeal to the CPS Sports Department was rejected.  This time, she was told that the reason for the disqualification was that she hadn’t registered properly, even though she’d been invited to the regional qualifier and no problem with her registration had been mentioned.  A few days later, after the matter reached the ears of higher-ups in CPS, yet a third reason was offered for Cook’s exclusion.  A written report of the incident was promised by CPS but never produced.

The incident left Abdur-Rahman so discouraged that she no longer takes her kids to tournaments.

Some coaches combine their concerns with suggestions for improvement and a few even harbor a little hope.  

Says Goudy coach Quan Le: "There have been several proposals from chess nonprofits and many calls for expansion from teachers, coaches, principals, parents and students.  Sadly, all of this has fallen on deaf ears.  CPS needs to listen so more students can benefit."  The district's inattention, says Le, is a "slap in the face to the thousands of students who have dedicated their time and energy to chess over the years."

Adam Geisler, who has coached at Bateman Elementary School since 2006, recalls the first CPS championship he attended, when coaches and teams walked out of the tournament in protest over how badly the event was organized.  "The chaos that year was emblematic of the frustrations of chess in CPS," Geisler says.  "The opportunities for high quality regular competition for poor city kids remain scant."

Geisler co-chairs the coaches’ association, which he hopes will some day have a voice in the management of CPS chess.  "To this point," Geisler says, "our grievances have only been addressed by the Illinois Chess Association and by the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago.  CPS has made many promises, but year after year, the same lack of support leaves coaches disheartened.  If not for opportunities like YCFC’s competitions, CPS kids would have very few chances to play free chess across the city."

“There are dedicated individuals in the Chicago chess community,” says Geisler, including parents, students, coaches, and volunteers.  “But Chicago is lacking something that successful programs like those in New York, St. Louis, and Philadelphia have.  That something is coordination." 

Geisler thinks the answer could come from ICA’s proposal.  "I have reviewed their proposal from its inception through the years of negotiation with a variety of CPS officials.  It is the most sensible approach to building an effective program that would provide access to rigorous instruction and competition throughout metro Chicago."

In her letter to the mayor last year, the Ray School’s Julie Vassilatos agreed.  "Wonderful efforts and ideas like those offered by the ICA don't cross your desk every day," she wrote.

***

ICA’s proposal is contingent on the new program being largely independent of CPS (an idea suggested and still supported by the mayor), structured to promote excellence, free of conflicts of interest, and based on a system of choosing service providers based on merit.  On-and-off efforts by CPS to beef up its existing program have fallen short of these goals and were criticized by ICA in an August editorial.  CPS, in turn, has said ICA is “demanding” and “unyielding.”  Its statements that it can’t afford a program as ambitious as the one proposed by ICA, even though ICA has offered to run the program for free, have left many in the the chess community baffled.  Links to the public documents and media coverage are at http://bit.ly/1bvAS8K. 

Michael Zacate, who has worked with CPS for more than 25 years and has won lifetime achievement awards from the Illinois High School Association, ICA, and the United States Chess Federation, was the first to speak out publicly and urge that chess be removed from CPS.  “There’s a small, rugged, dedicated group of coaches trying to keep their programs afloat.  But what the city needs,” says Zacate, “is a program that will provide support, training and advice, on a consistent basis, to teachers, coaches, and principals.  Chicago will join the top tier only when the leadership starts to take chess seriously.”