HR0781LRB101 20852 ECR 70667 r

1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, As of December 1, 2019, the City of Chicago stands
3to lose a minimum of 102 birth-to-five classrooms and 363 staff
4in more than 35 neighborhoods throughout the city; these
5services have been provided by trusted community-based
6organizations that have served these neighborhoods for
7decades; and
 
8    WHEREAS, Should this loss occur as scheduled, it would not
9only impact these agencies and organizations financially but
10will also result in the denial of access for children and
11families to a 10-hour full day of high quality, comprehensive
12early learning opportunities; this loss will primarily affect
13the neighborhoods of Englewood, Austin, and Back of the Yards,
14which are already some of the most vulnerable, highest-need
15communities in the City of Chicago; and
 
16    WHEREAS, During an overlap of two mayoral administrations,
17this situation was created partly as a result of an extremely
18opaque evaluation imposed on a flawed Department of Family and
19Support Services (DFSS) RFP process; this was after the process
20had already suffered from a 10-week delay and a complex
21addendum published only 13 days prior to the due date;
22information about the rubrics developed for this scoring
23process and the subsequent actual scores have been denied to

 

 

HR0781- 2 -LRB101 20852 ECR 70667 r

1the individual applicants; graduate students were employed to
2be the primary reviewers and to score the RFPs, but no further
3information has been provided about their qualifications or
4their knowledge of the communities involved; and
 
5    WHEREAS, If this disaster is not immediately rectified, the
6entire early childhood ecosystem will be destabilized and
7dismantled throughout the City of Chicago; therefore, be it
 
8    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
9HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
10we encourage the City of Chicago City Council Committee on
11Health and Human Relations to expeditiously convene a public
12hearing to solicit testimony from the Commissioner of the
13Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) for the
14purpose of providing full transparency concerning the methods
15and procedures of the scoring process of the DFSS RFP and the
16qualifications of the evaluators and to answer any questions
17the chairman, the committee members, or members of the
18attending public may have; and be it further
 
19    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
20presented to the Commissioner of the Department of Family and
21Support Services, the Mayor of Chicago, and the Governor of
22Illinois.