In 2013, the Chicago Board of Education closed 47 schools, the largest school closures at one time in US History. News organizations like The Chicago Reporter are tracking the impact of school closures. Hull-House has compiled some of their reporting in preparation for the event Part 3: More Closed Schools? Chicago Public Schools Before and After the Moratorium.  The event was moderated by Kalyn Belsha of The Chicago Reporter and included Hull-House Claiming Space exhibition partner Creative Grounds, a collective tracking and transforming vacant public school spaces. Read some of Kalyn Belsha's reporting below and learn more about Hull-House's exhibition Claiming Space: Creative Grounds and Freedom Summer School.

Behind sale of closed schools, a legacy of segregation

January 13, 2017
By Kalyn Belsha, The Chicago Reporter

Key Elementary School, located in the predominantly black Austin neighborhood, has stood empty since 2013 when it became one of 50 under-enrolled Chicago public schools shuttered to save money.

What happened to the closed school in your neighborhood?

February 12, 2017
By Kalyn Belsha and Keifer, The Chicago Reporter  

The Chicago Reporter is tracking the status of the public schools that were shuttered five years ago in the largest mass school closure in U.S. history. There are still 15 vacant schools located in mostly poor, African-American neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and West sides that have yet to sell or be repurposed.

Closed schools could remain vacant without public subsidy

For one black family, a cycle of school closings

Why Is CPS Closing National Teachers Academy?

July 24, 2017
By Kalyn Belsha, The Chicago Reporter

Developers buying shuttered Chicago schools face stiff competition for tax credits that make their repurposing plans viable.

March 1, 2018
By Kalyn Belsha, The Chicago Reporter

Maintaining NTA as an elementary school was important to TerrondaHarris for one big reason: Her kids had already been through a school closure.

March 21, 2018
By Daniel Moattar, South Side Weekly

Before the National Teachers Academy conversion proposal, emails reveal a multi-year history of the plan for a new neighborhood high school. 

This page highlights content connected to Jane Addams Hull-House Museum's current exhibition Claiming Space: Creative Grounds and Freedom Summer School, a exhibition that explores the transformation of public school space amidst school closures on the West Side. Making the West Side: Community Conversations on Neighborhood Change is a Hull-House project that investigates the history of neighborhood change and contemporary issues on Chicago’s West Side.