Local School Council – OA Thorp Scholastic Academy

Purpose and History
The O.A. Thorp Academy Local School Council (LSC) serves as the policy-making body of the school. LSCs have remained an important vehicle for participatory democracy, allowing not only educators but parents the opportunity to make important decisions about how their children will be educated in Chicago. It is through these decisions that parents are connected with educators to better align family and community engagement goals to student achievement; community members to help leverage community resources for the school; and other parents to share best practices and success stories.

LSC membership is a reflection of engaged and empowered parent, community, student, and educational leaders. It is through LSCs that parents are given a unique opportunity to have a voice in the decision-making table and engage in student-driven dialogue with community members, educators, students, and other parents.

Chicago Public Schools have Local School Councils (LSC) which are responsible for three main duties:

The Local School Council (LSC) has three main responsibilities:

To select and evaluate the principal
To develop and approve a Continuous Improvement Work Plan (“CIWP“)
To develop and approve a school-based budget with control over flexible funds provided by the state.

Traditional Local School Councils consist of the following members:

6 parents
2 community members
2 teachers
1 non-teacher staff
school’s principal
student representative (high school LSCs only)

All are welcome. If you have a question or concern and can’t make a meeting though you can also reach out to us via the LSC Suggestion Box. Please check out the Wikipedia Page about Chicago LSCs. During our Remote Learning all LSC Meetings will be held on-line. You may request to attend our LSC Meetings by signing up at our Public Meeting Participation Form.

Current Members

Our LSC, like most, is made up of twelve members: six parents, two members of the community, two teachers, one non-teaching staff member, and our principal Mr. Toledo. Here’s the current 2020-21 roster:

Jennifer Alper – T

Vince Coughlin – T

Debbie Dean – N

Mahmoud Bambouyanni – C

David Feller (FOIA Officer) – C

Amy Ellison – P

Dorothy Kwiatkowski – P

Joel Paulraj – P (Chair)

Gabriel Nechifor– P

Bill Harmon – P

Angelica Jacinto – P

Efren Toledo – Principal

T – Teacher P – Parent C – Community N – Non-Teacher Staff

2021-22 Meetings

(All LSC Meetings are available via Google Meets 15 minutes before the meeting at oathorpacademy.org/lscmeeting)

2nd Wednesday of each Month except where noted.*
LSC Meeting should last around an hour and a half with suggested times below:

Opening Roll Call – 5 Minutes
Principal’s Report – 20 Minutes
Cmte. Reports – 10 Minutes (per Cmte.)
Old Business – 10 Minutes
New Business – 10 Minutes (New business will be emailed to Chair one to two weeks before LSC Meeting)

Meetings Alternate between and Evening 5:30PM / Morning 7:30AM in the school library and at oathorpacademy.org/lscmeeting

07/14: morning

Organizational Meeting

agenda-minutes / no principal’s report

No August Meeting

09/08: evening*

Our LSC meeting was held on September 8th, 2021 at 5:30PM.

agenda – minutes / principal’s report

09/20: evening *

Our Special LSC Meeting was held on September 20th at 5:30PM.

agenda – minutes

10/13: morning*