Veatrice Watson used to joke that if the board of education kept up its snail’s pace she might not live to see it build a new Simeon high school. Sadly, she was right. On January 6, the south-side activist, a key member of the West Chatham Improvement Association, died following a brain hemorrhage. She was 44 years old.
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But it was as a community activist that she made her mark, and for the past few years her primary cause was Simeon Career Academy. The story of the effort to see the decrepit facility replaced by a new one was reported in these pages last November 2. “I didn’t go there and I have no children there,” she said in an interview last year. “But it’s not far from my house, and it’s such an obvious injustice–so I had to get involved.”
But 37 years later the board still hadn’t made good on its promise, though it had built other new high schools all over the city. By last fall Simeon was in horrible condition, with a leaky roof, peeling paint, crumbling walls, and lots of mildew, asbestos, and dust. “It’s too late for me to go there,” said Watson. “But I’m hoping they’ll build one in time for my son. He’s only 13.”
Coincidentally, on January 7 the board finally got around to starting construction on the new Simeon. If all goes well, the board says, the school will be completed next year.
