OpenGovChicago

The Smart Chicago Collaborative hosts OpenGovChicago meetups at the offices of the Chicago Community Trust. We livestream the events and archive them here as well.

The next OpenGov Chicago Meetup: Local Court Data

Christopher Whitaker

opengovchicagoAt the next OpenGov Chicago meetup, set for Wednesday, June 17, 2015, we will learn about the Chicago Justice Project’s (CJP) ongoing engagement with the Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Timothy Evans. Here’s the description of the evening, as written by CJP’s Executive Director, Tracy Siska:

CJP’s engagement is seeking to open access to all the data created by the Court since they started collecting the data in the 1980s (the courts have told CJP they started collecting data either in 1980 or 1988). This means that when approved CJP would receive about 30 years of Court data. CJP requested all the data maintained by the Clerk’s Office on each criminal case filed, appropriately de-identified. To give you some idea how much data we are talking about here are some facts about the Cook County Justice System:

• The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest unified court system in the US

• The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office is the largest prosecutors office in the US

• The Cook County Jail is the largest jail in the country

This is not a onetime release! CJP is seeking an agreement that would require regular updates of court data be released on an ongoing basis moving forward removing all the current barriers to this data.

Of course, since the Court maintains ownership over the data, but does not maintain the data, the approval by Judge Evans of any request seeking access to court data is only the first step. The second step is having the data released by the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court, Dorothy Brown’s Office. It took CJP 27 months to get access to the 5 years of conviction data that was the basis of the Convicted in Cook Project.

CJP anticipates significant resistance from the Clerk’s Office to this request. This is the beginning of CJP’s outreach to see if we can build a community of people that will help CJP advocate for the fulfillment of this agreement.

Tracy Siska, Executive Director of the Chicago Justice Project, will talk about CJP’s efforts in more detail and what it will take to get the Court and Clerk to fulfill their request.

We’ll also cover the results of Smart Chicago’s recent PACER postcard campaign, where we helped send dozens of postcards to Chief Judge Ruben Castillo of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, asking him to look into issues with PACER , the system run by the federal judiciary that provides access to court dockets.

As part of OpenGovChicago efforts to focus on participation— thinking of government as “us” more than “them”— we are inviting hundreds of people who make up student law groups in Chicago-based law schools. If you know anyone who cares about open government and local court data, let them know about this night and register for the event here.

Chicago at the White House Tech Meetup

Demond Drummer

Today leaders, organizers and innovators from across America convened for the first-ever White House Tech Meetup. We came together to share strategies and methods for tackling a central question facing our communities, cities and country today: how do we bring more people into the digital economy?

Megan Smith, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, opened the meetup with a clarion call to action. “The are a lot more neighbors in our communities who aren’t in on this game,” she noted. “How can we work together to figure out our inclusion strategies?”

Jeffrey Zeints, Director of the National Economic Council, emphasized the urgency of this question for America’s continued competitiveness. “This is not only the right thing to do,” said Zeints, referring to the TechHire Initiative. “It’s really important for our country’s position in the global economy.”

It was an incredibly diverse crowd that assembled in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (“from the ‘hood to the holler,” as one attendee from Kentucky observed). Half of the participants were organizers of tech meetups; the other half were people doing innovative work in community tech. A key theme driving the day was the power of local communities.

“Community unleashes opportunity,” declared Meetup CEO and co-founder Scott Heiferman. “And people have more power than ever to create community.”

Here, it is worth noting that Meetup is a vital tool in Chicago’s civic tech ecosystem. At Smart Chicago we use Meetup to convene and communicate with members of our Connect Chicago meetup group and the Open Government Chicago meetup we host and help organize.

whmeetup

Chicago had a strong presence in the room for the day-long session. It was great to see Mike Stringer, organizer of Data Science Chicago. Mike was one of 50 Meetup organizers personally invited to the event by Meetup HQ. Laurenellen McCann, a Smart Chicago consultant, delivered a spotlight talk charging participants to build with, not for people and communities. Tiana Epps-Johnson, co-founder of the Center for Technology and Civic Life (a Smart Chicago partner), shared her organization’s work delivering tech solutions and training for the unsung enablers of our democracy: local election administrators. Rounding out Chicago’s presence in the spotlight talks, I presented on why tech organizing is a foundational component of Chicago’s efforts to achieve full participation in the digital economy (my remarks are at the end of this post).

I was proud to see Chicago in the room, but there was much to learn from people doing similar work in other cities. I was particularly compelled by the story of Felicia and Jamal O’Garro, the dynamic husband-wife duo who co-founded Code Crew in New York. When they found themselves out of work at the same time, Felicia and Jamal decided to turn a crisis into an opportunity to retool their skills. They looked far and wide for a way to get into tech, but to no avail. When they didn’t find a program that suited their needs they took matters into their own hands and organized the Code Crew meetup group. That group has since grown into an organization that delivers tech training to thousands of people in New York. Find a way or make one – that’s the ethic that drives innovation from the bottom up.

My biggest takeaway from the White House Tech Meetup was that the answers to these pressing questions will not be found in Washington. Rather, we will find the answers in communities and cities across the country creating new ways to build inroads into the digital economy. At stake is nothing less than our continued competitiveness.

There is some tremendously valuable and innovative work happing right here in Chicago: the CyberNavigators, YouMedia and Maker Labs at the Chicago Public Library; the Smart Communities program model piloted by LISC Chicago that drives households online, improves digital skills and increases real incomes for working families; and the deliberate ecosystem-building work we do at Smart Chicago. Programs like i.c. stars. Places like BLUE1647. Projects like LargeLots.org. There are many, many others.

It was a real privilege to participate in the White House Tech Meetup, learn from leaders from all across America and share one part of Chicago’s comprehensive approach to driving full participation in the digital economy.

We truly have an opportunity to be a model for the nation.

 Tech Organizing in Chicago

Adapted from notes for a talk delivered at the White House Tech Meetup
April 17, 2015

Good afternoon. I’m Demond Drummer and I bring greetings from Englewood, on the south side of Chicago.

In Chicago I lead a cross-sector partnership to engage residents and local businesses in every neighborhood to achieve full participation in the digital economy. We call this effort The Connect Chicago Challenge.

Tech organizing is a core component of our strategy to engage communities across the city. This is the work I’ve done in my neighborhood, Englewood, for the past 4 years. This is the work I want to talk to you about today.

I’m a tech organizer. Tech organizers trace our lineage to the Mississippi Freedom Movement. If you recall, the Jim Crow South used literacy tests to create a wall to block black people from fully participating in our democracy. Savvy organizers focused on literacy to build power and tear down that wall.

Despite its obvious advantages technology, by default, reinforces existing patterns of power and inequality. In my neighborhood – and in communities across America – technology is a wall blocking many people from fully participating in society and the digital economy.

Tech organizers focus on digital literacy to build power and tear down that wall.

Digital literacy is more fundamental than skills. Digital literacy is understanding. Digital literacy means we see technology for what it is: a tool to make our lives better and our communities stronger. Digital literacy is about power.

We’ve found that digital literacy is cultivated best in context and in community – a gathering at the senior center, a block club, a parent group at a neighborhood school, or teens working together to build a website for a local business.

In Chicago we seek to achieve full participation in the digital economy. We see tech organizing as a model for driving us toward this goal –  in every neighborhood, from the bottom up.

 

Englewood Codes, summer 2013.

Englewood Codes, summer 2013.

 

A discussion about Local School Councils at OpenGov Chicago

Smart Chicago

opengovchicagoAt OpenGovChicago this year, we’ve been focusing on learning about and helping grassroots groups that interact with official government functions. This time the focus was on Chicago Public Schools and Local School Councils. Local School Councils were first created in 1988 from the Chicago School Reform Act. Local School council members are elected and receive training from Chicago Public Schools. Local School Councils are elected boards that serve at each school. Contract and charter schools do not have Local School Councils. Local School Councils (LSC) are responsible for three main duties:

  • Approving how school funds and resources are allocated
  • Developing and monitoring the annual School Improvement Plan
  • Evaluating and selecting the school’s principal

Local School Councils include the following members:

  • 6 parents
  • 2 community members
  • 2 teachers
  • 1 non-teacher staff
  • school’s principal
  • And in high schools, a student representative

To start off the meeting, we heard from Jill Wohl who is a former Local School Council member. Here’s her introduction:

The meeting then went on to a roundtable discussion regarding a variety of different topics. We started with the Open Meetings Act and how it impacts LSCs. The Open Meetings Act is a law requiring governing bodies to give notice of when meetings are going to occur. It was designed to prevent governing bodies from meeting in secret, but it can impact how LSCs use technology.

Here’s the discussion below:

The next point of discussion was the state of technology at the LSCs, which is poor, by default. It’s difficulty to allow the public access to basic information like who serves on the LSC and how to reach them. Calling the school is often an issue— people answering the phone are not necessarily (and usually are not) associated with the LSC.

Here’s the video of the discussion:    

 

The next point of discussion was on the lack of sharing of best practices, which could be done with adequate technology. There’s nothing to orient LSC members to their roles and no templates or methodologies for carrying out their their responsibilities – they make it up as they go along.

 

This created a good pivot point for Josh Kalov – who spoke about the work that’s been done so far to try and connect Local School Councils together.  Here’s Josh:

 

You can see the Google Drive folder here. Work on connecting Local School Councils will continue in the Education breakout group at Open Gov Hack Night. In addition to the discussion in the room, there was a lot of discussion online. Here is a sampling of tweets:

You can find out more information about local school councils on the Chicago Public Schools website.

Next at the OpenGov Chicago Meetup: Local School Councils

Christopher Whitaker

opengovchicagoAt the next OpenGov Chicago Meetup, we’re continuing our new series that focuses on learning about and helping grassroots groups that interact with official government functions.

Next up is Local School Councils of the Chicago Public Schools. There are hundreds of LSCs covering the entire city, and they are populated by regular Chicago residents who care about their neighborhoods (including our very own Josh Kalov). We will hear from people who run these councils, find out what kind of data and technology they use, and figure out we can help.

The next meetup will take place at the Chicago Community Trust on March 5th at 6:00pm.

 

 

Complete Info on Chicago Park District Advisory Councils

Smart Chicago

The next meeting of Open Gov Chicago(-land), set for Thursday, November 20, 2014, is going to do a deep-dive on Chicago Park District Advisory Councils. Here’s a description:

Our next meetup will be the first in a new series that focuses on learning about and helping grassroots groups that interact with official government functions.

First up is the Park District Advisory Council. There are 194 advisory councils covering the entire city, and they are populated by regular Chicago residents who care about their neighborhoods. We will hear from people who run these councils, find out what kind of data and technology they use, and figure out we can help.

As part of this new series, we’ve done some research on councils. We’ve taken a look at it from a technology view, hoping to kick off some thoughts in the civic tech community on how we might be helpful.

Humboldt Park Formal Garden

Humboldt Park Formal Garden

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