Sun-Times files
A physical education teacher who served for years as the girls cross country coach at Whitney Young Magnet High School has been placed on leave as officials investigate allegations of inappropriate conduct with students some dating back more than a decade that resurfaced last week after a scathing social media post by the teacher’s estranged daughter.
The coach, Robert Geiger, is in his 15th year at Whitney Young, one of Chicago Public Schools’ most competitive selective enrollment high schools on the Near West Side. Several recent graduates accused Geiger of sexually inappropriate comments and behavior toward girls at the school, and described a lack of urgency by Principal Joyce Kenner’s administration in addressing their concerns in the past.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Janice Jackson took the helm of the Chicago Public Schools at a time when it was, again, a mess.
Her three predecessors had been pushed out, the latest in scandal, the one before him imprisoned. As an educator who’d worked her way up through her hometown school district, Jackson was tasked with stabilizing and restoring the public’s confidence in the country’s third-largest schools system.
Armed uniquely with a history they sorely lacked experience and valuable relationships as a former CPS student, teacher, principal and administrator plus parent of students Jackson shored up budgets, developed a five-year plan and promoted talent from within to assemble an uber-diverse leadership team loaded with CPS teachers. Principals halted their exodus.
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The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.