Chalkbeat

Jennifer Custer drops out of race for Chicago school board president

2026-08-27T20:35:15+00:00

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Jennifer Custer, an incumbent school board member, is withdrawing from the race to be the first elected Chicago Board of Education president.

In a statement, she said she filed paperwork Thursday with the Chicago Board of Elections to withdraw. Custer was the only candidate in the race whose petition signatures were not challenged.

“I am exiting because it became abundantly clear that various special interests are prepared to spend millions of dollars in this race,” she wrote in the statement. “Going up against that kind of spending in our political system creates an uphill battle that I ultimately decided I did not want to put my family, endorsers, volunteers, and supporters through.”

Custer did not make an endorsement, but left the door open to doing so. Four other candidates remain: Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal and incumbent school board member; Hilario Dominguez, former political director for the Chicago Teachers Union and former special education teacher; Victor Henderson, an attorney, and Sendhil Revuluri, a consultant and former vice president of the school board appointed by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“I know the other candidates in this race well, and I will ask the same question I have asked throughout my time on the Board: Who shares my North Star of doing what is best for our children?” Custer wrote.

The former suburban educator and mom of three narrowly won her seat in 2024 over Michelle Pierre, who is now running again to represent district 1b. Custer had the support of the Chicago Teachers Union, but forged a more independent path over the past two years serving on the board.

Recently, she was the only no vote on the board’s decision to put two non-binding referendums about raising new revenue for CPS on the November ballot. Both questions were put forward by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s allies and Custer was the only one of a more independent bloc of school board members to attend the meeting. She was also the lone no vote against hiring Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King as the permanent leader.

In July, Custer joined with six other school board members to vote against an amended budget that assumes $150 million more in state revenue. She also voted against taking out a high-interest loan last year to reimburse the city for a portion of a payment to a municipal pension fund that supports non-teaching staff and retirees in CPS.

Custer’s fundraising lagged behind the other candidates in the race. One of her top donors has been the political action committee of the Operating Engineers Local 150, where her husband, Jeremy, is the political director. In April, she told Chalkbeat one of her biggest campaign expenses has been child care, which is a permissible expenditure under state campaign finance laws. Arranging care for her children had allowed her to visit schools, meet with potential supporters, and attend board meetings, she said.

In her statement, Custer thanked her campaign staff and her family, “especially my three little ones, who have seen less of me than they deserve,” she wrote.

Prior to serving on Chicago’s school board, Custer worked as a paraprofessional, and classroom teacher and administrator in school districts in Wisconsin and Chicago’s suburbs. She served for two years as president of the teachers union in Itasca and was an assistant principal and interim principal in Addison School District 4.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s school board rescinded many layoffs with uncertain money. What’s next?

2026-07-31T23:38:15+00:00

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A divided Chicago school board passed a nearly $10 billion budget late Thursday that preserves jobs but relies on an additional $150 million in state funding that may not materialize.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King, whose proposal included cuts that the board amended, swiftly sent an email to parents sounding an alarm and floating the possibility that school may not start on time Aug. 24.

“As it stands right now, though, we do not know if we will be able to secure the short-term financing needed to pay our employees in September, which would effectively shut down the district just as staff and students are set to return,” King said in her Thursday night email to families.

Multiple financial experts say that is unlikely because the district should be able to secure a short-term loan, albeit with high interest.

Last year’s budget avoided cuts to the classroom. This year’s budget drama is set against a larger political backdrop. CPS has long argued that the state underfunds the district under Illinois’ school funding formula. A majority of board members, most appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, are betting the state will act. But state lawmakers and the governor have already approved a budget, and changes now would be difficult.

Coming months before a November election in which every seat on the school board will be on the ballot, competing views over the budget could prove to be a core campaign issue.

Here’s what parents should know about what’s happening, what it could mean for schools, and what might happen next.

Will school start on time?

CPS did not respond to questions about why schools might not open as scheduled. But a delayed opening is unlikely and unprecedented.

Previously, CPS said that passing a budget Thursday would allow the district to secure short-term borrowing by Sept. 2, just in time to make the Sept. 4 payroll.

CPS needs the loan to make up for late county property tax payments. That loan, designed for government bodies facing short-term cash flow needs, would help cover a missing $400 million of $700 million the district needs for operations in September, according to a memo CPS sent board members this week that Chalkbeat obtained.

Experts said the district will probably be able to secure loans in the time frame it needs.

But, it’s going to cost the district more in interest.

“It’s probable, if not almost a near certainty, that they’ll end up paying more for it because of the budget as well as the short time frame,” said Lisa Washburn, managing director at Municipal Market Analytics, Inc., a market and credit analysis research firm.

Lenders may want to scrutinize CPS’ finances more than usual because the approved budget relies on uncertain money, which could slow down the process, said Justin Marlowe, a municipal finance expert at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

“(Investors) haven’t done that so far, but a budget that assumes a bunch of state revenue that may or may not arrive is good reason to ask tough questions you’ve never asked before,” Marlowe said in an email.

What if CPS doesn’t have the cash it needs to pay staff?

There are legal consequences for missing payroll, including violations of multiple state labor laws and union contracts that could result in lawsuits and criminal charges, the district wrote in its memo.

It could also mean no school.

“Because employees cannot be compelled to work without compensation, missed payroll will likely result in immediate strikes, walkouts, or work refusals that will halt district operations,” the memo said.

The district could ask its unions for grace on paychecks. CTU and the principals union supported the modified budget plan, but SEIU Local 73, which represents thousands of support staffers who are among the district’s lowest paid, opposed it.

In 1980, Chicago Public Schools was locked out of the bond markets and failed to make payroll multiple times. Then-Gov. Jim Thompson convened city leaders, school officials, unions, and bankers to broker a deal to bail out the troubled school system. They created a separate body known as the School Finance Authority, which could access the markets and get the district the money it needed. This became the precursor to mayoral control in 1995.

Now, CPS is transitioning back to local control, with a hybrid school board made up of 11 mayoral appointees and 10 members elected in 2024. All 21 seats are also on the ballot this Nov. 3, adding a layer of electoral politics to the tensions.

What are the chances the state sends CPS more money?

Revising state revenue for Chicago schools upward by $150 million would require an amendment to the state budget, which passed in May. Any changes require a three-fifths majority of state lawmakers. That’s 36 votes in the Senate and 71 votes in the House, including legislators who don’t represent Chicago and would likely seek funding for their districts, too.

Gov. JB Pritzker said Friday that state funding for school districts is already a “known quantity,” and that if Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch has a plan for adding supplemental funding, as he implied Wednesday, the governor hasn’t seen it.

“He seems to have a plan or is planning to put something together, and so I look forward to seeing that,” Pritzker said.

It’s not clear whether there are enough votes for such a measure to pass during a veto session in November. Even if it did, that money would likely come through later in the school year.

Pritzker noted that the state has increased K-12 education funding by about $3 billion since he took office in 2018. CPS has seen state revenue increase by nearly $1 billion in that time. The district’s budget has grown from about $6 billion in 2018 to just under $10 billion this year.

CTU and aligned school board members argue that the state’s formula for distributing money to schools, which changed in 2017 before Pritzker took office, promised to get all schools to an adequate funding level by 2027. The state is not on track to hit that goal but the union is putting pressure on Pritzker, Welch, and other state lawmakers to do so.

Will teachers who were laid off from my school be rehired?

The modified budget plan calls for spending $100 million to rescind layoffs that happened earlier this month. Another $50 million would go toward easing a hiring and spending freeze later in the school year.

Nelsen Gerew, chief of internal and public affairs at the Chicago Fund for Public Education, said CPS could give money back to schools and let them handle rehiring, or the district could reverse its own cuts, which would be more complicated.

“Is the idea that we’ll try to get schools back to where they were (last school year)?” Gerew said.

Principals have been working with budgets approved in June and have likely rearranged class schedules for the upcoming year. Teachers who were laid off may have been rehired elsewhere. The CTU contract allows a tenured teacher who has been laid off to return to a school within 10 months if there’s a vacancy and they’re rated proficient or higher.

Will there be midyear cuts at my school?

If the money the school board is expecting from the state doesn’t come through, schools may be forced to cut staff and other resources in the middle of the year to make up the difference.

However, other sources of revenue could increase. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson could declare a larger surplus from special taxing districts known as TIF, or tax increment financing, meant to spur economic development. Last year, he did, and CPS got $576 million. This year, CPS initially projected $200 million in TIF surplus and revised it earlier this week to $285 million. This revision allowed them to remove furloughs from its initial budget plan.

Johnson faces reelection in February 2027, although he has yet to announce his intentions.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago to cut funding earmarked for schools that replaced police with restorative justice policies

2026-07-30T22:15:11+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is poised to cut in half the money and staff the district provided to some high schools after they removed police officers stationed at their campuses.

High schools were given money roughly equivalent to a school resource officer’s annual salary in order to implement alternative approaches to safety, known as Whole School Safety Plans.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the proposed 2026-27 budget found that funding for Whole School Safety Plans at 54 high schools would go from $8.7 million to $4 million and the number of positions would go from 80 to 42. Most schools would see a reduction from $160,000 or more to around $80,000 and the loss of roughly one position, under the proposed budget.

At the same time, CPS plans to roll out a new framework, designed to help all schools implement a wide-ranging policy related to safety and student well-being passed in 2024. That policy requires teaching social-emotional learning, having restorative practices, staffing a behavioral health team, maintaining at least one security guard, and annually updating an emergency management plan, among other things.

District officials and advocates who long fought to remove police and end harsh discipline practices said the framework is meant to expand those approaches beyond a subset of high schools.

In a statement, CPS officials characterized the money schools received after removing police as “temporary supplemental funding” and that it is now being “phased-out.”

“This is a planned adjustment to temporary transition funding, not a reduction in the District’s commitment to Whole School Safety,” the statement said. CPS also said they added 10 new climate team security officer positions and reclassified 28 other school climate positions.

Calls to remove police from Chicago high schools started years before 2020, when Local School Councils began voting on their removal. That year, 17 campuses cut school-based cops. In the years that followed, more schools voted to remove police, and in exchange, the district provided those campuses “trade-in” funding to support climate and culture coordinators, restorative justice coordinators, social workers, and security guards.

Researchers at the University of Chicago studied the impact of removing police and shifting to restorative practices at CPS high schools and found declines in school-based arrests and high-level discipline violations. Students said they felt a stronger sense of safety and belonging.

In 2024, the Chicago Board of Education, then made up of seven members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, voted to cut the district’s contract with the Chicago Police Department and remove all school resource officers ahead of the 2024-25 school year.

Before that, CPS had a contract with the police department to station officers at schools. The cost was $33 million dollars in 2020, but fell to $11 million in 2022 before the board’s 2024 vote. CPS staffs security guards at all schools and budget documents show their ranks remain stable at more than 1800 in the proposed budget.

Jitu Brown, an elected school board member and longtime advocate for restorative justice practices, said the district needs to continue the work of undoing “decades of zero-tolerance policies that targeted Black and Brown youth and looked at our young people through a lens of hate.”

“I will personally check in to make sure that the resources you need will be provided, that you’re getting the support that you need from the district level to make sure that we can implement this plan,” Brown said at a news conference Thursday morning.

Maria Degillo, Youth Director of Communities United and a longtime activist on the issue, downplayed the cuts, noting these funds have only been available to about two dozen high schools that had voted to remove police. She said it’s more important to train staff inside all schools to be part of building safe school environments.

“We can’t think about it as just one position,” Degillo said. “Rather, how are you actually creating again a space where everybody feels like this is a part of what they do and this is how they move in their school?”

Ronan Shableski, the chief of safety and security for Chicago Public Schools, said his office is focused on making sure the Whole School Safety framework is implemented citywide.

“The safest schools aren’t just the ones that respond well to emergencies; they’re the ones that help prevent them,” Shableski said.

Shableski and Degillo said the district and community organizations plan to start training principals and assistant principals on the new framework starting in August.

This story has been updated to include a statement from Chicago Public Schools.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appoints Connie Anderson to CPS school board

2026-07-30T01:48:51+00:00

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is appointing Connie Anderson to the school board, giving her an incumbent advantage ahead of November’s election when all 21 seats are up for grabs.

Anderson filed candidacy paperwork in May to run to represent District 10b on the city’s Far South Side. Now, she’ll fill the vacancy left by Olga Bautista, who stepped down in March. Anderson is one of five candidates still facing a challenge to her petition signatures.

The appointment is likely Johnson’s last one as 30 years of mayoral control comes to an end in Chicago. Currently, the city’s school board is made up of 11 mayoral appointees and 10 people elected in 2024.

It is not clear if Anderson will be sworn in at Thursday’s school board meeting when the board is poised to take a critical budget vote. The board office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Chicago Tribune reported that a spokesperson said Anderson would be sworn in at a later date.

However, Johnson appointed Ángel Vélez on the eve of last year’s budget vote and board records show he voted on the budget the next day. Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anderson is the parent of CPS graduates, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. She spent 12 years involved with Friends of Ogden, the parent fundraising arm of a public school in the city’s Gold Coast.

The mayor’s office said she was involved at the school during a controversial 2018 merger between the relatively high-income, racially diverse school and Jenner Academy of the Arts, a majority Black, low-income school that long served families in public housing.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Union representing Chicago school support staff makes Board of Education endorsements

2026-07-23T21:03:39+00:00

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The union representing Chicago school support staff is splitting with the teachers union in its support of candidates in several key races, including school board president.

SEIU Illinois State Council announced Thursday morning its endorsing Jessica Biggs in the race to lead the first fully elected 21-member school board. The union already donated $10,000 to Biggs’ campaign last December. SEIU announced last week it would endorse more than a dozen candidates running as school board district representatives.

The SEIU’s endorsements diverge from the Chicago Teachers Union, which is backing their own political director Hilario Dominguez for school board president. That means two unions are backing opposing candidates in 10 school board races and are aligned on five.

The split between SEIU and CTU is significant: Both unions give money to their endorsed candidates and provide boots-on-the-ground to canvas, phone bank, and get out the vote. These endorsements also carry weight with union members when they vote. SEIU represents more than 16,000 CPS staff and more than 100,000 workers statewide. CTU represents 30,000 educators.

“Sometimes our interests align. Sometimes they don’t,” said Trumaine Reeves, executive vice president of SEIU Local 73, the chapter representing CPS support staff, including janitors, crossing guards, bus aides, and special education classroom assistants.

Reeves noted the alignment with CTU on candidates Ed Bannon, Ebony DeBerry, Norma Rio Sierra, Claudia Peralta, and Anusha Thotakura. He said choosing Biggs for the president role came down to her experience.

“She knows firsthand the impacts of the budget, how fully funding or underfunding at a school-based level impacts the school community. She lived it firsthand,” Reeves said. “We felt like out of the five candidates running, she’s the most qualified.”

Biggs is a current school board member representing parts of downtown and the south lakefront. She’s also an organizer with Southwest Organizing Project and has been since she was let go by CPS in 2018 from her job as principal of Burke Elementary. WBEZ reported her termination came after the Inspector General said she altered attendance data and allowed staff to transport students without proper paperwork.

Biggs, who has successfully appealed being placed on the CPS do-not-hire list, says she was targeted because she was a critic of the district’s move to privatize janitorial operations. SEIU represents school janitors and pushed CPS to end their agreement with Aramark in 2024, a decade after the initial privatization.

Tensions rose between SEIU and CTU in 2024 when the teachers union put a proposal on the table in bargaining that could’ve taken work away from SEIU members. It would’ve given CPS administrators the ability to use teacher assistants represented by the CTU and special education classroom assistants, or SECAs, represented by SEIU almost interchangeably.

Mayor Brandon Johnson won his seat in 2023 with the help of SEIU. But in 2025, that union’s support appeared to be waning. Johnson faces reelection in 2027.

On Wednesday, the CTU posted on social media to label Biggs as a candidate backed by billionaires and people who closed 50 schools in 2013. The union highlighted $17,300 in donations Biggs received last year from Michael Sacks, a donor to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as well as a $1,000 donation from David Vitale, who served as school board president in 2013, and $2,900 in donations from former CPS CEO Janice Jackson. Jackson was a high school principal in 2013.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to note SEIU Local 73 represents school bus aides, not bus drivers.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois approves numeracy plan to improve math education

2026-06-10T17:17:35+00:00

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The Illinois State Board of Education approved a numeracy plan Wednesday aimed at helping educators improve how they teach math.

The plan offers districts and teachers resources, but does not mandate a curriculum or require schools to follow certain practices.

The 192-page document is being finalized two years after the state approved a literacy plan in 2024. The latter came about after advocates unsuccessfully lobbied Illinois lawmakers to pass a bill to standardize reading instruction across the state.

Illinois students’ math scores dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to lag behind in 2024. Last fall, officials reported 38% of students had met math proficiency benchmarks on the annual state standardized test given to all third through eighth graders in public school. But they also changed the cut scores used to define proficiency, making comparisons to previous years difficult.

“The goal is for students to build those numeracy skills,” said Ronda Dawson, executive director of Teaching & Learning at ISBE.

The first draft of the “Comprehensive Numeracy Plan” was first made public in October and revised in February before several public hearings in the spring.

Kirsten Parr, director of Standards & Instruction, presented changes that were made to the plan as a result of the public feedback during an ISBE meeting Wednesday. She said the state added more “examples and non-examples” of strong math instruction, added best practices and tips for supporting students with dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects how a person learns, understands, and retains math concepts, and included more high school level data.

“This is not just an elementary plan,” she noted. “This is really to increase the numeracy skills of students across all of our ages and stages.”

ISBE Vice Chair Donna Leek applauded the plan for also including resources to build students confidence in math.

“I always have struggled with people who say, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t do math, I’m not a math person.’ Nobody ever says I don’t read, right?” Leek noted. “So, how do we take away that stigma of mathematics being something that is attainable for everyone?”

She said the plan provides a good road map for school leaders and educators to also feel confident in their math teaching practices and urged ISBE to provide support to them as they roll out the plan.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Dozens of Chicago school board candidates could get knocked off the ballot

2026-06-04T16:31:47+00:00

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More than half of the 51 people who filed to run for one of 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education may not make it on the ballot.

That’s after 28 potential candidates had the validity of their petition signatures challenged.

Petition challenges allow registered voters in a candidate’s district to challenge the validity of signatures on their petitions. If the Chicago Board of Elections invalidates enough signatures, it can remove a candidate from the list. This year’s deadline to certify the ballot is Aug. 27.

Four of the five people hoping to be elected at-large to serve as school board president are at risk of being removed. Jennifer Custer is the only unchallenged candidate and will secure a spot in that race.

All nine of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointees currently serving on the school board running to keep their seats are facing challenges to the validity of their signatures. Two elected members aligned with Johnson — Aaron “Jitu” Brown and Yesenia Lopez — have also had their petitions called into question. Johnson’s appointed school board president Sean Harden is not running for election.

Elected incumbents Therese Boyle, Ebony DeBerry, Angel Gutierrez, Carlos A. Rivas Jr., Ellen Rosenfeld, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith escaped challenges and will all be on the ballot in November. Both Rosenfeld and Gutierrez are running unopposed in district 4b and 8a, respectively.

Only two of 21 races — in districts 2a and 4a — are currently guaranteed to have more than one candidate. Incumbent Ebony DeBerry and Bruce Leon, who ran in 2024, went unchallenged and are set to compete in 2a, while Ellen Sherratt and Angel Alvarez made it on the ballot in 4a. Hector Morales could survive a challenge to compete in 2a, as could 4a incumbent Karen Zaccor.

Surviving a petition challenge can require an attorney and take multiple weeks. The time-consuming and costly nature raises questions about ballot access for less resourced candidates. Removing political opponents through petition challenges has also been held up as an example of old-school, Chicago-style politics and were famously used by former President Barack Obama during his first campaign for state senate in 1996.

Chicago school board candidates were required to collect 500 to 1,500 valid signatures from voters in their districts and those running for board president had to collect 2,500 signatures from registered voters in Chicago.

In 2024, 47 people filed to run, but only 31 candidates remained by election day.

This November’s election marks the first time all 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education will be up for election, ending 30 years of mayoral control. Since 2024, the board has been half-elected and half-appointed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago schools will get about $200 million more from City Council TIF surplus

2025-12-23T20:56:54+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools will get $193 million more in tax revenue than was included in this year’s $10.2 billion budget after the City Council passed its own budget Saturday, declaring a $1 billion surplus Saturday from city tax increment financing districts.

But the additional dollars will not result in a windfall for classrooms as the school system continues to adjust spending, eliminate vacant positions, and account for increased interest payments on debt.

The TIF surplus amount is unchanged from what Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed in October. By law, CPS gets a little over half of any TIF surplus declared by the city. City budget documents released in October said the school district would get $552.4 million, which is $193 million more than the $379 million the school board budgeted to get from those special taxing districts, known as TIF.

Johnson said Tuesday he would not sign the budget plan, but he would not veto it either. That means it will automatically go into effect at the start of 2026.

This is the second year in a row Johnson faced a significant budget battle with the City Council. This year, dozens of aldermen presented an alternative budget after voting down Johnson’s in late November. Facing an end-of- the- year deadline, the alternative budget plan passed Saturday by a vote of 30-18.

During a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday, Johnson expressed strong opposition to some elements of the alternative budget’s plan, particularly a move to sell off debt owed to the city. While he considers some elements of the budget “morally bankrupt,” he applauded other elements, including the TIF surplus.

“We added the largest TIF surplus in the history of the city to go to our schools, our parks, our libraries,” he said. “These investments create spaces for our young people to grow and thrive and keep our city safe.”

A coalition of school board members aligned with Johnson put out a statement after the City Council vote that thanked aldermen for not changing the TIF surplus but criticized them for not supporting the mayor’s proposed corporate head tax.

A significant chunk of the additional money — $175 million — is expected to go back to the city as a reimbursement payment to cover a portion of municipal pension costs for CPS non-teaching staff retirements.

That leaves roughly $18 million for the school district to use.

However, the district’s budget approved in August required officials to identify an additional $50 million in cuts. A CPS spokesperson said in recent weeks the district eliminated 69 vacant positions from 19 central and citywide departments, extended an ongoing hiring freeze at the central office , cut some professional development for teachers, and made additional cuts to central office expenses, saving about $34.4 million.

The district also said it found savings elsewhere, including through its Summer Bridge program which was offered at fewer schools this year, according to the spokesperson. The district estimated it saved $15.6 million through these and other measures.

No employee was laid off, and there are no planned cuts to “student-facing” programs for the second semester, another spokesperson said.

Other unexpected expenses have come up since the district passed its budget in August.

In September, the federal government cut millions in magnet school grants citing CPS’s diversity initiatives, which left an $8 million unexpected hole in this year’s budget.

And last week, WBEZ reported Chicago Public Schools is spending $23 million more than usual to cover interest payments on loans it routinely takes out to cover payroll and other expenses while waiting for Cook County to send tax revenue to government bodies.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Report: A college degree is most ‘promising path’ to a good job in Illinois

2025-12-16T19:45:00+00:00

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A bachelor’s degree is the best pathway to a good job in Illinois — and while alternative pathways can lead to good jobs, they are more inequitable, according to a new report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative and the UChicago Consortium on School Research.

Some non-college pathways also led to good jobs, such as construction and agriculture, but they heavily favored white and Latino men.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about: Is the college degree worth it?” said Meg Bates, director of I-WERC. “Here we’re seeing that, really, it’s the only degree that consistently leads to that upward mobility.”

What’s more, Bates said, is people from low-income families are much more likely to have some college education, but no degree.

“They’re in what we call, like, the worst of both worlds,” she said. “They’ve gone, they’ve taken on debt, they’ve spent money, but they’re not getting the payoff of the degree.”

The researchers analyzed data from the Illinois High School 2 Career dataset, which includes information kept by the Illinois Department of Employment Security, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, and the Illinois State Board of Education. The report looked at outcomes for a cohort of students from the classes of 2008 through 2012 who are now in the workforce.

But college enrollment rates have dipped in the years since that time. Last year, about 65% of Illinois high school graduates enrolled in college within a year, Illinois state report card data shows. That’s down from a high of around 75% in 2018.

The report, which is a follow-up to one released over the summer, found that 54% of students from low-income families ended up in a good job compared to 69% of students from higher-earning families. The report defined the income threshold for a so-called good job as $25,879 annually in 2017 dollars, worth approximately $34,375 in 2025, which the report authors acknowledged is low and does not meet the national living wage even though it exceeds Illinois’ minimum wage.

The authors identified five industries in Illinois where certificates or associate level degrees still led to good jobs: construction trades, agriculture and veterinary science, engineering, health professions, and mechanic and repair jobs. All of these pathways paid off primarily for men, and in particular, white men.

Health professions were the exception. They were also a promising pathway for women, in particular Latinas.

Disparities shrank as higher education rose, further solidifying the authors’ conclusion that college is the best pathway to economic mobility. This mirrors the findings of national research out of Stanford and Georgetown Universities.

“The data make it clear that higher education remains one of the most effective ways for students to move into higher income brackets,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said in a press release. “What’s powerful about this report is that it shows students which pathways — degrees, industries and credentials — truly pay off. That knowledge helps students make confident, informed choices about their futures.”

Bates said it’s important to share this research with school staff, especially counselors, who can help students make decisions about their futures beyond high school.

In Chicago, students are required to have a postsecondary plan in order to graduate and last year, about 63% of CPS graduates enrolled in college within a year, according to state data. A little over half finish within six years, according to ongoing longitudinal research from the To&Through Project at the University of Chicago.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Poll: two-thirds of respondents unaware of Chicago’s elected school board

2025-12-12T20:25:56+00:00

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Roughly two-thirds of Chicagoans surveyed don’t know that the city now elects school board members, according to a new poll commissioned by the parent advocacy group Kids First Chicago and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Of 1,361 Chicago adults surveyed, just 10% could name their school board representative, the poll results showed. Awareness of the shift to an elected school board was higher among Chicago Public Schools parents and lower among young people and those who identify as Black and Latino. It was also lower in certain parts of the city, particularly on the west and south west sides.

The findings come two months before potential candidates can start circulating petitions to get on the ballot for Chicago Board of Education in 2026. All 21 seats will be up for election on Nov. 3, 2026; 20 are elected from specific districts and one school board president will be elected citywide.

A former school board appointee and CPS parent has already declared his candidacy for the board president seat and a handful of current board members have told Chalkbeat they plan to run.

Chicago held its first school board elections in 2024 with voters choosing 10 members to join 11 mayoral appointees on a new 21-member Board of Education. More than half of registered voters cast ballots for a school board representative, which some observers considered “pretty impressive” in the context of school board elections, which often suffer from very low turnout.

Micaelan Valesky, manager of data science for Kids First Chicago, said the results indicate “a major information gap around one of the most significant changes in CPS governance in decades.”

“This highlights a need for both targeted and widespread outreach, providing bilingual resources that explain when the election is, how the transition works, what power the Board of Education has, and who the prospective board members are,” Valesky said.

According to the Chicago Board of Elections, people interested in running for school board in 2026 can begin collecting signatures from voters in their district on Feb. 24. They must file at least 500 valid signatures between May 18 and 26 in order for their name to be printed on the ballot. Candidates for school board president must collect at least 2,500 valid signatures from across the city.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools finds buyers for three vacant schools

2025-12-03T22:50:42+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools has identified buyers for three former school properties on the South and West Sides, two of whom are planning to build new housing and a third who wants to open a community center.

The district is seeking the Chicago Board of Education’s approval at its next meeting on Dec. 18 to sell the old Bontemps Elementary in Englewood on the South Side for $75,000, the old Henson Elementary in North Lawndale on the West Side for $25,000, and the former Shedd Elementary, which last served as a satellite building for Bennett Elementary, in Roseland on the Far South Side for $25,000. All three buildings closed in 2013.

The proposed sales come after CPS put 20 properties on the market in May. Stephen Stults, the district’s director of real estate, said they got bids for 12 properties.

Chicago’s struggle to repurpose dozens of vacant school properties has taken more than a decade. The district has made multiple past attempts to sell them and many either had no buyers or pending deals fall through. CPS spends roughly $75,000 to $150,000 annually to maintain each vacant property, Stults said.

“We really want to put these buildings back to productive use,” Stults said. “The longer they sit there, the more they deteriorate, the harder it is to redevelop them, and the less value that we can get for them.”

School board member Michilla Blaise urged CPS officials to lean on the 21 board members elected and appointed to represent their communities to help get the old schools repurposed.

“We all have community contacts. We all have organizations that might be helpful to you. And we can also reach out to elected officials in the area,” Blaise said. “CPS is in the business of educating students, not necessarily being a landlord to derelict properties. So I understand the impetus to want to unload these properties … but we have to move thoughtfully.”

The potential buyer for the old Shedd Elementary building at 99th and Indiana Ave. is the Peace for Preston Foundation, led by Dionne Mhoon, the mother of slain Chicago Police Officer Aréanah Preston. Two years ago, Mhoon launched a GoFundMe to support the foundation and raise money for a community center in honor of her daughter. Mhoon’s bid for the old Shedd school is $25,000.

Elected school board member Carlos Rivas said Wednesday he was Preston’s college counselor in the 2015-16 school year when he worked at Noble’s UIC College Prep.

“She was such a determined young lady and graduated from Illinois State in three and a half years because of her determination,” Rivas said. “She had such a bright life ahead of her, and she did so much for her community.”

“I am so incredibly proud that we’re going to be honoring her and using this building in this way for the Peace for Preston Foundation,” Rivas added.

There was some interest in the old Shedd school in 2017 from a private Christian school and another buyer, but neither bid had the backing of the local alderperson, according to South Side Weekly.

The board resolution says Peace for Preston wants to offer youth recreational programming, educational programming, youth mentoring and counseling, mental health support, job readiness and vocational training, wellness programs, and access to health care support, as well as GED and financial literacy courses.

Both buyers for Henson and Bontemps want to demolish the old schools and construct new housing.

In the case of Henson, buyer Melvin Bailey of MKB Business Strategies told Chalkbeat that he plans to build about 27 single family or two-flat homes on the property.

At least one other shuttered CPS school property is now home to dozens of single family homes. A developer bought the old King Elementary in 2017 in Tri-Taylor and built 30 homes that came on the market in 2020.

MKB’s $25,000 bid was not the lowest received. There was another for $30,000 from Calling Water LLC. Stults said the community meeting was contentious and both proposals had supporters, but Bailey’s plan for redevelopment had the support of the local alderperson, Monique Scott.

In May 2018, the Board of Education approved a bid for Henson’s property from the Single Room Housing Assistance Corporation, which offered $55,000. The group put forward a plan to convert the school into 80 mini-studio apartments for low-income people, including veterans, single mothers, and people with disabilities. The sale never closed.

Devereaux Peters, a former WNBA player turned affordable housing developer, is offering $75,000 to purchase the Bontemps school in Englewood. According to the board resolution, the plan is to demolish the school and build two affordable housing buildings. One would have 72 units with various amenities, including a fitness center and coworking space. The second building would have 60 units for seniors “who wish to downsize while remaining in the community.”

Stults said the current Bontemps structure has no working plumbing, electric, or mechanical systems. He said there was a community meeting in October and the local alderman, Stephanie Coleman, supports the project.

In 2017, the school board approved a $50,000 bid for Bontemps from IFF, a nonprofit lender and developer based in Chicago. But like Henson, that sale never went through.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education members urge City Council to vote for proposed budget

2025-11-25T23:54:58+00:00

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Chicago school board members, educators, and community advocates rallied Tuesday outside Austin High School to advocate for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $16.6 billion city budget, which would mean $552.4 million for Chicago Public Schools.

Their support comes after the mayor’s budget was rejected by a key committee last week, sending the City Council’s process back to square one. The mayor then launched an online portal to solicit more ideas for budget efficiencies from aldermen. Some aldermen are reportedly putting together an alternative proposal.

Jitu Brown, an elected school board member representing District 5A on the West Side, urged Chicago aldermen to vote in favor of Johnson’s proposed budget.

“The status quo is starving a school like Douglass, to where it goes from a school with 600 children, a thriving middle school to a school with only 35 children,” Brown said at the rally. “The status quo is getting rid of all the [career and technical education] programs that used to be in places like Austin and Dunbar and leaving those schools as shells of their former selves.”

Wallace Wilbourn Jr., a teacher at Oscar DePriest Elementary School on the West Side, said if the city’s budget is not approved, school staff could be cut and taxes could go up.

“A no vote on the mayor’s budget will support higher taxes and fees on us, the working people, and cuts to our schools and the services our families rely on,” Wilbourn Jr. said.

Several board members who spoke said there would be cuts at specific schools if Johnson’s proposed budget doesn’t pass. Their comments were based on calculations done by the Chicago Teachers Union.

But city budget officials have said the $552 million for CPS that would come from a surplus of special taxing dollars, known as TIF, are not allocated per school. They are provided to CPS by law as one amount that the school board would decide how to spend.

A spokesperson for the mayor said Tuesday the amount of the TIF surplus “is one of the least controversial parts of the budget.” If the mayor’s $1 billion surplus proposal is approved, the city would also get $223 million in revenue from those special taxing districts.

Depending on the final amount of TIF surplus approved, the district could likely maintain its current budget and avoid midyear cuts. The Chicago Board of Education approved a $10.2 billion budget for the 2025-26 school year in August with an assumption that it will get at least $379 million from the city. The City of Chicago’s budget is separate and operates on a calendar year from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026.

After Johnson put forward his budget proposal, the Board of Education approved an agreement that said it would use additional TIF surplus funds to reimburse the City of Chicago for certain pension costs the city covers that became the center of heated debate this year.

This story was updated to include comment from a mayoral spokesperson.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

School transportation funding a top request for Illinois State Board of Education’s 2027 budget

2025-11-20T23:40:03+00:00

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What do Illinois teachers, families, and educators want the state’s Board of Education to prioritize? Reliable transportation funding and a $350 million increase toward K-12 education are the top concerns, according to budget requests submitted throughout the fall.

The Illinois State Board of Education held budget hearings in September and October to get input from the public regarding the budget for the next fiscal year. During a board meeting Thursday, officials said they received a total of 938 budget requests this year, up from 826 last year.

Eileen Turanchik, ISBE budget director, said 291 people submitted requests to keep transportation funding at the current level or increase it next year.

“Districts emphasized rising transportation costs, ongoing driver shortages, and challenges maintaining safe and reliable fleets,” Turanchik said. “Many described transportation as one of their most significant operational pressures, especially in rural and geographically large districts.”

Another 108 people submitted requests to increase the state’s evidence-based funding formula by at least $350 million. That’s how much lawmakers said they would add annually for at least 10 years after they overhauled the K-12 funding formula in 2017.

Others pushed for funding increases for career and technical education and alternative schools.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders is expected to present a budget plan for fiscal year 2027 to the state board at its January meeting. That plan will then go to Gov. JB Pritzker, who will propose a full state budget in February for approval by the General Assembly in late May. The state’s fiscal year starts July 1 and ends June 30.

In the fiscal year 2026 budget passed in May, the state’s General Assembly allocated an additional $307 million to the state’s K-12 evidence-based funding formula. The formula distributes state dollars based on districts’ enrollment numbers, the enrollment of student groups such as English learners, and how much money a district can raise on its own through property tax revenue.

When the formula was created in 2017, lawmakers promised to provide an additional $350 million a year to fund school districts around the state with the goal of fully funding public schools by 2027. However, a report found that at the current funding level, the state will likely not be able to fully fund schools until 2034.

The Illinois State Board of Education told Chalkbeat in June that this year the agency paused the Property Tax Relief Grant for schools, which received $50 million in previous years.

Overall, the state’s education budget grew from $10.8 billion in fiscal year 2025 to almost $11.2 billion in 2026. ISBE officials said Thursday the budget requests from the public for fiscal year 2027 amounted to $748 million in new money.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Suburban Chicago charter appeals to state after local board votes to close its campuses in 2027

2025-11-20T20:31:25+00:00

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Two suburban Chicago charter schools are appealing to Illinois’ state superintendent to stay open after the local board of education voted to close the campuses in 2027 unless contract renewal terms can be reached.

The charter closure decision and subsequent appeal comes as North Chicago District 187 is transitioning away from state oversight. Like Chicago, the school district will have a fully elected school board in 2027 after roughly a decade of state control. It will continue to have a state Financial Oversight Panel until 2031.

North Chicago District 187’s Independent Authority, which is a hybrid school board made up of state appointees and elected officials, voted in late September to wind down the operations of two LEARN charter school campuses, citing the inability to reach a contract agreement. Earlier this year, the same board voted to grant LEARN a seven-year contract renewal.

“We’re in this gray area of operating schools without a contract to do so,” said District 187 Superintendent John Price. LEARN 6 and LEARN 10 campuses have operated without a formal charter contract since 2021 and 2022, according to the resolution and documents obtained by Chalkbeat.

Price told Chalkbeat Wednesday the first preference would be to reach a contract agreement, rendering the wind-down plan moot. “Clearly, the district wants the schools to be open. We’ve offered a seven-year renewal,” he said.

Andrew Broy with the Illinois Network of Charter Schools said it’s “very common” for a charter school to operate without a contract or under the terms of a previous one after the authorizing school board votes.

“Just like if a union contract is pending for years, it rolls over,” Broy said. “The same thing happens in charter school contracts today.”

One key sticking point in the contract talks between District 187 and LEARN has to do with a school building on the Naval Station Great Lakes base that LEARN has directly leased from the federal government since it opened in 2012. District 187 said it has applied to directly lease the building and is proposing to sublease it to LEARN under the same terms. But the two parties have not reached an agreement on the arrangement.

District 187 is also currently building a new facility for district-run Forrestal Elementary with federal funds.

LEARN President and CEO Greg White has said the network cannot agree to a new contract until all the financial terms, including the building lease for LEARN 6, are sorted out. He said closing the campuses would be short-sighted given their success.

“It was actually the work of ISBE and the Navy and families in North Chicago is why we’re there,” White said. “We’ve had a long-term relationship, a very positive relationship, with the Illinois State Board.”

He said Thursday ISBE should grant the appeal because state law says “if a district chooses not to renew a charter, it must be able to place every student in a higher-performing school. There are no higher-performing elementary schools in North Chicago.”

LEARN’s two campuses in North Chicago are rated “commendable” on the most recent state report card and collectively, they serve 800 of the district’s more than 3,500 students. LEARN officials noted no other District 187 elementary schools received a commendable or higher rating. The local high school, however, is also rated “commendable.” ISBE is in the process of revising those labels for school performance.

In Illinois, charter schools can only be authorized by local school districts. If a local school board denies a charter application or terminates it, charters can appeal to the state superintendent. There are currently nine state-authorized charter schools that won appeals in the past.

LEARN’s appeal was submitted on Tuesday, kicking off a process involving a third-party hearing officer who makes a recommendation to ISBE. The timeline would not likely result in a decision before February or March.

Nevertheless, more than two dozen parents of LEARN students from North Chicago showed up at ISBE’s monthly meeting Thursday to urge state officials to keep the two campuses open beyond 2027.

Jennifer Jerez, a parent of three current and former LEARN 6 students, said she enrolled her older children at the school because they were struggling “academically, mentally and even emotionally” at their previous school.

“They were struggling to read and write at 13 and 15,” she said. “I was desperate for help as any other parent, and so I applied to LEARN 6. There, my eldest flourished. He found his voice. He got into the honor roll, and he got accepted to a prestigious high school. He is now 22 in his third year at [Northern Illinois University], and is majoring in psychology.”

Jerez said her 6-year-old is now in first grade at LEARN 6.

“I am begging you to please, please, let him have the same opportunities that my eldest had,” she said.

“LEARN has given my children and so many others the opportunity to reach higher than they ever thought possible,” said Michelle Malcom, a parent of three current and former LEARN 6 students. “I ask you to grant LEARN’s appeal and reverse the district decision to close our schools. Keep these schools open. Keep hope, choice, high expectations alive for North Chicago.”

Tension between charter schools and their authorizing school boards is not new. But in recent years, in Chicago and Illinois, there have been more instances of charters closing.

Some charter closures have been voluntary, such as recent decisions in Chicago by charter operators to not continue operating certain campuses, prompting the city’s school board to intervene and keep some of the charters open as district schools. Others have been prompted by conflicts or financial mismanagement.

The state board has not always granted appeals. Last year, it denied an appeal by a charter school in Peoria after the local school board there voted to end its contract with the school.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois releases draft proposal of new school rating system

2025-11-05T22:30:00+00:00

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Illinois is planning to change how it labels schools and switch some of the data it uses to assign those designations.

A draft of the accountability redesign posted by the Illinois State Board of Education indicates there would still be five labels, but their names would change slightly. The proposed changes would eliminate the use of the 9th-grade On-Track metric, which measures the percentage of freshmen likely to graduate based on their attendance and grades.

The draft also suggests swapping out chronic absenteeism, which measures how many students are absent for 10% or more of the school year, and instead measuring how many students are present for 90% or more of the school year.

The new labels schools would get — in descending order of highest performing to lowest — would be Exemplary, Commendable, Approaching, Developing, and Comprehensive. That varies from the current groupings of Exemplary, Commendable, Comprehensive, Targeted, and Intensive.

Illinois proposed school accountability ratings.

If approved by state and federal officials, the new rating system would be rolled out next fall. It comes after officials this year changed the cut scores used on annual standardized tests to determine whether students are considered proficient. In accordance with federal law, all third through eighth and 11th grade students enrolled in public schools are tested each spring

States are required to have an accountability system under federal education law. This has been the case since at least 2002 when Congress mandated all students in third through eighth grade and 11th grade be tested in math and reading every year.

The labels in Illinois are determined using a complex calculation that gives weight to certain metrics, such as attendance, graduation rates, and math, reading, and science scores. The calculation also takes into account how well a school does serving specific groups of students, such as those with disabilities or those learning English.

“The current system has been mislabeling schools in much the same way our assessments once misidentified students,” State Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote in his weekly message on Oct. 28.

Currently, the top 10% of schools are automatically labeled Exemplary and then the next roughly 70% have been deemed Commendable. Sanders likened this to grading on a curve with no fixed criteria to earn a certain rating.

The proposed draft designations would change the underlying formula used in a way that would lead to a broader distribution of the labels across schools, according to ISBE.

Under Illinois' new draft proposal for school accountability ratings, more than just the top 10% of schools would be considered Exemplary.

State officials are holding three public meetings to gather feedback on the proposed accountability redesign starting Thursday.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois juniors score lower on ACT than their peers a decade ago, but graduation rates hit record high

2025-10-30T14:00:00+00:00

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Illinois high school juniors last school year scored lower on the ACT college entrance exam than their peers did a decade ago — mirroring national downward trends in high school achievement.

The average ACT composite score unveiled Thursday for juniors who took the test in the spring was a 18.8 out of a possible 36. Chicago Public Schools reported a 17.1 average composite score, but composite scores for other districts were not released. A decade ago, Illinois juniors posted a 20.5 average composite score and CPS juniors then had an average composite score of 18.2.

Illinois tests juniors on a school day each spring using a college entrance exam, such as the ACT or SAT, to fulfill an accountability mandate outlined in federal law starting in 2002. From 2002 to 2016, Illinois used the ACT, then switched to the SAT, which it used from 2017 to 2024. This past school year, the state returned to using the ACT.

The average composite score on the SAT declined between 2017 and 2024, when it was 950. A comparison chart on ACT’s website says an SAT score of 950 equates to a 17 on the ACT.

There’s also been little progress in reducing the rates at which Illinois high school students are missing school. In Chicago, the rates of absenteeism actually went up last school year.

At the same time, Illinois’ four-year high school graduation rate has reached a record high 89%, with Chicago posting an 82.5% rate.

Last fall, State Superintendent Tony Sanders flagged the disconnect between steady standardized test declines at high school level and the rise in graduation rates as a concern. But this week, he said he’s not worried.

“Our data suggests that our students are faring really well,” Sanders said. “They’re graduating because they’re ready to graduate.”

State and Chicago officials both highlighted growing numbers of students taking Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and dual credit courses — all of which can translate to college credit if students successfully pass those courses. However, pass rates for those courses are not included in the data.

CPS Chief of Teaching and Learning Nicole Milberg called rising graduation rates a “bright spot” for CPS and noted that the rate has more than doubled since 2001. She attributed that to the district making preparation for postsecondary education a major focus.

Chicago officials also said more than 56% of district graduates earned early college or career credentials and district data indicates more graduates are making it to and through college.

“We are seeing really strong data in terms of college persistence, which is showing us something about our students being prepared and ready for college,” Milberg said.

Still, Milberg said the latest ACT scores are concerning and something district officials are trying to better understand.

The last time Illinois high school juniors were required to take the ACT in 2016, they posted average scores between 20 and 21 out of a possible 36. For a decade prior, average scores hovered around 20 as well. Chicago’s average ACT scores climbed from 16.3 to 18.4 between 2002 and 2016. New data does not include average composite scores for districts and a spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said they will no longer calculate or publish them because federal law does not require it. Data does include a breakdown of average scores by subject.

Rae Clementz, the state’s executive director of data, accountability & assessment, said not to compare the ACT scores of a decade ago to now because it’s “just a very different assessment.”

But officials with ACT said although some changes have been made to the test that rolled out in 2025, including fewer questions, the scores can still be compared over time. Generally, they said, an 18 in 2025 means what it did in 2015.

Scores on both college entrance exams have declined in other states where all students are taking the SAT or the ACT during the school day for accountability purposes under federal law.

Many researchers and observers point to the pandemic as a core reason for the decline. The high school juniors who took the ACT last spring were in middle school when the pandemic shuttered schools and sent learning online.

Some point to lingering challenges with attendance as a core factor for the declines.

Recent research on Illinois and Chicago students found a strong link between how often students miss school and their test scores. A report released earlier this month by the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative, or iWERC, found test scores decline each additional day a student misses school.

Earlier this year, Chalkbeat and WBEZ reported a quarter of all CPS high schoolers — nearly 25,000 students — missed at least 35 days of school during the 2023-24 school year. That’s twice the number of days the state deems troublesome enough to flag a student as chronically absent. Data shared by IWERC at that time showed the more days a high school student missed, the lower their SAT scores.

New data from the state for the 2024-25 school year indicates that chronic absenteeism — defined as missing 10% of school days or around 18 in a given year — increased in the high school grades in CPS and remained relatively flat across the state. The rates declined for elementary school students both at CPS and across the state, indicating improvement in attendance among younger children.

Sanders said many schools are working hard to address absenteeism, but it remains higher than pre-pandemic levels, in line with national trends. He said the state will soon be launching a “chronic absence task force” made up of teachers, school leaders, social workers, and advocates.

“This is still going to have to be a focus for Illinois schools,” he said.

Jessica Handy, executive director of the advocacy and policy organization Stand for Children, said high schools need to focus on improving attendance, but also should work on keeping students engaged once they do show up.

“Cell phones are another thing that has changed a lot,” Handy said. “The largest barrier to kids learning is that they’re distracted by those phones all day long.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pushed for banning cell phones during instructional time earlier this year, but the proposed bill did not pass. A new study supported by the National Bureau of Economic research found cell phone bans in schools had a positive impact on student learning.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

More Illinois students are proficient, new test scores show. But the cut scores changed.

2025-10-30T14:00:00+00:00

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On the first standardized test results reported since Illinois changed the scores needed to be deemed proficient, 52% of students met the bar in English and 38% did so in math.

State officials unveiled the new cut scores in August after gathering input from teachers, school leaders, and advocates. They then applied the new benchmarks to tests students took this past spring.

But in releasing a trove of data known as the state report card, the Illinois State Board of Education did not provide data allowing the public to compare proficiency rates from previous years when the cut scores were different.

State Superintendent Tony Sanders insisted the proficiency rates would’ve increased this year even without the change.

“They would have increased if we had kept the same cut scores, however, we changed the cut scores, so we can’t tell you what they would have been, but we know they would have improved,” Sanders said.

In 2024, under the old cut scores, 39.4% of students tested proficient in English and 27.9% in math. Proficiency rates had been inching back upward since dropping in 2021 after COVID closed schools and sent learning online.

Robin Steans, president of the education policy organization Advance Illinois, said changing the cut scores alone is not the problem.

“The state probably needed to look at its cut scores, and we expected some of the changes that we saw,” Steans said. “What’s challenging is that without seeing the cut scores applied side by side, and without yet having access to scale scores, it’s very difficult to know what amount of this growth is real growth year over year.”

Officials with Chicago Public Schools, however, did provide their own analysis in an attempt to give an apples-to-apples comparison. They shared what student proficiency rates would have been the past three years by applying the new cut scores to past data.

Under the new cut scores, 40.6% of CPS students who took the Illinois Assessment of Readiness in the spring of 2025 are considered proficient in English language arts while 26.2% were in math.

Courtesy of Chicago Public Schools

Under the old cut scores, roughly 31% of third through eighth graders in CPS who took the IAR in spring 2024 were deemed proficient in English language arts, while 18% were considered proficient in math.

Illinois education officials have argued that the state’s old proficiency benchmarks were among the highest in the nation and confused parents because they were not aligned with grade level standards and expectations.

Still, the changes are coming five years after the COVID pandemic left a generation of kids with learning gaps that have continued to show up across a variety of traditional metrics for measuring student academic achievement.

“I don’t think we can say that they’ve recovered,” said Jessica Handy, executive director with Stand for Children. “I also think that it will be harder to tell what recovery looks like when we’ve changed the bar.”

Handy is part of a coalition of parents who have been advocating for stronger reading instruction across the state. Many parents in that coalition are “fuming mad” that their kid can’t read and instead of schools doing the hard work to get kids to be proficient under the old cut scores, there’s instead “been a change in the goal posts,” she said.

She’s also concerned about the state changing cut scores at the same time the U.S. Department of Education has cut a lot of staff tasked with collecting and reporting data.

“This is somewhat unfortunate timing to have the change in cut scores because I also feel like we have less confidence that we’re going to have good data federally,” Handy said. “And I think it would be really great if we could preserve some of that at the state level.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers union pushes Illinois lawmakers for more school funding

2025-10-29T20:00:03+00:00

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Waves of teachers in blue shirts filled the Illinois capitol Wednesday to lobby state lawmakers for more education funding and push them to tax the rich.

Members of the Illinois Federation of Teachers spoke about the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Education and other public goods, such as the looming end of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as SNAP, and how that impacts classrooms.

Those who spoke at a press conference on the steps of the capitol building demanded lawmakers find revenue to better fund state universities and K-12 schools.

The lobbying effort was the first led by IFT’s new leadership, which now includes Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates at the helm. Davis Gates won election to the CTU’s parent union earlier this month and took over for Dan Montgomery, who served as IFT president for 15 years.

“I’m not looking for a fight,” said Davis Gates. “I think Democrats in a blue state that understand the tyranny of Trump need to show up for our children in Illinois.”

Davis Gates said lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker should do more than hold press conferences denouncing President Donald Trump’s policies and she repeated the union’s push to “tax the rich.”

“We’re going to spend a lot of time in Springfield creating the lesson plans, the pathways for elected officials to honor the working people, the public servants, and the educators of the state of Illinois,” Davis Gates told a crowd of union members outside the capitol building.

Illinois House Democrats are currently eyeing a proposal to tax billionaire investments and entertainment in order to fund public transportation. But it could face hurdles getting through the Senate, which passed its own plan in the spring to tax rideshare, deliveries, and real estate transfers to better fund public transit. The state’s veto session ends Thursday.

The teachers union is supportive of taxing the rich to fund public services, including transit. But much of their focus Wednesday was to push lawmakers to fully fund public school districts and universities.

In 2017, Illinois lawmakers changed the way it distributed state funding to 850-plus school districts. They also committed to increasing funding by $350 million every year with a goal of getting every district to its unique “adequacy target” under a new evidence-based formula by 2027.

Chicago is one of hundreds of districts considered less than 90% funded. Although CPS has seen boosts in state funding, it still needs $1.6 billion to get from its current 73% funded level to 100% under the state’s formula.

“Too many districts are still so far from their adequacy targets,” said Mari Maldonado, a fourth grade special education teacher from Lincolnwood, a suburb north of Chicago. “We are demanding that the lawmakers close the loopholes, tax the ultra-wealthy, and deliver every penny our students were promised.”

Other IFT members who work at colleges and universities spoke about the need to overhaul funding for higher education in Illinois. There’s currently a proposal in the Senate that would implement an evidence-based formula similar to the one used for K-12 schools, distributing money based on need. It stalled in the spring after losing support from the University of Illinois over concerns it could harm the state’s flagship campus in Urbana Champaign.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s 2026 city budget proposal includes $552 million for CPS

2025-10-16T20:00:34+00:00

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed a $16.6 billion city budget Thursday that allocates $552.4 million to Chicago Public Schools, significantly more than the $379 million the school board anticipated when it passed its own $10.2 billion budget in late August.

The additional money would allow CPS to avoid midyear cuts and fill gaps created by the Trump administration canceling millions in magnet school grants. It could also allow the school board to approve a pension reimbursement payment to the city, as outlined in the school district’s budget plan, but the city budget overview documents say that is not assumed in its 2026 plan.

“These funds will ensure that we are protecting our young people from the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle and privatize our public education system, that we are protecting special education teachers, restoring funding for our Black Student Success Plan, and making sure our lowest-paid workers receive their pensions,” Johnson said in a speech to the City Council Thursday.

The city’s 2026 budget, which will need to be approved by at least 26 of 50 aldermen on the City Council before the end of the calendar year, declares a surplus of funds from special taxing districts, known as TIFs, aimed at spurring development in blighted areas.

Before the meeting, Johnson outlined highlights of his budget alongside supporters and allies, including school board members Michilla Blaise, a mayoral appointee, and Jitu Brown an elected member who is an ally of the mayor, both of whom represent the city’s west side, and Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates.

He said this year’s budget was “written long before I took office” and represents the work of “generations of organizers,” drawing on his own background and experience as a CTU organizer before he became mayor.

“Back then, it was about trying to protect and save one school even if it took a hunger strike,” Johnson said. “Now, this budget is about saving our entire education system.”

Blaise spoke in support of the budget and said a coalition of board members who voted down CPS’ spending plan in August because it was “balanced on paper, but not reality” pushed the mayor’s administration to deliver more money for CPS.

“This commitment prevents any midyear cuts and allows us to maintain stability in our classrooms,” Blaise said.

She also applauded the mayor for declaring a record TIF surplus to help CPS fill an $8 million hole created by the Trump administration’s decision to cut some magnet school grants over the district’s commitment to improve Black student achievement and protect the rights of LGBTQ students.

“This agreement is essentially Trump-proofing our budget,” Blaise said.

There are more than 100 TIF districts across Chicago collecting more than $1 billion in property tax revenue each year. Any amount of money not committed to development projects in those areas can be declared as “surplus” by the mayor and City Council. By law, CPS gets 52% of any TIF surplus and the city gets 24% with the remaining sent to other taxing bodies.

Johnson’s budget proposal does not rely on CPS making a pension reimbursement payment to the city, but school board members may still decide to do so. The district’s $10.2 billion budget included a statement that if additional revenue came through, the school board would consider reimbursing the city to cover a portion of the pensions of non-teaching staff covered by the city plan.

That pension reimbursement has been a source of conflict between the school board and city hall in recent years. Faced with ballooning payments and given that about half of the fund’s beneficiaries are CPS employees or retirees, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration implemented an intergovernmental agreement with her appointed school board in 2020 to have CPS reimburse the city for an increasing portion of the required annual payment.

The cost-sharing irked the Chicago Teachers Union at the time, which lambasted Lightfoot for burdening the school system with the city’s financial obligations. But when CTU organizer and former teacher Johnson became mayor, he continued to push CPS for the reimbursement.

The Board of Education has not made a pension reimbursement payment to the city since early 2024 when it sent $175 million to cover part of the cost of the 2023 payment. Blaise told Chalkbeat Wednesday the school board may discuss a new intergovernmental agreement at its next meeting on Oct. 23.

Blaise said approving such an agreement would help alleviate concerns from alderpeople who want to “see something in writing” about how CPS will use the additional TIF surplus dollars.

In addition to the record TIF surplus, the Chicago city budget includes $7 million for increasing the pay of more than 3,000 early childhood workers at 86 programs run through the city’s Department of Family and Support Services and additional dollars for summer youth employment programs.

Johnson’s budget also includes a new, first-of-its-kind tax on social media companies. He noted the link between social media use and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and mental illness among young people, especially. “Just like we’ve taxed other addictive vices that are bad for our health, like nicotine and tobacco, it is far past time we treat social media companies the same way,” he said.

The tax would charge social media companies 50 cents per active user over 100,000 in Chicago and is estimated to generate $31 million to support mental health services, Johnson’s office said.

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois releases draft numeracy plan to improve math education

2025-10-16T17:30:00+00:00

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Illinois has released the first draft of a road map for educators to rethink how math is taught in schools.

The first draft of the “Comprehensive Numeracy Plan,” unveiled during an Illinois State Board of Education meeting Wednesday, comes as Illinois students’ math scores continue to lag behind where they were five years ago before COVID-19 shuttered schools and disrupted learning.

The draft plan outlines evidence-based practices for improving numeracy and the intent is to give districts resources to plan strategically, but schools are not mandated to follow it.

The 96-page document encourages schools to emphasize early numeracy skills and help change community perceptions of math abilities.

“When students and families view mathematics as an exclusive subject reserved for a few, rather than a right for all, it diminishes confidence and access,” the report reads.

It also pushes for a shift from traditional methods for teaching math, such as memorization, drills, and textbook exercises, toward problem-solving and student-centered learning that uses physical materials, such as counters and ten-blocks, and asks students to find answers using multiple approaches.

For example, instead of “a worksheet with 20 addition problems like 36 + 47, 58 + 69, 24 + 18” that asks students to solve them all correctly and quickly, the draft numeracy plan suggests a better activity would be a problem that asks students to “regroup 106 into tens and ones to subtract 37. Show your thinking using a drawing, equation, or number line.”

Kirsten Parr, director of standards and instruction at ISBE, said Wednesday the goal is to “set up our schools, our classrooms and our learning environments, to support that important development of numeracy skills.”

Last year, the state finalized a Comprehensive Literacy Plan, which provides recommendations for implementing evidence-based reading instruction.

ISBE is hosting a series of listening sessions to get input on the draft numeracy plan in the coming month.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois launches its own Blue Ribbon Schools program after feds cut long-standing initiative

2025-10-15T18:05:22+00:00

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Illinois is awarding blue ribbons to 28 public and private schools despite a decision by the Trump administration to cancel the long-standing program recognizing high-performing schools.

The newly-launched Governor’s Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognized schools that went through the application process for the U.S. Department of Education’s National Blue Ribbon Schools Program before it was abruptly canceled in late August.

Prescott Elementary in Roscoe Village is the only public school in Chicago to earn recognition. It was named a National Blue Ribbon school in 2019. Three private elementary schools — Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy, St. Matthias School, and St. Therese Chinese Catholic School — also received the honors.

Illinois follows several other states, including Connecticut, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wyoming, launching local versions of the national Blue Ribbon program, which was created in 1982 under then-President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Erin Roche, the principal of Prescott, said the school was preparing to do a celebration with the students when he heard the National Blue Ribbon program was cut in late August.

He said although it’s unfortunate the national program ended, it’s “very, very impressive” Illinois is continuing to honor high-performing schools. At Prescott, Roche said the school prioritizes “old-fashioned good teaching and learning” and puts students at the center of its work.

“We want them to be strong readers and curious about math and science,” Roche said. “We also want them to be good friends and know right from wrong, and know how to solve social problems and be introspective as well as contribute to community.”

William H. Prescott Elementary School won a National Blue Ribbon in 2019 and was set to be honored again this year before the Trump administration canceled the program. Now, Illinois is launching a Governor's Blue Ribbon Schools Program.

Under the National Blue Ribbon program, schools could be recognized for overall high academic achievement or for success closing performance gaps between different groups of students. Winning a blue ribbon from the federal government did not come with any financial rewards, but did bring positive attention to schools, helping them attract families, recruit teachers, and sometimes boost private fundraising.

In eliminating the program, federal officials said states should continue the program and would have flexibility to determine criteria for selection.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said in a press release that the 2025 recipients had already been selected by the U.S. Department of Education before the program ended.

Going forward, the Illinois State Board of Education, which in the past nominated schools for the national program, will manage the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Schools application process.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools recommends absorbing ChiArts, closing EPIC Academy in June

2025-10-09T01:31:33+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools officials are urging the school board to absorb one independently operated high school facing closure into the district and wind down another one after this school year.

The recommendations come after officials at EPIC Academy, a South Side charter school, and ChiArts, a West Side contract school, both announced they no longer planned to operate the schools, citing financial difficulties. Leaders at both schools suggested CPS keep the campuses going as district-run campuses, as the district is doing with five Acero schools the network had slated for closure.

School district officials want the board to vote later this month to preserve ChiArts as a district-run school, but they are recommending the board let EPIC Academy close at the end of 2025-26 and make a plan to transition its students and staff to other campuses.

At Wednesday’s school board meeting, some members decried the string of recent decisions by charter and contract school operators to stop operating campuses. Some urged district officials to do their best to minimize disruption for students and to engage the school communities in finding solutions.

At a Tuesday press conference, the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents educators at Acero, EPIC, and ChiArts, called for a state investigation into why these schools have foundered financially, often within months of receiving renewal by the district. The union, which has been a vocal critic of charter schools, forcefully pushed to avert the Acero closures.

Earlier this year, the school board passed a resolution to increase oversight of charter schools and embrace a more stringent process for deciding whether to renew them.

But Andrew Broy, head of the advocacy group Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said in an interview with Chalkbeat there is no evidence of financial mismanagement at Acero or EPIC. He said “unaffordable” educator contracts the CTU negotiated at these schools and CPS underfunding coupled with enrollment dips made the campuses financially unsustainable.

“It’s a rich irony that the CTU organized some charters, forced on them structurally unaffordable contracts, and then complains when they are forced to close,” Broy said.

Megan Pietz, a fifth-year teacher at ChiArts and CTU leader who rallied outside the school Tuesday, said union contracts should not be blamed for contributing to the independent board not seeking renewal.

“If you cannot afford to figure out how to pay people a living wage with the same public tax dollars that Chicago Public Schools can figure out how to pay people a living wage with, then you probably shouldn’t be in the business of public education,” Pietz said.

At the Thursday meeting, district officials also rejected the suggestion that information — including about sketchy fiscal practices — had been withheld from the board. Alfonso Carmona, the district’s chief portfolio officer, said federal COVID relief dollars and a practice of holding charter budgets harmless amid enrollment drops helped EPIC weather dramatic enrollment losses until this fall. CPS ended that practice this year, and a grant the school was counting on did not materialize in time, Carmona said, and neither did an offer on a building the school tried to sell.

“This is the same as me losing my job and not being able to pay my mortgage,” he said.

Still, said school board member Yesenia Lopez, “It honestly breaks my heart that we’re having these conversations again.” She added, about renewing EPIC this past spring: “There was information that wasn’t shared with us.”

Parents called on the board to save their schools

The announcements at EPIC Academy and ChiArts this fall set off anxiety among students and parents and a scramble to advocate for the continued existence of their schools.

On Wednesday, numerous students, parents, and educators at both schools pleaded with the school board to avert their closures. Several parents spoke about moving their families to Chicago from the suburbs or out of state so their children could attend ChiArts, the city’s only public school that combines college prep academics with an arts conservatory model.

“What happens at ChiArts is something magical, therapeutic really,” said parent Aracely Madrigal, adding her daughter found a supportive environment there after some staff and peers at a former school refused to use her preferred pronouns and name. “I can say without exaggeration that this school saves lives.”

At the CTU’s Tuesday event outside ChiArts, Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, a former teacher and CTU employee whose district includes ChiArts, said the decision by ChiArts to not seek renewal is destabilizing for the community.

“This is what happens when education is treated like a hustle,” Stamps said. “When it’s transactional, instead of a public good, when decisions about our children’s futures are made behind closed doors at big tables with people who will never see these babies’ faces, who will never walk down these hallways, who will never see their artistry and their brilliance.”

Brooklynn Rodgers, a junior visual arts student majoring in sculpture at ChiArts, asked CPS to find a way to keep the school open.

“Don’t take this community away from us,” Rogers said. “Don’t take this away from the city or for the next generation who haven’t found their way to express their boldness.”

Broy, at the charter network, said Tuesday that CPS has put a strain on charter school budgets by imposing a 3% administrative fee and withholding dollars for employee pension costs.

The network has also recently raised concerns with the district about changes to the GoCPS application used by families to attend a school other than their zoned one. Broy said the system makes families less likely to choose charter schools because the default does not show families charters unless they specifically search them by name. Broy said this has hurt charter enrollment, which impacts these schools’ budgets because they’re more reliant on student numbers compared to district run schools. The GoCPS application is currently open, and families have until Nov. 14 to apply and rank the schools they want to attend next school year.

Charter schools have lost enrollment in recent years, mirroring the districtwide trends.

In the case of Acero, four out of the five schools the district opted to adopt experienced dramatic declines in enrollment this fall, coming on the heels of previous student losses there. The district earmarked $20 million in its 2025-26 budget to help with the transition of these schools to district management. District officials said the move will require staff to reapply for their jobs next school year, which several teachers spoke against at Wednesday’s meeting.

Some board members want to engage with school communities before votes

Carmona stressed that absorbing a charter or contract school is a complex process of bringing these campuses into compliance with numerous district requirements that these independently run schools do not have to meet, including that all their teachers be licensed educators. Absorbing ChiArts will involve an added roughly $2.5 million to operate the school’s art conservatory, which is currently funded by the school’s foundation.

“These are effectively new schools that we’re opening,” he said.

Carmona said the board should vote at their Oct. 23 meeting so that families have certainty and so students will know whether or not to apply to these schools next school year. The GoCPS application is currently open, and families have until Nov. 14 to apply and rank the schools they want to attend next school year.

Board members urged the board to keep ChiArts going and to look for a way to keep EPIC families and teachers together at another area school. Some members such as Ed Bannon urged the district to seek input from the two schools’ families before the vote later this month. Carmona argued that the board must first decide if the CPS will absorb the schools.

Member Ebony DeBerry raised the possibility of finding new independent operators for either school, though Carmona argued this would be a tall order on such a short notice. Member Carlos Rivas said all families want to keep their schools open.

“But there are realities in terms of what’s possible for us to do,” he said. “We need to work with communities to understand what we can do together.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois now ranks 18th in nation for state education spending per student, report says

2025-10-01T16:45:00+00:00

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Illinois is no longer one of the worst states in America when it comes to funding K-12 schools, an improvement that may have helped it weather some of the COVID pandemic’s disruption to student learning, according to a new report released Wednesday.

In its annual "The State We’re In" report, the independent advocacy organization Advance Illinois said Illinois moved from 47th in 2008 for state spending per student to 18th.

“This is unprecedented,” said Advance Illinois President Robin Steans. “It’s stunning. It was badly, badly necessary.”

Illinois changed the formula it uses to distribute money to school districts in 2017 and in doing so, also committed to adding $350 million every year to its evidence-based funding formula. Lawmakers have allocated those increases every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020 when the state budget was largely held flat in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and this year when it paused a roughly $50 million property-tax relief program connected to the formula.

“We get calls on a regular basis from other states that are trying to steal our playbook in terms of a more equitable funding formula and doing a better job sort of identifying what they should be spending,” Steans said.

When Illinois passed its evidence-based funding formula, the goal was to get all districts adequately funded by 2027. Advance Illinois’ report says that’s now not expected to happen until 2038. Under the formula, 50 school districts in Illinois are still considered less than 70% adequately funded. But that number is down from more than 600 districts in 2018 when the formula went into effect.

Steans said Illinois’ leap in state funding for public education helped schools weather the setbacks of the COVID pandemic, noting that eighth grade students in 2024 ranked eighth and ninth in the nation in reading and math proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. However, fourth grade Illinois students, who took the test in 2024 and started kindergarten in 2020, ranked 29th and 30th on the NAEP, often considered the nation’s report card.

Most of the collective $2.8 billion added by state lawmakers in the past eight years has been distributed based on need. But because Illinois’ 866 school districts still rely heavily on property taxes, inequities remain between schools in the wealthiest and poorest communities. Most districts rely on state funding for only a portion of their overall budgets. For example, state money makes up about a quarter of Chicago Public Schools’ budget.

What’s more, Steans said, Illinois lawmakers have sometimes shortchanged or prorated areas of the education budget that are separate from the formula and earmarked for things such as transportation and special education, known as mandated categoricals.

“The state has got to do a better job of keeping pace with those mandated categorical costs or what we’re really doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Steans said.

Nevertheless, the boost in state funding has led to an increase in the number of teachers and a reduction in the average student-to-teacher ratio, which went from 15 students per teacher to 13 students per teacher, the report found.

The report, however, highlighted high ratios of students to support staff, such as counselors, psychologists, social workers, and nurses. All of those averages exceed 400 students to 1 for all types of support staff.

This comes even as student mental health remains a significant concern.

“Increasing chronic absenteeism rates and concerning trends in student mental health and wellness raise important questions about what we can and should be doing as a state to systemically support students so that they are ready and able to learn,” the report said.

In all, Advance Illinois analyzed 80 different metrics that are tracked by the state and federal government and looked at both longitudinal trends and how the state compares to others across the nation. The full report can be viewed here.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools should sue feds over magnet school money, teachers union president says

2025-09-30T21:18:08+00:00

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Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said Tuesday Chicago Public Schools should “absolutely” sue the U.S. Department of Education over its decision last week to cut millions in federal magnet school funding from the district.

Trump administration officials said $5.8 million will not be awarded to Chicago in the coming year under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program and $17.5 million would not be awarded for the remaining years of the district’s grants. The move created an $8 million hole in the current school year’s CPS budget, district officials said.

The federal government’s decision stems from a dispute over whether Chicago’s school district is violating federal civil rights laws with its efforts to help improve Black student achievement and protect transgender students’ rights.

“This time period is going to require an entire encyclopedia of strategies employed at every turn, because that’s what it’s going to take to both resist, challenge, and win in this moment,” Davis Gates said. “So yes, they have to sue. That is their duty to sue.”

A CPS spokesperson said the district is “considering all legal options” regarding the magnet school money.

A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson echoed the district, noting that with CPS’ current budgetary constraints, “every single dollar counts.” Johnson said earlier this year that he would take the Trump administration to court if it took federal funding away from CPS because of the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

About two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary of civil rights Craig Trainor told CPS he would not certify the district’s eligibility for the magnet school money unless the district abolished its Black Student Success Plan and changed its policies on transgender students by Sept. 23.

Chicago called the demand “unreasonable and untenable” and requested an additional 30 days to respond. The district’s interim general counsel Elizabeth K. Barton also argued that the federal department was violating its own procedures and “investigatory process” given that there are still two open investigations into both the Black Student Success Plan and Chicago’s compliance with Title IX as it relates to transgender students.

Both of the matters under investigation are requirements of Illinois law, putting Chicago’s school system between a “rock and a hard place,” Davis Gates noted. A 2024 state law requires Chicago’s school board to create a Black Student Achievement Committee and make a plan for serving Black students. Illinois Human Rights Law also requires schools to allow transgender students access to facilities that correspond to their gender identity.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools loses millions in magnet school money amid dispute over diversity efforts with Trump administration

2025-09-24T22:35:47+00:00

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Chicago will lose millions in federal funding for magnet schools this year due to a dispute with the U.S. Department of Education over how the district serves Black and transgender students.

As a result, Chicago Public Schools now faces a $8 million hole in its current $10.2 billion budget, district officials said Wednesday. Some of that total is carryover funds from last year.

The federal government and CPS operate on different fiscal calendars, with Chicago’s starting July 1 and the federal government starting Oct. 1.

The new multimillion dollar budget hole comes as Chicago continues to be a target of the Trump administration on various policy issues, including diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in public schools.

Despite the funding fight, CPS is continuing to forge ahead with a Black Student Success Plan it rolled out in February and a Black Student Achievement Committee mandated by Illinois law. The district is also maintaining compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Act requirements to allow transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. Both are subject to ongoing investigations by the Trump administration.

Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, sent a letter last Tuesday to CPS demanding the district abolish its Black Student Success Plan and change its policies on transgender students by last Friday in order to maintain eligibility for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program. Chicago was awarded a $15 million grant under the program in 2024 and $14.3 million in 2022.

These grants support personalized learning and science, technology, and arts programming at six elementary schools, according to grant applications from 2022 and 2024.

CPS responded to the Education Department on Friday requesting more information and an additional 30 days.

Trainor said the district’s arguments were “unpersuasive” in an email late Saturday and gave CPS until Tuesday to comply.

A letter sent by CPS’ Acting General Counsel Elizabeth K. Barton, ahead of Trainor’s new Tuesday deadline, said the department “failed to cite any violation of law or provide any evidence of harm done to our students.” She also noted the two ongoing investigations and called the exchange a “one-sided process” that “overly disregards” the federal department’s formal process and procedures.

“Without due process or an opportunity to engage in meaningful remediation, CPS cannot implement the proposed remedial actions at this time,” Barton wrote.

On Wednesday morning, Department of Education spokesperson Julie Hartman said Trainor would cut off the magnet school grant for Chicago, New York City, and Fairfax, Virginia. The latter two have maintained policies allowing transgender students the right to use facilities that correspond with their gender identity.

“The Department will not rubber-stamp civil rights compliance for New York, Chicago, and Fairfax while they blatantly discriminate against students based on race and sex,” Hartman said. “If these entities are willing to risk federal funding to continue their illegal activity, that decision falls squarely on them.”

CPS did not comment on the department’s decision.

Although the cancellation of this federal grant is small compared to the overall $10.2 billion CPS budget, it comes at a precarious time for the district. Late last week, the bond rating agency Fitch revised the district’s outlook to negative, which can affect the school system’s ability to borrow money at reasonable interest rates. And this week, officials said they’re considering a restructure of middle management in order to save money.

Joe Ferguson, president of the nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation, said the amount is small enough that CPS should be able to find a way to make up for the loss of federal grant money and CPS should be applauded for “remaining true to its principles and remaining true to the legal obligations they have under state law.”

But, he said Chicago should have a contingency plan in case more federal money gets withheld.

“This sharpens the notion that the specter is real,” he said.

“I don’t think people understand what it would mean in the worst case scenario if a substantial portion of the remaining federal money was pulled away,” Ferguson said. “It would be useful for CPS to simply do kind of the austerity doomsday exercise of what they would have to undertake, and what that would look like, and how that would impact schools and families and children.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools rebuffs Trump administration’s threat to cut magnet school funding over diversity efforts

2025-09-19T23:39:03+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools told the U.S. Department of Education Friday it would not be walking back the rollout of its Black Student Success Plan or changing its policies related to transgender students until a federal investigation is completed.

A letter sent by CPS’ Acting General Counsel Elizabeth K. Barton called the department’s demands outlined in a letter the Trump administration sent Tuesday as “unreasonable and untenable” and requested 30 days to respond. Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, said his office found CPS violated anti-discrimination laws and would lose grant dollars through the Magnet School Assistance Program.

But Barton wrote back that the district’s “policies and practices are prescribed by state and local law, and CPS remains in compliance with those laws.”

The feds demanded CPS abolish the Black Student Success Plan it unveiled in February and issue a statement saying it will require students to compete in sports or use locker rooms and bathroom facilities based on their biological sex at birth, among other demands.

But Illinois law conflicts on both fronts, Barton noted. The state issued guidance in March that outlines compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Law, including that schools must allow transgender students access to facilities that correspond to their gender identity. Separately, an Illinois law passed in 2024 requires the Chicago school board to have a Black Student Achievement Committee and plan for serving Black students.

In its response, CPS argues that the Trump administration “made a legal conclusion” without completing an investigation.

“Moreover, the Department has not articulated whether any specific students have been harmed by the Black Students Success Plan, as the Plan has not yet been implemented,” Barton wrote.

Chicago school board members told Chalkbeat they are forging ahead with plans to announce the members of the Black Student Achievement Committee next week.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s Air Force Academy High School to change name, switch to Army JROTC

2025-09-02T20:00:00+00:00

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Chicago’s Air Force Academy High School will no longer be affiliated with the U.S. Air Force — and will change its name in the coming year.

The school, which opened in 2009, will instead offer JROTC through the U.S. Army, Chicago Public Schools officials told families in an email Friday.

The school opened in 2009 and was the only wall-to-wall public Air Force Academy high school in the country. It’s been lauded by Mayor Brandon Johnson and is one of six military schools in CPS where participation in JROTC is mandatory. Currently, there are roughly 130 students enrolled, down from more than 300 a decade ago.

The deactivation of the Air Force Academy High School JROTC program means there are no longer Air Force JROTC programs in CPS. A program inside Phillips High School was closed for low enrollment in 2022. There are 815 active Air Force JROTC programs at other schools across the country.

The U.S. Air Force deactivated the school’s program on Aug. 11 and families were notified the next day, roughly one week before the start of the school year. A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force said Chicago Public Schools was notified of noncompliance issues five months ago on March 4 and provided extra time to come into compliance.

A CPS spokesperson said Friday the school has been approved by the U.S. Army Cadet Command to establish an Army JROTC program at the school starting Tuesday, Sept. 2, allowing students to graduate with JROTC certification, which is a CPS Early College credential. Retired Army instructors will run the program until full-time Army teachers are hired.

JROTC is federally funded through the military branch that authorizes the program, providing uniforms, training equipment, and partial funding for military instructor salaries.

Losing the Air Force JROTC program had raised questions about how existing students would be able to complete CPS graduation requirements, particularly for physical education since all students in the Air Force Academy were part of the military program and the school did not have a traditional gym class.

CPS plans to maintain the school’s aviation program through the district’s Department of Career and Technical Education, a district spokesperson said.

In Chicago, enrollment in JROTC more broadly has been declining. There are 5,400 students enrolled in the military programs at 44 schools, most are affiliated with the Army, though a handful of schools have a Navy or Marine program. Four years ago, JROTC enrollment was more than 7,800.

A 2021 Chalkbeat investigation found hundreds of students were being involuntarily placed in JROTC programs at high schools that were not full military academies. An investigation by CPS’ Inspector General found the practice of enrolling all freshmen at some South and West side high schools was prevalent and done often “in lieu of” physical education.

But the Air Force Academy High School’s compliance issues with the U.S. Air Force centered around how students were removed — or “disenrolled” — from Air Force JROTC when they were not meeting the requirements of the program. Air Force Academy High School is a magnet and students must apply and sign an agreement to follow the rules of the program. CPS officials said the school’s policy conflicted with the district’s enrollment and transfer policy, which was updated in November 2024. The revisions included the elimination of an exception for military programs.

“The [disenrollment] policy has always kind of been a problem, but it was never really tested,” said Karen Allen, who served in the Air Force for 20 years and was the school’s master sergeant until she was laid off the Friday before school started.

Allen said concerns from the Air Force arose during an annual inspection regarding students at the school being out of uniform. She said she worked with Air Force officials and CPS officials to review the policy for transferring students and presented a solution that would have allowed students who weren’t in compliance to remain at the school, but leave the JROTC program. But Allen said the proposed compromise was under review by the district’s legal department for many months and CPS missed multiple deadlines from the U.S. Air Force.

“Schools are typically given 30 days to rectify similar identified issues,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force said. “In this instance, Air Force Academy High School was granted an additional four months.”

Allen, who is a joint employee of the U.S. Air Force and CPS, was terminated the day after the program was deactivated.

“It’s a great program, and I’m sorry to leave the school,” she said. “I love the kids. I love working there. I thought I would finish out my career there.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools students head back to class amid budget uncertainty

2025-08-18T18:48:54+00:00

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Armed with a school bell and flanked by CPS and union leaders, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and interim Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King opened the first day of the 2025-26 academic year with a pair of visits to schools on the North and West sides.

Johnson and King visited Courtenay Language Arts Center, where King served as principal from 2013 to 2022. They later made an appearance at Austin College and Career Academy, a high school on the West Side that has newly joined the Sustainable Community Schools program, a CPS and Chicago Teachers Union initiative that provides wraparound services to students and families, which the mayor has promised to expand.

At Courtenay, the mayor and King rang a large bell as kids and families cheered. At Austin, a teacher served as the morning DJ off to the side of the building, playing hits like Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” and Robin S.’s “Show Me Love” as students greeted each other and staff.

Students started school on a schedule similar to years before last year’s Democratic National Convention, when the start date was shifted to accommodate for the large-scale event. Monday was the first day for K-12 students, while pre-K students return to class Tuesday.

King was picked in June to take over the helm of the nation’s fourth largest school district six months after the school board voted to fire Pedro Martinez, who clashed with Johnson over how to balance the district’s budget.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and interim CPS CEO Dr. Macquline King smile for a photo during the first day back to school for CPS students at Mary E. Courtenay Language Arts Center in Uptown, where King served as principal from 2013 to 2022 when she left to work in the mayor’s office.

King and Johnson posed for pictures together, striking a more congenial tone than the mayor and King’s predecessor did during their appearance together last year on the first day of school. The two worked together in City Hall, where King was senior director of educational policy in the mayor’s office before becoming interim CEO.

King made brief remarks at Courtenay before introducing Johnson as “the mayor of education who has made so much possible,” and Johnson complimented King on her work as interim CEO before making his own remarks. Neither King nor Johnson took questions from reporters at either stop.

The two may also be at odds, however, over how to close the district’s $734 million deficit. Last week, King put forward a budget plan that does not include a reimbursement to the city to pay a portion of a pension payment that partially covers school district employees. The proposal says CPS would only contribute if it finds additional revenue. The 21-member school board is also divided over the proposal, with Johnson’s allies urging King to include the city pension reimbursement. Johnson said last week that he expects CPS to make that payment.

Johnson, who said he dropped his own kids off to school Monday morning, did not address the district’s budget situation, but rather highlighted fears that the federal government could cut funding for public education.

A former CTU organizer and an ally of the union, Johnson also highlighted several elements of the new CTU contract finalized this spring, including more staffers, smaller class sizes, and commitments to teaching Black history.

“Our workers, whether you are a [Special Education Classroom Assistant] or a social worker, they’re all here to support our families, particularly at a time at which there’s a great deal of consternation at the federal level, where dollars are being starved away from our city,” Johnson said outside Courtenay. “But we are going to work tirelessly to ensure that every single child has a high quality education.”

CPS starts year with budget uncertainty but fewer staff vacancies

CPS is starting the school year for the first time in recent memory without a budget. In 2016, facing a similarly difficult financial outlook, Chicago’s school board approved a budget in late August, but that year, the school year started after Labor Day.

The school board must legally adopt a spending plan by Aug. 29 and is expected to vote on a plan Aug. 28.

Kids walk to school during the first day of classes for Chicago Public Schools students at Mary E. Courtenay Language Arts Center in Uptown on Aug. 18, 2025.

Students and families may notice some changes in classrooms this year related to both budget cuts and the new Chicago Teachers Union contract. These include smaller class sizes in the early grades, additional teaching assistants, fewer hot meals, fewer custodians, and adjusted bell times at about two dozen campuses.

Custodians represented by Service Employees International Union held a rally outside of Jones College Prep on Monday to protest CPS cutting 480 full-time custodial positions.

District officials, however, also said CPS started the year with some of the lowest staffing vacancies “in recent history.” As of Sunday night, CPS had just under a 2.5% vacancy rate for teaching staff compared to 4.4% at the start of last school year, and a 3% vacancy rate for support staff, compared to nearly 7% this time last year, officials said.

For the first time in at least three years, the district has largely the same number of teaching positions as the year before — 22,671. And it has 13,267 support staff positions, down by 567 positions at the start of last school year, according to CPS data as of Friday. Ben Felton, the district’s chief talent officer, said not adding more positions helped the district shrink vacancies, but he heavily credited the district’s Teach Chicago effort, which has multiple programs meant to recruit and keep people in CPS, including at hard-to-staff schools.

“We know in CPS, as is true in any big school district in America, that when you have teacher vacancies they disproportionately impact students that are furthest from opportunity, whether that’s kids in some of the highest need communities or kids who require teachers in higher need subject areas, like bilingual education and special education,” Felton said.

Students and teachers share hopes and concerns about the next year

About an hour after their visit to Courtenay, Johnson and King moved on to Austin College and Career Academy High school on the West Side.

The mayor made brief remarks before joining King and other officials, who stood near the entrance and welcomed students as they walked into the building.

School staff and Chicago education leadership welcome students as they walk into Austin College and Career Academy for the first day of school on Monday, August 18, 2025.

Debra Woods, a special education teacher at Austin high school and a CTU delegate, watched as district, union, and city officials greeted students. Woods said she hopes that joining the Sustainable Community Schools program means the high school will be able to provide extra programming for kids. She also hopes the initiative will result in more parent and community involvement at Austin High.

“We haven’t had a lot of success with that so hopefully this will help,” Woods said.

But Woods’ optimism is paired with nervousness about her school’s future, given the district’s financial troubles. Woods said she was a teacher in 2013 when her former school, May Elementary, was closed with 49 others that year and merged with Leland Elementary. She left education for one year following the mass closures before a colleague persuaded her to come back to the field.

Austin College and Career Academy on Mon., Aug. 18, 2025 on the first day of school in Chicago, Illinois.

Austin high school, she noted, has the capacity for hundreds of students but enrolls fewer than 200 kids. The school has seen dwindling enrollment for the past two decades and enrolled just 140 students last year.

The district’s proposed budget includes no plans for closures and no beginning or midyear cuts to schools. But officials have projected deficits for future school years.

“There is this fear of what’s going to happen to our school? Will it be closed? Will it be combined with other schools?” she wondered out loud.

Nevertheless, Woods said “We are the ones who create productive citizens in our communities. The fact that we struggle so much to have the resources that we need and there is still a deficit, it’s so hard to figure out where that funding will come from, it’s disappointing.”

Stanley Scales, 15, felt nervous as he waited to enter the school for the first time. The sophomore used to attend Providence St. Mel, a private school in Garfield Park. But his mother, Tanya Saracco, who was with Stanley, said she isn’t working as she undergoes treatment for breast cancer and can no longer afford tuition at the private school, so they decided to enroll at Austin, which is his neighborhood high school.

As a fan of flag football, Stanley said he hopes to try out for school sports. He also has a simple goal this year: “To pass.”

Sarocco described Stanley as a “good kid” who’s smart, so she doesn’t have many concerns, besides bullying.

Staff at Austin College and Career Academy welcome a student for the first day of school in Chicago, IL on Monday, August 18, 2025.

Asked if she has any concerns about the lack of a budget, Saracco said, “As long as [Stanley does] what he has to do, and gets good grades, and doesn’t get in trouble, I’m not worried about it too much,” she said. “They’ll figure it out — they always do.”

Kaniyah Harris, 14, is starting her freshman year at Austin high school after graduating from nearby McNair Elementary School. She felt anxious about the first day but as she waited outside of the building with her parents, she grew calmer, she said.

“I’m gonna stay focused this year,” Kaniyah said. “I’m not trying to pressure myself, but I’m gonna stay focused, get good grades, and stay successful.”

She had advice for her peers who are also nervous: Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, stay positive, be respectful, and “pick your friends — don’t choose everybody.”

First-day jitters were also on display at Chalmers Elementary in North Lawndale. In the gym, some students clung to the parents dropping them off, and a staffer reassured a boy gripping his mother’s hand, “It will all be OK.” Overall, it was a more laidback vibe compared with last summer, when the West Side campus hosted Johnson and then-CEO Martinez, whose relationship had recently soured, for the first day of school.

The school — along with nearby Collins High School and Johnson Elementary — underwent extensive renovations over the summer as part of a community-led initiative to reinvent them as Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math schools. All three have grappled with declining enrollment over the past decade, and supporters hope the STEAM project will give them a boost in a neighborhood with few specialized programs.

Chalmers got a spacious new maker space, computer lab, and arts studio on the second floor — a makeover that workers scrambled to wrap up Sunday.

Many parents dropping off students Monday had not heard much about the initiative. They said the close-knit, supportive environment is what brings them to Chalmers.

One third grader, Aaliyah, and her grandmother, Angelica Smith, arrived more than a half hour before the 8:45 a.m. first bell. The girl, in the school’s elementary grades uniform of dark green polo and khakis, was ready to kick off the year, Smith said: “She wanted to get in and eat breakfast and see if she remembers any of her friends.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Colin Boyle is the photo editor at Block Club Chicago.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lowers state test proficiency cut scores in math, English language arts

2025-08-13T18:11:16+00:00

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The Illinois State Board of Education approved changes to the cut scores used to determine proficiency on state standardized tests Wednesday.

The scores needed to be considered proficient in math and English language arts on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness will decrease, while the cut scores will increase for the Illinois Science Assessment. High school juniors will need to score an 18 in English language arts, a 19 in math, a 19 in science on the ACT college entrance exam to be considered proficient. The ACT scores range from 1-36.

The new cut scores will be applied to assessments taken by students during the spring and reported publicly in October. Data shared in a presentation Tuesday indicates that more students will be labeled as proficient than were last year.

Comparisons to achievement in past years, including to pre-pandemic performance, now will be difficult due to the shifting benchmarks.

Under the new cut scores, 53% of students would be considered proficient in English language arts, up from 41% last year; 38% would be proficient in math, up from 28% last year; and 45% would be in science, down from last year.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders said the move is not a lowering of standards, but rather adjusting to better match the reality of students’ abilities.

Sanders said data showed that many students in Illinois who scored at the old cut score could have entered college without remediation and earned a C or higher in credit-bearing courses.

The measure passed unanimously and board of education members spoke briefly to praise Sanders and the agency’s staff for running a thoughtful process that engaged teachers and other school staff over the past 18 months.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois proposes lowering scores students need to be deemed proficient on state tests

2025-08-12T20:15:00+00:00

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More students in Illinois would be considered proficient on the state’s annual math and reading tests under a proposal to change cut scores, which the Illinois State Board of Education is set to vote on Wednesday.

Cut scores are the scores that separate students into broad categories of achievement, now defined as below proficient, approaching proficiency, proficient, and above proficiency.

Under the proposed changes, 53% of students would be considered proficient in English language arts, 38% would be proficient in math, and 45% would be in science, according to a presentation shared by state education officials Tuesday. Last year, 41% of students were proficient in English language arts, 28% were proficient in math, and 53% were in science.

But the numbers cannot be compared year-over-year because the cut scores changed.

For example, third grade students currently must score 750 out of 850 on the math section of the Illinois Assessment of Readiness to be considered meeting proficiency standards. But under the proposed changes, they would only need to score 732 to be labeled proficient.

On the ACT, a college entrance exam all Illinois high schoolers must take, juniors would need to score an 18 in English language arts and a 19 in math and a 19 in science to be labeled as proficient. In the past, students needed to score a 540 on the SAT in both math and English languages arts.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders said the current cut scores “do not reflect the reality of student progress.”

“We’ve told a whole generation of our students who were college ready that they were not, and we potentially identified the wrong students for additional support and missed students who could have benefited from acceleration,” Sanders said ahead of a committee meeting Tuesday.

Sanders said the state will not be providing proficiency data using the old cut scores in order for schools and families to make comparisons to previous years. For instance, local school district officials will not be able to compare the fourth grade reading scores of students in 2019 to those who took the exam in the spring of 2025.

Illinois is not the only state to change the cut scores of its standardized tests. States such as Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Alaska, and New York have made similar adjustments to their assessment systems, according to a report by The 74.

The overhaul comes as schools are still bouncing back from the achievement declines of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, also known as the “nation’s report card” found most students across the country have yet to catch up with their pre-pandemic peers and the gap between high performing students and low-performing students has grown wider. The fourth and eighth graders who took the state standardized test in spring 2024 had their learning impacted by the pandemic in earlier grades.

Illinois elementary school students had been seeing progress in reading — even exceeding pre-pandemic proficiency levels — but math scores still lag behind past years, according to the state’s 2024 report card. Illinois’ scores on the most recent NAEP were stagnant.

Still, Sanders said Illinois had some of the highest cut scores in the nation — even exceeding the proficiency score for NAEP. He also emphasized that proficiency is not the same as being on grade level.

“Being not proficient does not mean a student can’t read or can’t do math,” Sanders said.

Illinois educators helped adjust cut scores

Illinois launched its effort to redefine performance after the state switched the high school exam from the College Board’s SAT to the ACT last year.

In the past, there were different proficiency levels for the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, taken by third to eighth grade students, the Illinois Science Assessment, taken in fifth and eighth grade, and the high school college entrance exam, taken by students in 11th grade.

The proposed changes would create consistency in the language used to measure performance on the various tests.

Illinois educators played a role in changing the cut scores and crafting performance level descriptors, or a rubric, for each grade and subject explaining what knowledge or skills students should have based on their proficiency level.

Comfort Agboola, a middle school English language arts teacher in Chicago Public Schools who participated in the process to change the cut scores, said the way the state labels kids based on test scores and performance “can shape the way students see themselves.”

“These updated proficiency standards and performance levels don’t lower the bar,” she said. “They more accurately capture the full spectrum of skills students are developing. They acknowledge growth in ways that can motivate rather than discourage.”

Tyler Chance, an assistant principal at Carbondale Community High School, worked on crafting the English language arts performance level descriptors for high school students taking the ACT. The former English and governance high school teacher said he wanted to get involved in the process to get students ready for college and career opportunities.

Justin Harrison, a 15-year eighth grade science teacher at Vandalia Junior High, worked on the eighth grade science cut scores for the Illinois Science Assessment. The process to create the new cut scores includes using the performance level descriptors and requiring teachers to take the exam. Harrison said the descriptors were helpful to understand what teachers should be assessing their students on.

“I hope that educators can take the time to see what these tools can do,” Harrison said. He really hopes the state provides professional development to educators on the new performance level descriptors.

Dale Chu, a consultant and senior visiting fellow at education think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute, is not a “big fan” of states like Illinois lowering cut scores. He feels it can have consequences for students in the future. For example, a student could have been at the top of their class in high school, but then has to take remedial courses when they got to college.

“To me, state tests and having cut scores that are rigorous that actually do show whether kids are proficient or not are a big part of being honest with parents,” Chu said.

Chu said states and the federal government have to provide a “credible check” on schools and local districts.

State education officials said the Illinois Learning Standards, which provide educators with information on what students should know in each grade across different subjects, remain the same.

Sanders said the next step in this process for the Illinois State Board of Education is to change the labels the state uses to define school quality by 2026.

Based on students’ test scores and other metrics, such as attendance, schools are labeled as Exemplary, Commendable, Targeted, Comprehensive, and Intensive. How a school is labeled can determine what resources and support they will receive from the state. The state has yet to release more details on these changes.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools restructures special education department

2025-07-30T22:06:27+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is restructuring its department for students with disabilities and planning to reassign 65 central office positions, according to an internal email obtained by Chalkbeat.

The changes, outlined in an email from Joshua Long, the chief of the Office for Students with Disabilities, also include the elimination of the Department of Procedures and Standards and the Department of Instructional Support, which focused on complying with federal and local policies and instructional support for schools, and the creation of a new department called Academic Access. Among the roles being phased out during the restructure, two — district representative and special education administrator — will be replaced with a special education coordinator to work directly with schools.

A CPS spokesperson said in a statement that there will be “no net loss of full-time positions” as roles are redefined. Employees impacted by the restructuring were able to reapply for the new role; out of those who applied, about 85% were hired, the spokesperson said. The district is still reviewing applicants.

“This shift is not motivated by budgetary concerns or cost-cutting,” the spokesperson said in the statement. “Instead, it is a strategic, values-driven decision grounded in research, best practices, and a belief in the limitless potential of every student.”

Last school year, CPS served nearly 54,000 students with disabilities, who made up 16.4% of the district’s student body. Their share of the population has grown by about three percentage points in the past decade.

The latest departmental changes, coupled with other staffing changes related to special education, including reductions and reassignments impacting special education classroom assistants who work directly with students, are raising some red flags for special education advocates. Of particular concern is the timing of the changes, which come less than three weeks before the start of school on Aug. 18.

Frank Lally, education policy analyst at Access Living, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities based in Chicago, questioned whether the new positions would be fully staffed by the start of the school year.

“I worry that that will create chaos, let’s say, when it comes to school assignments and making sure that students have their accommodations set for the coming school year,” Lally said.

CPS is also currently revising the guidelines schools are supposed to use to develop students’ Individualized Education Programs, legal documents outlining academic supports and educational goals tailored to the needs of each student with disabilities. CPS is also planning to add 120 new case managers who oversee special education services at schools and 100 more clinicians, such as speech pathologists and occupational therapists, in accordance with the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

Some advocates think the department restructuring is not necessarily a bad thing. Mary Fahey Hughes, a former Chicago Board of Education member and longtime advocate for people with disabilities, said she likes the idea of combining staff roles and placing central office staffers in schools. Fahey Hughes said there’s a “deep need” for more support in classrooms that serve students with disabilities.

“These are professionals with deep Special Education knowledge, but parents rarely see them at work unless there is some sort of problem,” she said in a text message to Chalkbeat.

Barbara Cohen, senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Legal Council for Health Justice, said two of the roles that the district is phasing out never made much sense to her. Cohen said some staff who worked directly with families were not equipped to support families and turnover has been an issue.

“Some [staffers] facilitated effective relationships between families and schools, but some seem to be unfamiliar with the requirements of state and federal law,” said Cohen. “My question, though, is how the restructuring will improve the situation.”

District shifts away from compliance-first philosophy

Chicago’s overhaul comes at a time when the federal government has fired staff at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which is responsible for investigating special education complaints. Under the Trump administration, the Office for Civil Rights dismissed over 3,400 cases between March and the end of June, according to a report by Politico.

In the internal email obtained by Chalkbeat, Long, the chief of the Office for Students with Disabilities, noted that the changes represent a shift in philosophy for his office.

“For more than two decades, our office has operated under the belief that compliance must come first — and that strong instruction and student growth will follow,” Long wrote. “We respectfully — and confidently — offer a different view. We believe that when students receive strong, inclusive instruction, their learning will grow — and compliance will follow.”

Some special education advocates worry that the district’s internal restructuring could signal to schools that instruction, rather than compliance, is the top priority.

Matt Cohen, a lawyer at Matt Cohen & Associates and special education advocate, said working on academic support for students is a good priority but worries it could send a message that compliance isn’t a priority.

“I think you’re giving permission to schools to not focus on compliance at all,” said Cohen. “In the context of everything that’s happening at the federal level, I think what they’re saying is we’re not going to worry about these rules so much.”

The last time CPS overhauled its special education department in the 2016-17 school year amid budget challenges, an investigation by WBEZ found services for students were being wrongly delayed or denied. The investigation prompted special state oversight that lasted from 2018 until 2021.

A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said staffers from the agency have been in several meetings with Chicago Public Schools about the restructuring and staffing changes. In a statement, the spokesperson said ISBE will “continue to provide oversight and guidance to ensure compliance and safeguard services for students with disabilities.”

Christine Palmieri, a long-time special education advocate and works with Matt Cohen & Associates, hopes that compliance, procedures and standards, and policies are “still highly met” by the district.

Palmieri hopes the district will fill all the new positions, quickly train employees in the new role, continue to work with the state’s monitor to have ongoing training, and ensure these new roles are accessible to families.

District officials said the district is providing training before the start of the 2025-26 school year and will continue to train staff on an “ongoing basis.”

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Class of 2025: Meet four impressive Chicago Public Schools graduates

2025-06-09T19:45:00+00:00

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Thousands of teens in Chicago Public Schools are being handed their diplomas this month before they embark on new adventures in college and the workforce.

Born in 2006 or 2007, these young people don’t know a world without smartphones and social media. They experienced a pandemic during puberty. And when they entered high school in the fall of 2021, schools were just returning to normal in-person operations.

Chalkbeat spoke to four accomplished graduating seniors about their educational journeys over the past four years and what comes next.

Cynthia Antonio Garcia, 18, is a graduate of Back of the Yards College Prep High School and will attend the University of Southern California in the fall.

Cynthia Antonio-Garcia

Graduating: Back of the Yards College Prep

Attending: University of Southern California

As the daughter of street vendors, Antonio-Garcia said she basically grew up at Chicago’s West Lawn park. She started doing gymnastics through the park district in fifth grade and joined the cheerleading team as a freshman in high school at Back of the Yards College Prep, eventually becoming one of the squad’s captains and qualifying for state competitions.

During her senior year, she created a cheer camp for middle schoolers at nearby Nightingale Elementary, where younger students learned cheer routines from Antonio-Garcia’s team and performed with them at a Back of the Yards football game. She also helps coach cheer and gymnastics at Donovan Park.

During her freshman and sophomore years, Antonio-Garcia questioned whether college was in the cards.

“All these colleges are so expensive. How am I going to be able to afford them?” she said. “I think this was slowly eased through the help of my counselors and my teachers.”

Antonio-Garcia took part in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and has earned more than $90,000 in scholarships to attend the University of Southern California. She plans to major in biology on a pre-dentistry track and hopes to become a dentist serving Hispanics and Latinos, who often face language barriers in accessing dental health care.

Owen Lee, 18, is a graduate of Lane Tech College Prep High School and will attend the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign in the fall.

Owen Lee

Graduating: Lane Tech College Prep

Attending: University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

When Owen Lee joined the high school swim team his freshman year, he was primarily interested in diving. But the school’s pool wasn’t deep enough, and there was no diving team. So he worked with a coach off-site to build his skills and went on to win a city diving title. As a child at Coonley Elementary, Lee did competitive gymnastics and ballet after school, which he said helped a lot in diving.

This year, Lee took 7th place in diving at the Illinois state championships as part of the Lane Tech swimming team, which took 4th overall.

“We had a really, really stacked team this year, and I was so glad to be a part of that,” Lee said.

He excelled in pole vault during his four years at Lane Tech as well, and he credits teammates in both sports for being his support system and helping him find his place at Chicago’s largest public high school.

Lee will attend the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and plans to major in engineering with a possible minor in art and design.

Jakayla Jackson-Bowman, 18, is the valedictorian of Morgan Park High School and will attend the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign in the fall.

Jakayla Jackson-Bowman

Graduating: Morgan Park High School

Attending: University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

Jakayla Jackson-Bowman wanted to be valedictorian from an early age and joked that her friends in the top 10 of the class did “not make it easy” for her in the final semesters.

At Morgan Park High School, she participated in JROTC starting her freshman year and credited her two instructors, Lt. Col. Jamel Carr and Sgt. Delval DeSavieu, with helping pull her “out of that shell” early in high school.

Jackson-Bowman enrolled in the rigorous International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at Morgan Park and developed a love of English. She participated in the school’s dance team, student council, and debate team and served as JROTC battalion commander.

Morgan Park High School is one of five CPS high schools that works with the nonprofit Hope Chicago to pay the full cost of college for all graduates. Jackson-Bowman will attend the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign on a Hope scholarship and plans to major in neuroscience or neurobiology and eventually go to medical school to become a doctor.

Ximena Torres, 18, is a graduate of Farragut High School who will attend Cornell University in the fall.

Ximena Torres

Graduating: Farragut High School

Attending: Cornell University

Born and raised in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, Ximena Torres will soon be the first in her family to attend college when she heads to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on a Posse scholarship.

Torres enrolled in Farragut High School four years ago almost by chance. She had paused her high school search amid remote learning in the first year of the COVID pandemic and picked the school for its pre-law program.

“I have had my heart set on being a lawyer since I was 12 years old,” Torres said, adding that she wants to practice immigration law. Both of Torres’ parents are from Mexico.

“I’m a first generation Mexican American, so it has really played a very big role,” she said. “I think the part that interests me the most is almost finding a balance between humanitarian arguments for immigration and then also arguments in favor of keeping intact the laws of the country.”

A bilingual honor society member, Torres served on Farragut’s Local School Council, the Little Village Youth Council, and the school’s Student Voice Committee. In the latter role, she led an effort to create in-school, self-care days — now named Admiral days — at Farragut once a semester.

“They are essentially nonacademic school days where we have different activities, where students can just build community, enjoy themselves, and have kind of like a wind-down day,” Torres said. “The bell schedule changes, and you get to pick from a variety of activities. JROTC does an archery class. We have puzzle classes and gaming classes with different teachers. It’s really up to you what you want to do on that day.”

Torres took part in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme her junior and senior year. She will attend Cornell University and major in philosophy. She plans to attend law school and eventually return to Chicago to practice.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education renews 21 charter schools after months of delay

2025-05-30T02:35:47+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education voted to renew contracts with 21 charter schools Thursday after months of delay.

Historically, the school board votes to renew charters in January. But this year, the vote was pushed back several times, leaving families and staff with uncertainty as the end of the school year approached.

The board also approved a resolution, first proposed last month, that seeks to impose new requirements and oversight on charter school operators. The resolution was approved with 15 members voting in favor, none against, and five abstaining. There was a brief but unsuccessful attempt by six members to remove a section that says state lawmakers should make changes to the law governing the privately run public schools, including barring operators from closing schools during the term of their agreement with the local school district.

This became an issue late last year when the Acero charter school network announced plans to shut down seven of its 14 campuses, affecting 2,000 students and 500 staff. After an outcry, the school board voted to save five of the charter schools and allow two to close.

Jodie Cantrell, chief public affairs officer at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, called the charter accountability resolution a “backroom deal” pushed by the Chicago Teachers Union.

“This resolution is not about students. It’s not about equity, quality or accountability. It’s about power and control,” Cantrell said, before asking board members to vote no on the resolution.

But Karen Zaccor, an appointed board member for District 4 and a retired CTU teacher who cosponsored the resolution, said at a union-led press conference before the meeting that it prioritizes the rights of families, students, and workers at charter schools.

“Our families at all schools have a right to send their children to school believing that school will stay open to serve their children throughout their school years,” Zaccor said.

The district has not recommended closures for any other charter schools up for renewal this year. However, one operator, ASPIRA, is voluntarily closing its Haugan Middle School campus. And another operator, North Lawndale College Prep, will move its Collins campus from the Collins Academy building to instead share a facility with their original Christiana campus in the same neighborhood. CPS recommended NLCP get a three-year renewal, but during the meeting the school board voted to grant the school a four-year term.

The school board approved two-year renewals for 11 campuses. Another three will be renewed for three years. The remaining seven will receive four-year renewals — with four of those run by charter network Perspectives.

The district outlined several concerns with each of the schools up for renewals and outlined for more those recommended for two-year renewals. Those concerns included academic performance, how the school serves students with disabilities, and accurate teacher licensure information. It asked those schools to address those concerns during their renewal terms.

Both campuses of Urban Prep are subject to a long list of conditions, including a requirement to submit cash flow statements to the district on the first of every month for the two-year period, and a requirement that the operators submit a plan for a “reformed governance structure” by July 31, 2025.

CPS attempted to take over both of Urban Prep’s campuses back in 2022 after concerns over financial mismanagement, not properly serving students with disabilities, and allegations of sexual misconduct against the charter network’s founder and CEO Tim King. King has denied all allegations.

The school board voted to revoke Urban Prep’s charter in 2022, but a legal battle ensued with an initial court ruling in favor of Urban Prep and an appeals court siding with CPS. Despite the district’s success in appellate court, the charter was renewed last summer and the schools remained open. This school year, the Bronzeville campus enrolled 143 students and the Englewood campus had 87.

Both schools will remain open for two more years under the renewals approved Thursday. Earlier this year, WBEZ reported that federal authorities are investigating Urban Prep.

The issues at Urban Prep and Acero have attracted scrutiny and criticism from the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents teachers at both campuses. The union released a lengthy report last week detailing many of its concerns and demanding more charter school oversight.

Charter operators and supporters have urged the school board to provide high-performing networks with longer term renewals. State law now allows the district to grant charters up to 10-year agreements. But the longest agreement CPS has ever awarded a charter school was seven years.

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education finalizes 2025-26 school calendar

2025-05-30T01:58:36+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools’ first day of classes for the 2025-26 academic year is Aug. 18 and the last day will be June 4, 2026.

Those dates represent a return to a schedule more similar to previous years after officials shifted the calendar to accommodate last year’s Democratic National Convention.

The 2025-26 calendar maintains a weeklong break at Thanksgiving, a two-week winter recess, and a spring break the last week of March.

The Chicago Board of Education approved the 2025-26 calendar last year, but needed to change it after reaching a contract agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union. The new contract increased the number of teacher-led professional development days from three to six and the number of principal-directed ones from nine to six.

Elementary school report card pickup will be March 18, the same day as high schools. Students will still be off on March 17, 2026, which is primary election day in Illinois. Schools often serve as polling locations. Teachers will still have professional development on March 17. Students will be off April 3, while teachers have a professional development day.

Pre-K programs will start one day later and one day earlier than classes for other students. The first day for the littlest learners will be Tuesday, Aug. 19 and the last day will be Wednesday, June 3.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

For sale: 20 old Chicago school properties

2025-05-12T10:00:00+00:00

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The buildings have sat empty for 12 years.

Several are architecturally significant with striking details and character taking up multiple city blocks. But many are in rough shape, with copper stripped from the pipes, broken windows, and graffiti covering walls. One had to be torn down after an extra-alarm fire last year.

Now, Chicago Public Schools aims to sell the former schools, putting 20 properties out to bid once again, with the hopes of seeing them repurposed and the possibility of bringing in around $8.2 million and avoiding spending more on future upkeep.

“Our goal is not to sell them for the highest dollar amount, really. It’s to find the most responsible, compatible use,” said Stephen Stults, director of real estate for CPS. “What we get paid, of course, helps with our budget challenges. But they’ve been sitting there long enough, and we need to do everything we can to try to get them repurposed.”

The solicitation for bids, which are due May 30, includes mostly school buildings closed in 2013. Each property includes a minimum bid and all properties have schools on them with the exception of one on the Near West Side.

That property, the site of the old Dett Elementary, has a minimum bid of $1.3 million and sits about five blocks from the United Center in an area poised for a $7 billion development plan, called the 1901 Project, a nod to the sports stadium’s address.

The city demolished the school building last fall after a fire broke out in late May. Prior to the fire, CPS put the building on the market and received just one bid for $1, which was “below what the district was willing to accept.” Demolition cost the district $1.25 million.

The former Dett Elementary building, 2306 W. Maypole Ave., sits vacant on Chicago’s West Side. Dett’s building closed and the school relocated to Herbert Elementary, 2131 W Monroe St., in 2013 when the Chicago Board of Education shuttered 50 schools.

The old Dett Elementary School being demolished at 2306 W. Maypole Ave. in Chicago.

All of the properties have deed restrictions that do not allow them to be used as a K-12 charter or school or for the sale of liquor or tobacco products.

Stults said CPS spends between $100,000 and $150,000 to maintain and secure each vacant school per year. That’s at least $2 million annually for the past 12 years — or $24 million. The ongoing expense comes as CPS is currently considering hundreds of layoffs in order to close a $529 million deficit for the coming school year.

Even though many vacant schools are not in great condition, Stults said the “bones of the buildings” are good. Demolition may be expensive, but so is rebuilding a core structure. After the deadline, he said the district will consider all bids and select the two “highest and most responsible” to present to the school board, as required by state law. Stults anticipates bringing some building sales to the board before the end of the calendar year.

If there is no demand for certain vacant schools, he added, the district plans to reach out to sister agencies, such as the Chicago Park District, to see if they’re interested in the properties.

Vacant schools are a visible reminder of the 2013 closures, which disproportionally impacted Black children from low-income families and led to further population loss. Many community groups and neighbors near these properties have called for reinvestment in these public assets for many years.

Efforts to sell and repurpose old CPS schools a mixed bag

Following the mass school closings in 2013, then-mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennet appointed a committee to develop guidelines for school repurposing and community development. Their early 2014 report laid out potential uses for each vacant school and recommended a process for repurposing.

CPS put 47 buildings up for sale and sold two dozen properties in subsequent years for a collective $38 million. Some have been redeveloped into luxury housing or private schools. One was torn down to make way for 30 new single-family homes and another was rehabbed into a union hall.

More recently, the former Emmet Elementary in Austin opened as a gleaming workforce training facility after a more than $40 million renovation supported by city, state, and philanthropic money. The former Overton Elementary in Grand Boulevard on the south side slowly transformed into a community hub with weekend market events and a community garden.

Ghian Foreman, a managing partner with the Washington Park Development Group, which has owned the building since 2015, said they will begin renovations to convert the building into offices later this year as soon as the city grants the permits.

“It’s harder than you think it is,” Foreman said. “This has been a really long process of learning. You have to really be committed, and you have to ensure that you have the resources to see it all the way through.”

Many vacant schools shuttered a decade ago have garnered interest from buyers and community proposals. But actual redevelopment has stalled for myriad reasons.

Some schools up for sale now had buyers previously, but the sales never went through. For example, the school board approved a bid for the old Henson Elementary in 2018, but the local aldermen at the time held it in a City Council committee. The building remains vacant. The school board in 2018 approved a bid for the old Morgan Elementary in Chatham from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241. But the project never came to fruition.

Some schools have been sold and are off the district’s books, but remain vacant and undeveloped.

One notable example is the old Von Humboldt school, which still sits vacant after being sold by the school board in 2015 for $3.1 million to the nonprofit IFF. The group planned to convert the old school in gentrifying Humboldt Park to a mixed-use building with affordable apartments and market-rate townhomes built on part of the parking lot. But IFF eventually sold the property to Newark, New Jersey-based RBH Group, which promised to convert it to a “Teachers Village” with subsidized housing for teachers, similar to projects it’s done in Atlanta, Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut.

Von Humboldt Elementary was one of 50 Chicago Public Schools closed in 2013. It still sits vacant, but there's plan to convert the school into housing for teachers.

Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st Ward, put brakes on the project in 2019, but it eventually got approval from the City Council in 2020. The city approved $18 million in tax-exempt bonds in 2022 and last fall, the Chicago Housing Authority committed 61 vouchers worth $20 million over 20 years. Today, the historic school built in 1884 sits waiting for activity.

Local elected officials influence vacant school sales

What to do with school real estate is another area of governmental entanglement between the city and the Chicago Board of Education.

By state law, the City of Chicago or the Public Building Commission hold the title “in trust for the use of schools.” The sale of old schools must be approved by the City Council in order for the deed to be transferred to a new owner. It also must be approved by two-thirds of the Chicago Board of Education, which now means 14 members must vote yes.

In the bid materials, interested buyers are encouraged to contact the local aldermen and local school board representatives for the properties they’re interested in purchasing.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who represents the 20th Ward on the south side, plans to hold meetings later this month to get feedback on repurposing the schools in her ward. Taylor is the City Council’s chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development and also participated in a hunger strike to keep Dyett High School open roughly a decade ago.

Parkman Elementary in the Fuller Park neighborhood is vacant and boarded up. It is one of multiple old schools in the 20th Ward. Ald. Jeanette Taylor will hold community meetings later this month to discuss repurposing the public assets.

School board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who was elected to represent District 10 on the south side, said he hasn’t heard from any prospective buyers yet. He doesn’t want to prescribe any uses for the vacant buildings in his district but just hopes that investors would tune in to what communities in these neighborhoods want and need. He also thinks any money the district makes from the sales should be poured into schools in those neighborhoods.

“I would like to see any revenue benefit local schools rather than disappearing into the district bureaucracy,” he said.

When asked if she’d been contacted by anybody hoping to buy vacant schools, Therese Boyle, the elected school board representative for District 9 on the south side, said: “Not a soul.”

But she said what to do with these vacant properties is a critically important question for communities, especially given the district’s looming deficit.

“We need every penny for the operation of the schools that are open,” Boyle said.

Boyle, a retired school psychologist, worked inside the old Wentworth school building now up for sale when it was closed in 2013. She remembered how difficult it was for students and staff to move to a new building and said it’s awful to have an old school sitting empty in a neighborhood.

Michilla Blaise, who was appointed to the school board by Mayor Brandon Johnson to represent District 5 on the west side, said she’s been talking with district, city, and county officials about what to do with the old vacant schools. She said it’s important to do something because right now, they’re just reminders of neighborhood disinvestment for the people who live around them.

Foreman, the community developer that owns the old Overton school, echoed that sentiment. For the 10 years he’s owned the old school, he’s allowed the community to use the gym to play basketball and workout. He had to stop that in the past year to prepare for construction and said there have been break-ins recently, but not from people looking to steal things.

“They were young people who wanted to come and play in the gym,” he said.

Even though financing Overton’s redevelopment has been a big challenge, Foreman questioned the argument often made by city officials that it’s too costly to repurpose these properties or make them available to the community while trying to sell them or even demolish them for use as a park.

“What’s more expensive?” he asked. “What we pay the police in overtime or opening up a gym for the kids to play basketball?”

Mila Koumpilova contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board members raise concerns about Illinois labeling schools

2025-05-07T20:33:11+00:00

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Chicago school board members learned how the Illinois State Board of Education measures and supports schools — with some questioning whether the state’s designation labels impact school reputations.

“You want to make sure your child is in the best hands and if a school is labeled on probation or anything less than great, you don’t want to leave your kid there,” said Michilla Blaise, who was appointed to the school board by Mayor Brandon Johnson to represent District 5.

“I understand that those labels come sometimes with additional assistance and additional resources, but we’ve got to figure out how to do that without signaling to the community that this is a place where your kids aren’t going to get everything that they need,” Blaise said during a special meeting of the Chicago school board Wednesday.

Illinois is poised to change how it measures student and school performance — including changing the scores needed to be deemed proficient on math and reading tests.

In Illinois, schools are given one of five designations based on a variety of data about how well their students do on math and reading tests and how often students miss school. How many students graduate and how many freshmen are passing their classes are factors for high schools. “Exemplary” schools are the top 10% of all schools statewide and “intensive support” schools are those in the bottom 5%.

According to ISBE data, 26 Chicago Public Schools are considered “exemplary” and 39 are designated as needing “intensive support.”

Most CPS schools – 409 of more than 600 schools — are deemed “commendable,” the second-highest category given to roughly 70% schools statewide. CPS has 110 schools in the “targeted support” category, meaning they need to improve on certain metrics, and 36 in the “comprehensive support” category, which means it needs overall improvement.

CPS used to have its own rating system that labeled schools one of five levels: Level 1+, Level 1, Level 2+, Level 2, and Level 3. But the district paused it in 2020 during the COVID pandemic and the labels never returned.

This January, the district rolled out new school dashboards with no levels and no mention of ISBE’s designations.

“The terminology that the state uses is only available on the state report card,” noted Carlos Rivas, the elected school board member for District 3. “It’s not something that we use to advertise our schools.”

Debby Pope, a retired teacher appointed to the school board by Johnson, said no matter what labels are used, “people know what they mean.” She took issue with how much standardized tests still influence how schools are measured and said they are biased.

“I just think that an evaluation system is one thing, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to the kind of school improvement that you and all of us want to see,” Pope said.

The state-mandated training on school improvement for board members primarily focused on how the state supports school improvement efforts for schools in all levels.

Nick Heckel, ISBE supervisor for school district improvement, said his team works with CPS schools on “intensive support” to find ways to improve and address root causes of low performance.

He gave an example of a school dealing with high absenteeism that identified families who were afraid it was unsafe to let their kids walk to school. The principal hired three paraprofessionals to serve as a “walking bus” every day, picking up students at home and walking them to school.

School ratings have changed over time

How to measure student achievement and school performance has changed significantly over the past several decades. In the years after the state gave Chicago’s mayor control over the schools in 1995, more than 100 schools were placed on “academic probation.”

The labeling of low-performing schools became required across the nation after the 2002 reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act known as No Child Left Behind. That law also required public schools to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. This continued after the 2015 reauthorization known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, but gave states more flexibility to develop their own accountability systems.

In Chicago, school performance ratings have shaped high-stakes decisions, including closing the lowest-performing campuses and firing all the staff in an effort to reboot.

But in recent years, the state imposed a moratorium on school closures in Chicago, which ended in January. Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer, is against school closures and has criticized high-stakes school accountability policies.

ISBE could soon follow Chicago in changing elements of the state’s school accountability system. Officials are working with more than 100 educators to review state standards and benchmarks and have been on a listening tour to gather feedback on potential changes.

In the wake of the pandemic, several states have lowered testing standards, generating mixed reactions. Some say the adjustments better illustrate improvement and progress, while others fear it could mean students and schools that are struggling could go unnoticed.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test that’s given every two years to a sample of students, showed most cohorts of students in 2022 were performing at levels lower than their pre-pandemic peers. The 2024 cohorts were performing more closely to their pre-pandemic counterparts. Illinois state standardized test scores last year showed a stronger rebound in reading, but SAT scores continued to fall.

Data on school performance shapes how families make decisions about where to send their children to school, said Sandra Kwasa, director of training development with the Illinois Association of School Boards. Kwasa, who also gave a presentation to Chicago school board members Wednesday, urged them to get familiar with the state’s report card data for CPS.

“That is what your community sees. That’s what realtors are looking at to sell your community,” Kwasa said. “You really, really want to go look at that and get a good understanding of what that is and what’s missing because it doesn’t tell the whole story, but it tells a part of the story.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Trump administration launches investigation into Chicago Public Schools’ Black Student Success Plan

2025-04-29T22:26:08+00:00

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The Trump administration opened an investigation Tuesday into Chicago Public Schools, alleging race-based discrimination related to the district’s recently released Black Student Success Plan.

That long-awaited plan was unveiled in February and challenged the following day by Virginia-based conservative group Parents Defending Education, which filed a similar complaint against a Los Angeles Unified School District initiative.

The group alleges that the CPS plan violates Title VI, a provision of federal civil rights law that bars discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Department of Education Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said CPS has a “record of academic failure, leaving students from all backgrounds and races struggling and ill-prepared to meet the challenges and enjoy the rewards of contemporary American life.”

Trainor said that the CPS plan “seeks to allocate additional resources to favored students on the basis of race” and that the department would not allow federal funds to be used “in this pernicious and unlawful manner.”

A CPS spokesperson said Tuesday the district will not comment on pending or ongoing investigations.

The investigation is the second launched against CPS since the start of the second Trump administration. In March, the education department opened an investigation into CPS, the state of Illinois, and suburban Deerfield Public School District 109 for alleged violations of the Title IX, federal law that prohibits sex discrimination.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said earlier this month he would sue the federal government if it withheld funding from schools over diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

The CPS plan to support Black students, which the district began working on in the fall of 2023, sets goals to increase the number of Black teachers, reduce Black student suspensions, provide more professional development for all educators, and ensure that Black history is taught in more classrooms, among other steps.

The Trump administration has sought to use its contested interpretation of Title VI to clamp down on schools’ diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Last month, the education department asked states to certify they were in compliance with the law under threat of losing federal funding.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote a letter in response to that demand saying the state already complies with the law. He challenged the department’s authority to change the “terms and conditions” of federal funding streams “without formal administrative process.”

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction last week putting on hold the Trump administration’s efforts to use its civil rights authority to go after DEI efforts. The judge’s action came in response to the American Civil Liberties Union filing a lawsuit on behalf of the National Education Association. Eighteen states have also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s push.

Illinois law, signed in 2023, required the Chicago Board of Education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee and develop a plan to “bring about academic parity between Black children and their peers.” The school board formed a committee last week to work on enacting the plan.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: Karen Lewis ‘Didn’t Come Here to Lie’ in new book about her life

2025-04-21T10:00:00+00:00

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It’s been four years since Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis died at the age of 67. Now, a new book shares her life story in her own words.

Co-written by Lewis and former Chicago school board member and historian Elizabeth Todd-Breland, “I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education” chronicles Lewis’ life from her childhood growing up in Chicago’s Hyde Park, to her twenties working a multitude of jobs, to her years leading the CTU.

“She was very clear-eyed about how she wanted to tell the story,” Todd-Breland said, adding that when people who knew her well read the book, they’ll say, “I can hear her in it.”

After decades teaching high school chemistry at Chicago Public Schools, Lewis joined a group of progressive educators to form the Caucus of Rank and File Educators in 2008. The group pushed back on bipartisan education reform efforts of the time that came with high-stakes accountability, the closure of many traditional public schools, the firing of veteran educators, and the rise of publicly-funded, privately-run charter schools in Chicago.

The group took over leadership of the CTU in 2010 and popularized a common good approach to organizing and bargaining that centered social issues and pushed to have teachers’ voices shape public education policy. Teachers unions in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Seattle, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Dayton, Ohio, eventually followed the approach.

Lewis sparred publicly with former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the length of the school day and year, whether teacher evaluations should be linked to student test scores, and air conditioning in classrooms. She led a seven-day strike in 2012 that was bruising to Emanuel and launched Lewis into the national spotlight.

In 2015, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor just as she was considering a challenge to then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Though she recovered and remained at the helm of the CTU, a stroke in the fall of 2017 led to her resignation from the union’s top role in 2018.

The book by Karen Lewis and Elizabeth Todd-Breland focuses on the life led by the former president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Todd-Breland began working with Lewis on her memoir in early 2017. After the stroke, she couldn’t write anymore, Todd-Breland said, so she began interviewing Lewis at CTU headquarters, in her home, and eventually, at Whitehall, an assisted living facility in suburban Deerfield. Their last interview took place in February 2020, and Lewis passed away roughly one year later.

Todd-Breland worked with research assistant Sekordri Ojo, who was also a student of Lewis’s when she taught chemistry at King College Prep, to put the book together “like a puzzle” to create a cohesive narrative about a woman she calls “a master teacher, a skilled communicator, a principled person, and a renaissance woman.”

Chalkbeat spoke to Todd-Breland about the book.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

One thing that really stuck with me was her recollection of going to school for the first time and coming home from the first day of kindergarten and being devastated that she wasn’t taught to read. Was that surprising to you?

That’s a good question. I think it wasn’t surprising to me because Karen was so precocious and so curious that, of course she would expect on the first day of kindergarten to learn how to read.

But I think some of the other things that she talks about are actually interesting and speak to the moment that she went to elementary school. For example, she talks about primary grade teachers playing the piano and teaching music in the classroom. That was something that was quite widespread during that period of time. Primary grades included music in the classroom or had pianos.

As a side note, I recall I was doing some work years ago with some students at Sumner Elementary School on the West Side in an after school program. We were working on a history project about their school and we found all these old pianos. And I remember asking, “What is this about?” And they were like, “Yeah, primary grades used to have pianos and teach music in class.” I think that is sort of something of the era.

Students gathered in the Black Culture Center at Mount Holyoke, sometime between 1970 and 1972. Karen Lewis is seated on the far right.

After graduating from Dartmouth College, Lewis moved to Oklahoma, where she held so many different jobs that weren’t teaching jobs. She led this entire other life before the one we know about in Chicago. Was it difficult for her to talk about this time in her life?

I think it was a time of a lot of growth for her. Her years in Oklahoma. In a certain way, it almost felt like she was fleeing Dartmouth. I think it was very hard to be among the only Black women, very few Black people, at a time when this university had just turned coed, and I think she was ready to get out of there.

She was trying to figure out what she wanted to do with life. She worked at a drug rehab center. She worked at American Airlines. She was doing IT work. She sold Ginsu knives. She did telemarketing, which she said was actually one of her favorite things, before she found teaching. I think she really was just kind of trying to find her way, which is what a lot of people do.

She does remark on how, particularly coming from Chicago, it felt like the civil rights movement was several years behind in Oklahoma. She really felt like folks there were, in many ways, still traumatized, particularly in Tulsa, by the Tulsa race massacre that had happened earlier in the 20th century. In Tulsa, they knew what happened, they experienced very viscerally the negative consequences of fighting white supremacy, and so she felt like there wasn’t as much of a desire to aggressively confront racial inequality there in the same way she had experienced in Chicago, or even what she experienced as a student activist in her college years.

She talks about her first husband, Glenn, who she married while in Tulsa. The two split and he died at 41 when Lewis was 35, but she said Glenn taught her that “people you work with aren’t necessarily your friends. He taught me how to read between the lines. He gave me all the street smarts that I think I have now.” Decades later, Chicago Magazine wrote a profile of her characterizing her as a street fighter. Did getting this glimpse into her life in Oklahoma help you better understand that side of her?

I think that there are parts as she narrates her early life that you can still see in her later life. On the one hand, she was a singular, extraordinary person. On the other hand, she was a human and I think one of the things that the memoir does is in telling her personal story of growth over time, of learning and seeking and trying things and shifting, it also humanizes her in a way that I think hopefully also allows people to see that not that anyone can do extraordinary things, necessarily, but that we all have the capacity within us to try to do hard things.

In the book, Lewis references civil rights lawyer Lani Guinier a few times. She outlines three questions she used in her D’vah Torah that she credits to Guinier: “Who made the rules to the game? Who are the winners, and who are the losers? What are the stories the winners tell the losers to keep them playing the game?” How do you think this applies to public education today?

I think as we look particularly at the national political landscape right now, those questions remain really important. And Lani Guinier was “she-ro” of Karen’s. She was also a Black Jewish woman. She was a civil rights lawyer. She faced her own pushback for pushing the envelope, and ultimately wasn’t able to be nominated for the position [of U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights under Bill Clinton], or go forward in her nomination.

I think these questions are basically: What is common sense? I think if we look at the period between the early 2000s and now, the education justice movement that Karen was a prominent leader in shifted that common sense locally about things like the need for fully funded education, the values of having an art teacher, a music teacher, and physical education and wraparound services. These aren’t things in our common sense today that we question. Whereas if we think back to the late ’90s and the early 2000s, it was a back-to-basics moment. It was a kill-and-drill moment, it was double-block English, double-block math and everything else goes to the wayside.

If you think back to the early 2000s, there was really bipartisan consensus around privatization, high stakes testing, high stakes accountability. The polarities are now quite different. On the one hand, you have leaders on the right who want to privatize everything, voucher out the education system, defund public education. But the alternative to that isn’t “Let’s do some form of pseudo-privatized education,” or “hard a” accountability. The alternative to that is: fully funded schools, wraparound services, culturally relevant and responsive education. In this moment, the force of narrative that those three questions point to remains relevant.

What do you think she would think about former teacher and CTU organizer Brandon Johnson getting elected Chicago mayor and now being on the rulemaking side and the winning side?

If you think back to the political project that she was engaged in, she very clearly saw a path into electoral politics for herself, potentially being mayor, but also pushing different candidates to really change the playing field. I think she would be proud of now-Mayor Brandon Johnson for stepping into that arena.

I also think she was clear eyed about the difficulties of governance that everyone encounters. Particularly in the moment we’re in right now, taking on political roles at a moment when, in particular, funding is falling out from underneath all of us, is a really daunting and difficult task.

I don’t want to put words into Karen’s mouth, but what I can say based on the conversations that we did have, and what she writes about, is that she did think it was important to move into electoral politics, regardless of how fraught that space might be.

Was there anything cut from the book, or did you have a hard time distilling it down?

I had a ton of material. When I started, the first draft had like 110,000 words. It was wildly large. But part of that is because there’s repetition.

I do think that there were — there’s not key things that I was like, “Wow, I wish I could put that in.” But there were things that, if she were still living, I would have loved to press more on. Like, tell me more stories about the classroom, because her stories about the classroom were amazing. Lighting things on fire on the first day of school in chemistry class to get students engaged and about her use of the Socratic method that she learned actually at Sullivan in her very first fulltime teaching job and how she used that and it resonated with her own liberal arts education at Mount Holyoke and Dartmouth.

She taught for so long, over 20 years, in one of the largest high schools in Chicago, Lane Tech College Prep, as well as King College Prep and Sullivan High School. Her students are everywhere. They come out of the woodworks to share stories about their experiences with Karen, how transformative she was in their lives. Just like a LinkedIn post like, hey, the book’s out and I have former students commenting “I remember when I was in class and you know, she said this and that changed my life,” and I think it does speak to the transformative power of educators. In the day to day, it can often feel futile and frustrating, but teachers are shaping and molding and impacting people’s lives in a way that travels with them for the rest of their life. And I think Karen was one of those educators.

Lewis talks about former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with whom she had an adversarial relationship at times, and how she read the book “Brothers Emanuel,” in order to know her enemy as a form of opposition research. What were her reflections on that relationship?

I think her critiques of Rahm Emanuel were very pointed. I think her critiques of the relationship that he thought he could establish with her and her putting a check on how she would and would not be spoken to, she was very clear on that.

There’s the sort of interpersonal parts of her relationship with Rahm Emanuel, but for her it wasn’t strictly interpersonal. For her, when we talk about the winners and the losers in the game, she represented generations of educators and students who had been on the losing end of things for so many years. And so when she was in these back and forth conversations with him, she wasn’t there by herself. She was there on behalf of many, many people who had for many years not been or not had opportunities in the city. It felt like something more than just an interpersonal attack to her. When you cuss at me or when you put me down, in this way, you’re also putting down all the people that I represent here.

Angela Davis, left, and Karen Lewis pose for a photograph. Davis, a feminist political activist and member of the Black Panther Party, wrote the foreword of Lewis' posthumous memoir.

In the book, she also talks pointedly about party politics and money, saying, “We have a one party system in America, and it’s the party of money. There are just two major branches, Democrats and Republicans. And if you don’t believe it, look at who the donors are. Those donors will subsidize both branches. What we really have is one party, the party of green. And I don’t mean the environmentalist green. I mean the party of money green. This is my theory of the situation. Of course, I could be wrong as all get out.” Do you think she was wrong?

I don’t think she was wrong. I think there are so many things in this memoir and her lessons for us that speak to exactly where we are today, fighting against billionaires, using the word oligarchy profusely in the United States of America, and having it accurately reflect the power structure of our country. I think she was very keen to that issue.

She talked about how she didn’t see that much of a difference between former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, and Emanuel, a Democrat, or these other billionaires that were pulling the strings behind the curtain, and that the answer to that, for her, was people power. That the power of the people, the power of mass mobilization, the power of solidarity, was the only thing that could push back and fight against that, and that’s where we are today.

Her faith was a big part of the whole book. She talks in the very final chapter, A Life Well Lived, about running into people who had wanted her to be the mayor and telling them, “God had something else planned for me. What are you going to do?” In your last interview, obviously, you probably didn’t know it was your last. Did you know it was your last?

No. No, definitely not.

Was it hard for you to figure out where to finish the story?

We weren’t able to communicate much during that COVID year and towards the very end of her life, but Karen’s faith was so important to her, and I think it was something that sustained her through difficult and joyful moments. She would say to me regularly, “I plan to live for another 100 years.” She had a different vision for herself. I think she was someone who also had a very forward-looking vision and that that sustained her in a certain way, and that her faith was a central part of that.

It actually was very difficult trying to figure out how to end the book, because when we were working on the book, she was alive. So trying to figure out how to end it was difficult. Every time I read it, it was hard when I’d get to the end, because it felt like, oh, our time together is over.

On the one hand, she had so much more in her, and on the other hand, she did so much. One thing I will say is, given the attacks on DEI, given the attacks on public education, given the defunding or deconstruction of the U.S. Department of Education, Karen’s words and ideas are as relevant today as they were in the 2000s and 2010s. I hope that people can take strength from her story — to laugh and to learn and to think about how we fight for a better world and for the world that our students deserve and our communities deserve.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

This Chicago teacher supports immigrant students, even teaching them calculus on Saturday

2025-04-16T16:43:00+00:00

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Math teacher Victor Hurtado knows what it’s like to enter high school as a recently arrived immigrant.

After growing up in Durango, Mexico, he moved to Chicago as a teenager and enrolled in Schurz High School, which had an English-Spanish bilingual program at that time.

Now, Hurtado serves as the math department chair teaching advanced algebra and AP Calculus at Schurz, which is now one of three dual-language high schools in Chicago Public Schools.

“I’m very passionate about my bilingual background,” Hurtado said. “I love my newcomers, and it’s a blessing to serve them.”

Victor Hurtado was a recent finalist for the 2025 Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching.

Hurtado was honored earlier this month as a finalist for the Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Chalkbeat spoke with him about supporting bilingual students, his favorite math lesson to teach, and what it’s like to navigate the current political climate around immigration.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you decide to become a teacher?

I was working on my undergraduate degree at Northeastern University after I graduated from Wright College with an associate’s degree. While at Northeastern, I met this professor from Colombia, a wonderful man. I took computer science with him and he really inspired me to finish up my degree and work as a teacher. He founded a school that was for adults and he recruited me to help in the evenings teach adults mainly from Latino backgrounds. The school helped them to get their high school diploma, not the GED. It was such a wonderful experience that I will never forget. For nine months, every Thursday night, we’d volunteer. It was awesome.

Right after Northeastern, I got a job at Chicago’s Foreman High School as a bilingual math teacher, and while I was there, I eventually got my master’s degree at DePaul University. I was at Forman for 10 and a half years before coming to Schurz for the last seven.

What is your favorite lesson to teach, and why?

Being in the classroom for 17 years, there are so many great lessons in math that I could pick. This is my second year teaching AP Calculus, and I’ve always wanted to teach that class.

My favorite lesson is Riemann sums. It’s a method by a German professor, last name Riemann. It’s one of those AP Calculus topics that is a good introduction to derivatives. And kids discover and make connections between the formula and applying the geometry skills.

It is one of those topics that it’s very satisfying to see how the kids are able to sketch trapezoids, how they sketch rectangles. It’s all hands-on and they do explore, and it’s more like a discovery method for them to understand a much bigger theorem in calculus.

Chicago has enrolled many recent immigrants in the past three years. How has that impacted your school and your teaching?

Ever since the results of the political elections, in our community, you see a lot of increasing anxiety among Latino families with ICE deportations taking place.

Thankfully, Chicago is a great city. We are a sanctuary city. We welcome people of all sorts of backgrounds. I do feel like I was welcome in Chicago and I think our newcomers, they do feel welcome. There’s a lot of support in place for them to kind of get accustomed.

Right now at the classroom level, particularly for our bilingual and ESL classrooms, we see an increase in the high levels of stress because it’s all over the news. I do try to talk about it when they ask, if they ask. We explain to the student, “Listen, don’t panic. Take a deep breath. ICE cannot come to your school without a [judicial] warrant.”

I openly had two conversations with the students recently, and the kids were very curious. They were very open. They were very polite. They were very reflective. Obviously, they were afraid of those things, and we tried to ease their concerns and guide them.

Our local school council conducted a wonderful legal clinic last Saturday. People are doing great things at Schurz advocating for our families.

Talk a little more about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I’m a proud Schurz alumni. I’m very grateful for my bilingual background, and I feel very strongly about promoting dual language and bilingualism in our communities. I feel like Schurz was the place that I needed to be at the moment that I was here.

At Schurz, we have a great group of people who are doing a great job for our dual-language students. They’re very passionate about dual language and bilingualism. The educators do generally care about our students, and even our principal, Dr. Moran, she’s bilingual.

As for myself, I was in bilingual classes, but I was never offered the chance to take an advanced class in mathematics, and I understood why. Obviously, I didn’t have the skills to be in an advanced class. But now, this is what I advocate for my students.

I just did a workshop recently at a dual-language elementary school. I was presenting on how to build rigorous courses for our Latino and underprivileged students. It was truly an honor to be speaking about it and bringing in things that I’ve done in the classroom, based on my own experience, based on how I want to advocate for the students.

In my AP Calculus class, I recruited about nine bilingual students. I’m conducting Saturday review sessions. I’m doing this because I want to do it and the kids are showing up on a Saturday morning, nine in the morning until noon, just to talk about problems.

This is their third year in the United States. So they’re getting used to writing their responses in English, completely in English, and their writing has gotten much better. They’re so motivated. It has been such a powerful, empowering experience that I feel honored to be part of.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received as a teacher, and how do you put it into practice?

I’ll go back to my years at Schurz. One of the best pieces of advice that I received was to go to a community college and start my education there. They offer a good bridge program for the students like myself, and they have a very affordable tuition, right? And now, they do offer the Chicago Star Scholarship, which is for students who excel, who have a 3.0 GPA, and it also applies undocumented students. Back when I was in school, they didn’t offer those things. So I’m so glad that they’re doing it now.

Mr. Sanchez, my high school social studies teacher, encouraged me to go to community college and get a degree. I’m so glad that he was able to inspire me. I try to do the exact same thing for the students today. I talked to them about going to see the college and career counselor; let’s see what scholarships are available to you.

How do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

I’m a sports fan, and I love playing volleyball. I played in high school, and now, I play with my friends, guys I’ve known for the past 20 years. So I play whenever I have a chance. This helps my mental health. People have to have something outside your job that is going to help [you] cope with the stress.

My two daughters got into volleyball, and this year, we’ve been doing travel team with them. They have played volleyball for the past three years. It’s one of the greatest experiences that I ever experienced as a father. Those girls are so passionate about the sport. They dive, they hit, they spike, they do a lot of things already that I was never able to do at a young age. It’s such a wonderful thing to see, and that really fills me with joy. That has been a blessing for them and for the family.

Correction 9/16/25: This story has been updated to clarify that Schurz High School had a Spanish-English bilingual program when Hurtado was enrolled, but was not a dual-language school until he started teaching there. It also corrected that the school hosted a legal clinic last Saturday, but is not hosting them every Saturday.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

‘We’re gonna sue’: Chicago mayor says Trump threat to cut funding over DEI is ‘unconstitutional’

2025-04-04T19:22:52+00:00

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson threatened to sue the Trump administration if it follows through on a threat to withhold billions in federal education funding to states and districts over diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

In a letter Thursday, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights with the U.S. Department of Education, told state education leaders they must certify within 10 days that their schools do not engage in any practices that the administration believes illegally promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“We’re gonna sue. It’s unconstitutional to disrupt freedom of speech,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to be intimidated by these threats, it’s just that simple. Whatever it is that this tyrant is trying to do to this city, we’re going to fight back.”

The latest threat comes after Trump’s education department already targeted Illinois and Chicago schools for equity efforts. In February, the department opened an investigation after a Virginia-based group filed a complaint challenging Chicago Public Schools’ recently-released Black Student Success Plan. In March, two conservative groups filed a Title IX complaint against Illinois, CPS, and a suburban district over its LGBTQ+ policies and the education department promptly began an investigation.

CPS received $1.3 billion in federal funding this academic year, $400 million of which flows to schools with high percentages of low-income students. The $1.3 billion in funding is about 13% of the district’s annual budget. The Trump administration specifically threatened to withhold these dollars, commonly known as Title I, in addition to other money earmarked by Congress to support specific populations in public schools.

Illinois education officials also said late Thursday they will “never waver” in helping all students “from every community, background, socioeconomic status, gender, and race – which is consistent with federal and state laws and our values.”

Illinois received $6.4 billion from the federal government this academic year for public education, $1.2 billion of which went to schools serving large percentages of students from low-income families.

Federal money for public schools, which are governed by local school boards and primarily funded by local property taxes and states, was already projected to decrease this year with the expiration of COVID relief dollars.

Illinois schools got roughly $7 billion in federal COVID relief funding over the past four school years. Chicago received about $2.8 billion of that money, which helped pay for existing and new staff, academic recovery programs, limiting class sizes, and growing its universal preschool program. A 2024 Chalkbeat spending analysis found an average 7% of Chicago’s school budgets came from COVID dollars.

The federal pandemic relief money helped Chicago schools cover a structural deficit that is once again plaguing the district’s budget. CPS typically begins its budgeting process for the coming school year in the spring, and distributes proposed budgets to principals and local school councils in April or May.

CPS did not respond to a request for comment on how a potential loss of federal funding could impact its budget, which was $9.9 billion this school year. Officials have previously estimated a deficit of about $500 million for the next academic year.

The school district must also grapple with the costs of a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. The two reached a tentative agreement Monday, but CTU members still must ratify the deal and the school board will need to approve it alongside a budget amendment.

Despite the looming financial pressures, Johnson said he would not “stand idly by” and that the Trump administration would “meet the muscle of working people, and it starts right here in Chicago.”

Johnson, a former union organizer and former social studies teacher, also pointed to the tentative agreement with the teachers union for provisions protecting teachers’ ability to teach Black history and protections for LGBTQ+ students and staff.

There is significant uncertainty around what practices the education department considers illegal. Guidance issued earlier this year says that schools wouldn’t be penalized just for teaching Black history but programming that “acts to shame” students based on their race or “accuse them of being oppressors” could create a hostile environment.

Congress allocates federal money to local public schools and the education department distributes it. The department can incentivize and penalize districts, but withholding federal funds is easier said than done. Public schools are largely locally controlled and decisions around curriculum, infrastructure, and programming are the jurisdiction of local school boards.

“You cannot withhold funding based on curriculum and I think we have to hold the line on that,” said Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a history professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and former member of the Chicago Board of Education. “I understand that that will include a legal fight, and that is a fight worth fighting.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson tries to broker compromise on teachers union contract

2025-03-20T01:18:19+00:00

Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago Public Schools, and the Chicago Teachers Union agreed on one thing Wednesday following a closed-door meeting between the three parties: They are very close on settling a union contract that has been bargained for nearly a year.

But while the mayor and Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden characterized the meeting as productive, CTU leadership and CEO Pedro Martinez emerged frustrated.

Johnson, a former middle school teacher turned CTU organizer, called the remaining issues as “minute” and warned of the potential added costs of a strike.

“None of these issues that they need to settle on will be worth the consequence of six, seven days or how ever many days out of school,” Johnson said. “They are so close.”

The two sides have been stuck on how much additional preparation time elementary school teachers ought to get: 10 minutes or 20. They also remain apart on what veteran teachers are paid and how frequently highly rated teachers get evaluated.

Wednesday’s meeting was convened by the mayor at Harden’s request. Both CPS and CTU shared where they stand and discussed pathways to a deal, but parties on both sides declined to share details.

Harden said both sides are “so close, I have to believe that …we haven’t just struck the right chord yet,” Harden told reporters. “But we’re gonna keep grinding at it.”

Martinez said he sees “no remote possibility of a strike” because both sides are “that close.” Still, Martinez said his team was asked to stay at the meeting longer, but he didn’t feel comfortable with that. CPS and the union will go back to bargaining Thursday morning, he said.

“The power dynamics are just unfair to our team, who all we’re trying to do is protect our district and protect our students,” Martinez told reporters after the roughly two-hour meeting. “This was not a negotiation.”

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates agreed that things are close — and “absolutely landable tonight” — but criticized Martinez for refusing to stay longer on Wednesday to get a deal. She said at one point he “stormed out of the room.”

“You’re suing the district to keep your job, you’re saying you’re the only decisionmaker for this contract, and then you storm out of the room,” Davis Gates said of Martinez, who won a temporary injunction that prevents board members from attending negotiations.

Martinez left the meeting after the mayor and “at no point disrespected the mayor,” according to a source who attended the meeting.

Asked if the union will strike if both sides can’t close their gap, Davis Gates said, “See you all later,” and left. Seventy-five percent of union members must vote yes in order to authorize a strike.

The mayor’s high-stakes convening of the key players comes on the eve of a pivotal school board vote scheduled for Thursday to amend the current school year’s budget — a move that typically happens after collective bargaining agreements are settled.

The amendment on Thursday’s agenda accepts $139 million in unanticipated revenue from the city and leaves open three ways to spend it: on a new contract for teachers, a collective bargaining agreement for principals, and a $175 million pension reimbursement to the city.

Harden said “there is a path on the table” to pay for both the contract and the pension payment, but he did not disclose more details. Harden told reporters that the board’s bond attorney has confirmed that it can refinance its debt as one option.

Davis Gates again raised concerns about the board passing a budget amendment before a contract deal, without knowing the true cost of the contract, even though historically the board has waited to amend its budget until after it reaches a deal.

The added revenue is not enough to cover both a payment to the city and increased labor costs related to the contract.

The teachers union has ramped up pressure to settle the contract ahead of the budget amendment vote. But the timing of the amendment vote is rooted in when the city government must close out its books on last year’s budget, which is March 30. If CPS does not approve the amendment, city officials have signaled they may have to dip into reserves to cover the $175 million pension reimbursement However, CTU’s current leadership faces urgency of its own with internal union leadership elections in May.

Bargaining between CTU and CPS started out more hopeful than previous years, given that the union had a strong ally and former staffer of their own in the mayor’s office. But talks began souring in the summer, after CPS said it was facing major financial challenges.

Tension between Martinez and the mayor’s office, which at one point suggested the district take out a short-term loan to, in part, pay for contract costs. In October, Johnson’s first set of school board appointees resigned en masse, and a mix of new appointees held seats during a short interim period. In December, Johnson’s appointees voted to fire Martinez, but he has remained at the helm of CPS — and in charge of contract negotiations.

Changes in management can slow the pace of bargaining, said Robert Bruno, an expert in labor relations at the University of Illinois.

“It isn’t just that the management people are changing, but it’s what those people represent,” Bruno said, noting that Martinez is not in alignment with the current school board. “They have different attitudes. They come with different expectations.”

Nevertheless, Bruno said it seems like CPS and CTU “have been close for a long time” and a strike is first and foremost, harmful to students and families, but also “is likely to be harmful to the mayor’s longterm political interests.”

“The cost of a strike would just be so disproportionately more than finding a compromise,” Bruno said.

Johnson echoed that sentiment and urged all parties to stay at the table to negotiate a compromise.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago City Council members pressure school board to pay up — or risk losing other financial support

2025-03-14T20:14:22+00:00

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Chicago aldermen and City Hall officials suggested the city could withhold other funding for Chicago Public Schools if the new school board doesn’t reimburse the city $175 million to cover a portion of a pension payment for some school staff.

Ald. Jason Ervin, who represents the West Side and is chair of the powerful committee on budget and government operations, said that while CPS has no legal obligation to reimburse the city, City Council also has no obligation to provide the school district with funding for school construction projects or waive water and sewer fees, as it currently does.

Those and other entanglements between the city government and the school system were laid out in a 2023 report required under the state legislation that paved the way for Chicago’s transition away from mayoral control to a fully elected school board in 2027.

The scene highlighted the complexity of the shift in governance, but also foreshadowed the political conflicts that could play out in the years to come.

“There’s an old African proverb that says: When the elephants fight, the ground gets trampled,” Ervin told school board members at the second of two public hearings Friday. “We share constituencies. If one loses at the expense of another, we’re both losers in that calculation.”

The city must close its books for 2024 by March 30 and officials have said they’ve already made a full payment to the municipal pension fund. If the Chicago Board of Education does not come through with a $175 million reimbursement, the city risks ending the year in the red. Facing that prospect, the city’s chief procurement officer has asked vendors who do business with the city for a 3% discount on services, WGN reported.

A letter urging the district to pay up was circulated by Ervin and Ald. Jeanette Taylor, chair of City Council’s committee on education and child development Thursday and had been signed by 28 aldermen as of Friday.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, an ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson, told school board members Friday that “every dollar spent on this pension payment is coming out of money for public safety, infrastructure, public health, and sanitation.”

Jill Jaworski, the city’s chief financial officer and a parent of a CPS high school student, said aldermen have asked her about canceling some or all of the roughly $319 million in city financing for ongoing school capital projects.

“They feel the commitment was made to make this payment, and if it is not made, they are concerned about why we continue to support CPS in the manner that we do,” Jaworski said.

Yesenia Lopez, one of the elected school board members, said it’s important for the school board to “continue those relationships and build trust” with the City Council as the two become separate government entities.

“What does this set precedent for moving forward? What in the future is the city going to be asking us to also help contribute to — the many items that the alderman stated that the city is already contributing to,” Lopez said.

City Hall suggests CPS refinance debt

The budget amendment that the new 21-member, partially-elected school board is scheduled to vote on next Thursday would add $139 million in unexpected revenue from the city in surplus dollars from special taxing districts. But it includes three possible ways to spend the new money: Reimburse the city, cover the costs of a new Chicago Teachers Union contract, or cover the potential costs of the principals’ first union contract. Both labor contracts are still being negotiated.

All of those expenditures would cost more than $139 million, but CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said cuts, furloughs, and layoffs are “off the table.”

The amendment requires a two-thirds vote to pass, meaning if seven school board members were to vote no, the amendment would fail.

As a potential solution to afford both a reimbursement to the city and looming labor costs, the Johnson administration has been pushing CPS to take out a short-term loan or refinance existing debt, which it floated earlier this week.

Jaworski laid out the refinancing option to school board members Friday, but acknowledged it would be “a bridge scenario.” She said her team’s analysis indicated a refinancing could free up about $250 million immediately, but cost the district about $50 million in interest down the road.

Elected board member Therese Boyle, who represents the far south side, raised concerns that state lawmakers would frown upon CPS doing any refinancing or borrowing. She noted that earlier this week state Rep. Curtis Tarver (D-Chicago) filed a bill to reinstate financial oversight of Chicago schools.

“We already have so much debt, and our debt payment every year is so much of our budget,” Boyle said. “What kind of a message does this send to the state? That bill that was filed last week saying they want to reinstate the School Finance Authority. Does it look like we can not handle our budget ourselves, and we’re just borrowing, borrowing?”

CPS’ Chief Financial Officer Miroslava Mejia Krug said the school district would need to wait and see what the market conditions are if it were to try refinancing.

As the nearly four-hour hearing wound to a close, appointed board member Michilla Blaise urged everyone to work together to find a solution.

“It’s way political, I guess, because of history, for lots of reasons, but I really do believe that … everybody here cares deeply about children and schools,” Blaise said. “I just want to say I’m really glad we’re having this conversation.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s fight over school staff pensions: 4 big things you need to know

2025-03-13T00:17:57+00:00

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Chicago’s new school board is considering an amendment to the school district’s $9.9 billion budget that aims to address a short-term budget quagmire.

The decision made by the 21-member, partially elected governing body could have long-term implications as Chicago Public Schools moves away from 30 years under mayoral control.

The budget amendment on the school board’s agenda for its March 20 meeting accepts an additional $139 million in unexpected revenue, but does not spell out what the board will spend the money on. It lays out three possibilities: paying the yet-to-be determined costs of a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, funding an inaugural collective bargaining agreement with the union representing principals, and giving the money to the city as a contribution to the retirement fund that supports non-teaching school staff.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is pushing for the latter, which would continue a practice started under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot of having the Board of Education pitch in on these pensions. The city must balance its books by the end of this month, and Johnson’s allies on the board have expressed agreement with the mayor.

But Johnson continues to face resistance from CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and district leadership, who are staring down financial challenges of their own, including a deficit of at least $500 million dollars next school year. They and at least a few new school board members have argued it’s more prudent to put the money toward labor contract costs and funding classrooms today, not helping the city make a pension payment.

The issue has become so politically controversial that it contributed to the resignation of the previous Board of Education and the firing of Martinez, who will leave in June. Indeed, the fight over the municipal pension payment is the “single, largest and, in the moment, most critically important” financial entanglement between CPS and the city, says Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, an independent, non-partisan government research organization.

Ferguson said it’s “critically imperative” that the school board and City Hall get to work on a long-term solution before the school board becomes fully elected in 2027. A new state law addressing the issue might end the drama, but legislators haven’t taken it up so far.

Two-thirds of the school board — or 14 members — would need to vote yes to approve the budget amendment.

Here’s what to know about this disagreement and the options officials have.

What is the municipal pension payment?

The Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund, or MEABF, supports city workers, staff of the Chicago Housing Authority, and non-teaching staff at Chicago Public Schools when they retire.

More than half of the fund’s members are current or former CPS employees — a percentage that has grown over time. CPS budget officials have noted that while 60% of the pension fund’s beneficiaries are current or former CPS employees, they account for only about one-third of the fund’s liabilities.

Even so, under state law, the Chicago city government is solely responsible to make annual payments to the fund, not CPS.

This year, the city is legally on the hook to pay that municipal pension fund $955.7 million, according to budget city documents. That’s far more than the roughly $165 million annual payment it was making just a decade ago.

Like most pension funds in Illinois and Chicago, the municipal fund has massive unfunded liabilities. Put simply, for every dollar it owes to present and future retirees, only about 25 cents is available. To fix this, the city is now required to pay more every year so that there’s enough money to pay retirees in the future.

In 2015, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced a record property tax increase that was approved by City Council to meet these growing pension obligations. The following year, the city imposed annual increases to a water-sewer tax that would be dedicated to the municipal retirement fund.

Facing a ballooning payment, Emanuel’s successor, Lori Lightfoot, implemented an intergovernmental agreement with her appointed school board in 2020 to have CPS reimburse the city for an increasing portion of the required annual payment given that school district employees make up more than half of the fund’s members. Since then, the Board of Education has made four pension payments; the most recent one in early 2024 was $175 million.

For the past year, the mayor’s office has pushed CPS to once again contribute $175 million toward the municipal pension payment — and the City Council passed a budget with that assumption.

But so far the school board has not budgeted that payment this year. Nor has it approved an intergovernmental agreement to do so.

What options does the City of Chicago have?

The city’s 2025 budget proposed by Johnson and approved by City Council in mid-December assumed CPS would, once again, kick in $175 million.

The $17.1 billion spending plan includes a $1.13 billion payment to the MEABF, more than the required amount of $955.7 million, which is calculated based on what’s needed to cover future benefits. That’s because it also includes a $168.7 million voluntary advance payment to the MEABF, which is roughly $6 million short of what the city wants from CPS.

These additional payments are similar to paying off additional principal on a mortgage. They also started under Lightfoot. However, they are not required by state law.

Senior mayoral aides said this week the advance payment is a priority for the city because it saves on long-term costs. They also said they don’t consider CPS’s $175 million contribution as going toward the advance payment.

But if CPS does not come through with the $175 million contribution, the city could drop the advance payment. That could be met with mixed reactions from credit rating agencies, said Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago. Some agencies might downgrade the city, while others could be more sanguine about it.

They could also dip into reserves, which Ferguson noted would have negative consequences.

“The city’s in a position where it is adding to the storm cloud of another [credit] downgrade,” he said.

Not making the advance payment or dipping into reserves or any other changes to the city’s budget would require 26 City Council votes.

The mayor already had a difficult time getting his budget approved last fall. His administration’s initial proposal, which included a property tax hike, did not go over well with the City Council. A revised budget without that tax hike narrowly passed 27-23.

What options does CPS have?

It’s been clear since the CPS board approved a $9.9 billion budget passed last summer that the district would need to amend its spending plan once officials finished negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union and the district’s new principals union.

For months, the mayor’s office has suggested CPS take out a loan to cover new contract costs and still kick in a portion of the municipal pension payment. More recently, Johnson’s office has suggested the district could issue municipal bonds at relatively low interest rates.

But the district has asserted that it cannot legally borrow money and show those loan proceeds as revenue in order to balance its budget. If the district is pressed to pay for both increased labor contract costs and a contribution to the municipal pension fund, CPS leaders have said they may need to make mid-year cuts or resort to layoffs or furloughs.

Senior mayoral aides continue to argue against cuts that would impact classrooms.

In its initial budget, CPS expected to get $159 million in surplus tax revenue from special development districts. An additional surplus declared by the mayor adds $139 million more to that number. The latter is the source of the new revenue in the budget amendment the Board of Education will vote on later this month.

But the additional infusion of cash isn’t enough to cover all of the district’s looming expenses. Last fall, Martinez testified before the City Council the district would need $484 million from those taxing districts to make ends meet.

Martinez said last Thursday in an email to staff and families his team will recommend to the board to prioritize spending the additional $139 million on labor contracts only — not the municipal pension payment.

CPS has limited taxing authority. It can only raise property taxes annually up to a state-imposed cap, which is 5% or the consumer price index, whichever is less. It has done that every year in recent history.

The school district has a worse credit rating than the city although the city’s rating is not much better and was also recently downgraded. But Marlowe, the municipal finance expert, said at the end of the day, it’s all the same property tax base.

“It is probably more cost effective from a taxpayer perspective, for the city to play a larger role,” Marlowe said. But he added that its important for both CPS and City Hall to do their due diligence to determine the least costly option.

“They have to make those pension payments. That’s not negotiable. So somebody’s going to have to blink and decide that the money is going to flow from from one side to the other,” he said.

What’s a long-term solution for this pension issue?

The city and the Chicago Board of Education could split responsibility for funding the MEABF longer term via two options: a stronger intergovernmental agreement, or a change to state law.

The current dispute and the fact that there is no intergovernmental agreement this year shows the limits of the first option, said Ferguson.

“If it were legally enforceable, this already would have been resolved,” Ferguson said.

Signing a new intergovernmental agreement every year is also subject to politics. Chicago will have school board elections every two years and mayoral elections take place every four.

“There’s going to be this kind of ad hoc, piecemeal thing, I think, until there is a true philosophical reckoning with: What is the relationship between the city and CPS going to be financially in a new world with a very different kind of CPS board?” Marlowe said.

A change to the state’s pension code is “the cleanest, most permanent, most enforceable” option, Ferguson said.

But that idea has its own political baggage. Illinois lawmakers have historically been reluctant to help Chicago with its pensions or financial challenges. They are also focused on revising changes made to the pension code a decade ago.

“I don’t think that there’s much appetite in Springfield for the state to play referee,” Marlowe said.

Senior mayoral aides said they are having multiple conversations in Springfield about CPS finances, but declined to speak specifically about changes to the pension obligations.

A CPS spokesperson said they are not aware of any proposed legislation to change who is responsible for the municipal pension fund. District officials said if lawmakers were to shift any responsibility to the school district, they would need to consider how to fund these payments.

This story was been updated to include additional comments from a municipal finance expert.

Reema Amin contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

As big costs loom, Chicago’s school board plans to amend its budget. But questions remain.

2025-03-06T01:49:45+00:00

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This story was updated to include a comment from Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden.

Chicago Public Schools is proposing a budget amendment to the school board that would increase the district’s operating budget by $139 million to address looming expenses for the district — but could open the door to other solutions, such as budget cuts or “other entities” taking on debt for CPS.

The increase to the current $9.9 billion spending plan represents a historically large influx of cash from the City of Chicago, which declared a surplus from Tax Increment Financing, or TIFs, which are special taxing districts designed to spur development. The district’s budget already includes $159 million in previously allocated TIF funds.

The proposed budget increase falls short of the $175 million city officials expect CPS to contribute to the pensions of non-teaching staff. It also may not be enough to cover looming costs related to a teachers contract, which is still being negotiated.

The amendment will likely cause fault lines among the 21-member board, which has disagreed on how to solve the district’s money problems. One board member who spoke to Chalkbeat Wednesday already committed to a no vote.

The amendment — which requires a two-thirds approval vote to pass — calls for the additional $139 million in TIF funds to be used for paying for new labor contracts with the two unions representing Chicago’s teachers and principals as well as the pension payment to the city.

But that money alone will not cover both of the costs, which the amendment said are still being negotiated. Acknowledging this, the amendment also says CPS will find other ways to pay for any additional costs — including through more TIF surplus funds, other local revenue, “other entities incurring debt on CPS’s behalf,” or budget cuts “beyond those needed to keep the initial approved … budget in balance.” It’s unclear who the “other entities” are. A spokesperson for City Hall said the city “will not be borrowing on behalf of CPS.”

After this story was published, Board President Sean Harden told Chalkbeat he was unaware that the final draft would include a reference to other entities incurring debt for CPS. Harden said he and district leadership “spent a lot of time making sure we’re capturing everything we need” in the amendment, but he has not spoken to anyone about incurring debt for CPS. CPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“That language was not approved by me,” Harden said.

Still, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office praised the amendment.

“Mayor Johnson has maintained that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has an obligation to its workforce and its retirees and this proposed budget amendment is in line with that obligation,” said Cassio Mendoza, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, in a statement. “Mayor Johnson is supportive of any tools that the school district can utilize on its behalf to balance its budget without cutting teachers or resources for students.”

The district will hold hearings over the budget amendment at 10:30 a.m. on March 13 and March 14 at the board office, located at 42 W. Madison St. in the Loop.

Looming financial problems have roiled the district for months and fueled a major leadership shakeup, including the resignation of Johnson’s first, seven-member appointed board and the firing of CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. CPS leadership — which did not budget for union or pension costs — has resisted borrowing money to pay for labor negotiations or pensions, and has repeatedly said it faces at least a $500 million budget deficit next fiscal year.

In recent weeks, City Hall has turned up the pressure on CPS as it tries to balance its own books by the end of this month. Last month, city officials emailed school board members a presentation about the pension payment and included suggestions for issuing bonds to garner $242 million, according to the presentation obtained by Chalkbeat and first reported by the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago Teachers Union leaders questioned why the district and school board are discussing a budget amendment before reaching an agreement on the teachers union contract.

“We want to make sure their budget amendment is the right amendment to land a transformative contract,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates. “If they settle the contract before they do the budget amendment, then our math will be correct.”

School board members continue search for funding solutions

Board member Jitu Brown, who represents the city’s West Side and is an ally of the mayor’s, said he had not yet studied the amendment. Generally, he wants a solution to make both the pension payment and settle labor negotiations, but doesn’t want to “balance the budget on the backs of Black and brown children.”

“That’s looming over all of us right now,” Brown said. “One thing we don’t want is a teacher strike, so we are trying to get that settled.”

Brown said he’s open to borrowing but said he would want a relatively low interest rate, more TIF surplus funds and more state funding.

Another board member, who requested anonymity to share thoughts candidly and not undermine the public hearing, said they will vote no on the amendment because they are against being on the hook for the pension payment at a time of financial duress, as well as borrowing and cuts. Even if another entity took on debt for CPS, the district would still be on the hook to pay them back, this board member said.

“To use that money in any capacity to pay the city is making a choice to give to the city — to make them whole —over our own organization and the people who directly impact and work in the classroom and the students themselves,” the board member said.

Another board member, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said she was taken aback by the mayor’s office’s PowerPoint presentation on how to solve the pension issue. On Tuesday, she said she is torn on how to solve the district’s budget issues and is trying to get “as much information as I can.” The district has argued that it cannot generate revenue like other districts, but at the same time, the city wants its money. She could not be immediately reached for her thoughts on the budget amendment posted Wednesday.

“It seems like the mayor’s office is trying to push a certain way for CPS to pick up the tab, while CEO Martinez and some other individuals on the board feel it’s not the board’s responsibility,” she said. “So it’s a lot of back and forth: one for the short term, but in a few months we’re gonna start talking about the budget for next year.”

Several board members are also waiting to see what outside consulting firm Baker Tilly — hired last month by school board president Harden — is suggesting the district should do.

Harden turned to the consultant amid rising tensions with City Hall and pressing questions about CPS’s financial challenges. He signed a contract on Feb. 18 to spend up to $35,000 to get an opinion from Baker Tilly on funding options to alleviate CPS’s looming deficit and to assess the risk associated with those options, according to records obtained by Chalkbeat through a Freedom of Information Act. The Chicago Tribune first reported the existence of the contract.

Chalkbeat filed a FOIA request for Baker Tilly’s analysis or any recommendations, but CPS’s FOIA office said on Tuesday that no such records exist. Multiple board members said that to their knowledge, the analysis is close to completion.

A fourth school board member, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Harden told board members this week that Baker Tilly had come up with “various potential financing scenarios” but did not provide further details.

That board member and another said Harden expressed that he did not want the analysis or, separately, potential financing solutions for CPS, in writing because it would be subject to open records laws, or FOIA.

“He literally said, ‘I am FOIA’ed every single week; I don’t want this stuff out of context and open for interpretation,’” one of the board members said.

Harden said Wednesday he wants to be “very thoughtful about what gets shared” and said he would share the Baker Tilly report with board members once it’s complete. Earlier Wednesday, the board office said it expects to make the final report available to the public.

“For me it’s important that we have all our ducks in a row, we know exactly what direction we’re going in so we can speak to it intelligently without any issues related to it,” Harden said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

‘Stop the cuts!’: Educators, school activists rally to protect federal funding for public education

2025-03-04T21:36:06+00:00

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On a cloudy, cold Tuesday morning, a cluster of teachers and community activists in Newark chanted “Stop the cuts!” as they stood in their coats outside an elementary school that serves the district’s students with disabilities.

In a Philadelphia school auditorium, teachers, district officials, and lawmakers faced more than a dozen students with disabilities and promised to protect the educational services those students rely on.

In Chicago, the rain came down as more than 20 union members stood in front of Minnie Miñoso Academy elementary to join educators across the country to rally support for public schools and urge lawmakers not to cut federal funding.

The rallies on Tuesday were part of a national effort led by the American Federation of Teachers to protest threats to cut federal funding for education. The “Protect Our Kids” day of action came as newly-installed Education Secretary Linda McMahon prepares to overhaul the federal education department and shift how the agency operates.

McMahon, sworn into office a day before, promised senators at her confirmation hearing that key funding streams, such as for students with disabilities, won’t be harmed. But many advocates fear plans to upend the education department could affect federal support for low-income students, students with disabilities, first-generation college students, and other vulnerable groups.

Republican budget proposals already call for significant cuts to school meals programs and to programs overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which include Medicaid. Those are important sources of money for public schools. And public education supporters fear even steeper reductions in education spending as Republicans look for ways to pay for President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

“The millions of children and young adults who get funding to help them in literacy, to help them with occupational therapy and physical therapy, to help them go to college, to help them with hands-on learning — that’s what the federal government spends this money for,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten in a virtual press conference. “It goes directly to schools for these kinds of services.”

Across the country, in small towns and big cities, thousands of educators donned “Red for Ed” shirts and held walk-ins at their schools — and posted on social media using the hashtag #ProtectOurKids — to explain how taxpayer money funds necessary educational services.

Public schools are governed by local school boards and primarily supported by local property taxes and other state revenues. The federal government provides funding and support for school lunch programs, students with disabilities, homeless students, those from low-income families, and students learning English.

Newark schools receive roughly $80 million in federal funding, about 10% of the district’s annual budget. Philly schools receive more than $500 million in federal support, roughly 10% of that district’s budget, while Chicago Public Schools receives $1.3 billion, about 16% of its budget.

Outside of New Jersey Regional Day School in Newark, a few dozen educators and local leaders gathered Tuesday morning to call for protections to critical federal programs that support students with disabilities.

Newark at risk of losing pipeline of student teachers

In Newark, city and school leaders joined educators and student teachers outside New Jersey Regional Day School, one of five specialized schools that serve students with disabilities in the Newark Public Schools district.

Beck Akinyemi, a student teacher pursuing their teaching certification at Montclair State University, stood alongside peers and held up a sign that read “stop the attack on education.” Akinyemi is part of the latest cohort of students supported by the Teacher Quality Partnership grant, a federal grant program that helps prepare teachers for high-need schools and subject areas through a teacher residency with partner school districts.

But Akinyemi is at risk of not completing the program after the federal education department canceled the grant at Montclair State in February. Partner districts of the program, such as Newark Public Schools, could lose their pipeline of qualified teachers due to the cuts.

“Not only will this affect all the necessary social roles schools play in our communities, they will affect the future of the next generation of educators,” Akinyemi said.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the threats of federal funding cuts an attack on public school education and working class families.

“We need to do what we can to support the folks here, the organizations here, and make sure the funding remains solid and stationary,” Baraka said in front of a small crowd of educators, student teachers, and union members who chanted “stop the cuts” after his speech.

New Jersey receives around $1 billion in federal funding every year for education, and about half of that money is used for programs serving students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Of the $1 billion, New Jersey receives over $460 million in IDEA funding, according to the Education Law Center. This school year, Newark received $66 million in special education aid from the state, according to the district’s latest budget.

Last week, the Newark Board of Education joined school boards nationwide, including Philadelphia, in passing a resolution to formally oppose the Republican congressional budget proposals and Trump administration threats to education funding more broadly.

In Philadelphia, special education cuts would be ‘catastrophic,’ leaders say

As part of Tuesday’s nationwide protests, Philly educators, city officials, and district representatives rallied at Widener Memorial School – the only public school in Pennsylvania that exclusively serves students with disabilities and diverse learners.

Widener student Taisha Cruz, who uses a wheelchair, said her school and the funding it receives “gives us a sense of freedom you will never understand.”

At the rally, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union described in detail what city students would lose if IDEA funds were cut.

Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe has said deep cuts to education programs “would be nothing short of catastrophic” and “would cause irreparable harm,” to all students, especially those students with disabilities.

According to the PFT, Philly schools receive $178 million in Title I funding, $56 million in special education funds, $7 million for career and technical education programs, and $86 million for school meal reimbursements in addition to federal grants for school facilities, prekindergarten programs, and more.

Funding cuts could threaten the very existence of Widener, which relies on federal funds to support small class sizes, paraprofessionals and teacher aides, physical and occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and activities including wheelchair basketball.

“All of this would not be possible without the funding that comes from IDEA,” said Widener principal Theresa Harrington.

A sign in the school’s lobby showed upcoming student trips to the zoo, the city’s flower show, and dress-up days for “superheroes vs villains” and “mismatch day.”

Several city and state officeholders warned funding cuts would cause a crisis in Philly schools likely to be felt for years.

“I never thought the day would come when we would look at the possibility of education being dismantled from the federal level,” said City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee.“This will have an impact on generations to come.”

Taisha Cruz, a junior at Widener Memorial School, joined educators at her school during a rally to support federal funding for education.

Chicago teachers want contract to protect schools from federal ‘foolery’

Those messages were echoed in Chicago where Chicago Teachers Union leaders and members joined the AFT campaign while also rallying around its remaining contract demands. As McMahon moves to make drastic changes to the way the federal education department runs, the clock is ticking toward a possible strike in the country’s fourth largest school district.

Standing in the rain outside Minnie Miñoso Academy Tuesday morning, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said the union’s contract fight is aimed at “fortifying our school communities against the encroachment of the federal government and its foolery.”

“To sit here and say that special education services are not needed, that Title I is not needed, is an affront to all the sacrifice that’s been made to create this institution called public education,” said Jitu Brown, a recently-elected Chicago school board member and longtime activist who has organized marches in Washington, D.C. with the national Journey for Justice Alliance.

Chicago is shifting away from a school system under mayoral control to one governed by elected representatives. The current partially-elected, 21-member board is grappling with budget challenges now that federal COVID relief money has disappeared.

“Now is not the time to mourn. Now is the time to organize,” Brown said. “They may run D.C., but they don’t run Chicago.”

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board approves nearly $4 million in legal settlements

2025-03-03T18:25:11+00:00

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This story has been updated with a statement from Chicago Public Schools.

The Chicago Board of Education approved nearly $4 million in legal settlements Thursday, including a $2.7 million payment to the family of a boy who was beaten by an adult in the bathroom of a West Side elementary school in 2018.

A federal jury ordered the school board last September to pay $750,000 to Asia Gaines, the mother of the victim. In addition to the court settlement, $2 million will go to cover Gaines’ attorneys fees, a Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said. The agenda item approving the settlement said the district’s legal team reached an agreement to accept the court’s settlement recommendation and resolve Gaines’ “anticipated petition to recover her attorneys’ fees and costs.”

“Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is committed to providing all students with safe and supportive learning environments, and it takes all allegations of employee misconduct seriously. CPS investigates and addresses all complaints in accordance with District policies and procedures to foster safe and secure learning environments in all schools,” the CPS spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “CPS believes that students who are harmed as a result of a legally acknowledged failure on the part of the District should be provided with compensation that is both fair and reasonable.”

The lawsuit — filed in federal court in 2019 — details how the boy’s teacher at Tilton Elementary allowed her adult friend to beat Gaines’ son in a school bathroom before class. The boy, identified in documents as J.C., was 9 years old and in fourth grade at the time.

According to the CPS spokesperson, the teacher, Kristen Haynes, was “immediately removed from her position” at Tilton after the district became aware of the incident. She is currently suspended without pay, pending a ruling from an Illinois State Board of Education hearing, the spokesperson said.

According to court records, Haynes was well-known at Tilton for being a disciplinarian and kept two leather belts in her classroom closet with which she would threaten students. Students knew the belts by the names “Mr. Brown” and “Mr. Black,” according to testimony at trial.

The school board also approved an $800,000 settlement for a Jane Doe in a sexual assault case filed in 2023. That case involved two students, but one was an adult and one was a minor. The victim, a minor, was allegedly assaulted on school property in an unlocked room with a broken alarm at South Shore International College Prep that students used for sex and recreational drug use, according to a copy of the complaint.

In addition to these two large settlements, the school board on Thursday also approved two more settlements worth around $200,000 and 42 others under $100,000.

Correction 3/3/2025: A previous version of this story misidentified the Jane Doe case as another one involving sexual abuse at a different high school a decade ago. That case is not yet settled.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Person detained by federal immigration officials during school dropoff at Chicago school

2025-02-27T23:52:24+00:00

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This story has been updated with a statement from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirming the arrest.

Principals at a charter school campus on Chicago’s South West side told families Wednesday that an adult who was in a vehicle with two students was detained by federal immigration enforcement officials during school dropoff.

In a letter to families, the administration of Acero Schools’ Soto High School and Idar Elementary said they escorted the students into the building away from the scene, which took place at the corner of 51st and St. Louis Ave. in Gage Park.

“We understand how stressful and upsetting this is to our school communities,” the two principals, Elizabeth Obrzut and Nicolle Macias, wrote. “Focused support is being made available for those directly impacted by this event. Both schools will have additional social work support available for scholars.”

According to the Acero administration, agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, also known as ATF, detained an adult in a vehicle outside the schools around 8:15 a.m. The school leaders said the agents did not attempt to enter either school.

A spokesperson for ICE confirmed agents in Chicago arrested Francisco Andrade-Berrera, 37, on Wednesday “without incident.” The statement said he is a citizen of Mexico and “a known member of a violent street gang with criminal convictions for drug trafficking, gang loitering, and damage to property” and had been deported twice before in 2005 and 2013.

Collectively, the two Acero schools on the single campus serve more than 1,000 students and 98% identify as Hispanic.

Helena Stangle, Acero’s chief culture officer, said the campus staff followed the network’s protocols Wednesday and also contacted Chicago Public Schools Office of Safety and Security. She added that Acero administrative staff undergo “intensive training” on what to do in these scenarios and the network provides families with a “Civil Rights Resource Hub.”

Last month, the Trump administration ended a policy that treated schools and child care centers as “sensitive” or “protected” locations where immigration enforcement could not take place unless there was an immediate danger to the public.

Yesenia Lopez, the elected school board member representing District 7 where the schools are located, commended the Acero principals and school staff who stepped in to support the students “during such a traumatic moment.”

“No child should be afraid of going to school because they fear seeing their parents ambushed during school drop offs,” Lopez said in a statement to Chalkbeat. “Our schools should be places of safety and learning, not fear and separation.”

Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez, whose ward includes the Acero schools, said the person arrested is a father of three kids, two at Idar and one at Soto. He was dropping the two younger kids off to school when he was arrested, she said. Gutierrez, who said she got in touch with the family, said Wednesday she didn’t know why the father was arrested.

“All the family is devastated and the school community,” said Gutierrez, who was at a candlelight vigil Wednesday night focused on saving three Acero schools, which serve a largely Hispanic student population, from closure. She said several families decided not to attend the event to take extra precautions.

When the gathering — hosted in conjunction with the Chicago Teachers Union — ended, union staff told families to watch out for each other.

“Remember your rights,” Hilario Dominguez, the union’s legislative director, told the crowd. “You don’t have to talk to ICE.”

The incident during school dropoff Wednesday comes weeks after another Chicago elementary school in Back of the Yards on the city’s South West side mistook U.S, Secret Service agents for ICE, prompting a flurry of confusion and fear in the community.

Many of Chicago’s South West side neighborhoods are predominantly Latino and home to many immigrants. These communities, like many across the country, have been on high alert since the Trump administration took office and stepped up immigration enforcement.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez out of Clark County superintendent search

2025-02-19T17:54:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez is out of the running to become the next superintendent of Clark County Public Schools in Nevada.

Martinez was one of six candidates to make the shortlist, but the Clark County Board of School Trustees voted Tuesday night to advance only four to the next round of interviews scheduled for next week. That school board is hoping to hire a new superintendent in March.

Chicago’s appointed school board voted to fire Martinez without cause in December after growing hostility with Mayor Brandon Johnson. His contract allows him to stay on as CEO until June and he is currently suing the Chicago Board of Education over his ouster.

The new 21-member partially-elected school board will be in charge of appointing a new CPS CEO — after 30 years of the mayor doing so. Although Chicago is shifting away from mayoral control, Johnson could hold significant sway over who the school board selects to lead the nation’s fourth largest school district. He recently made his 11th appointment to the 21-member board and is aligned ideologically with at least three elected members.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson makes final appointment to 21-member partially-elected school board

2025-02-18T21:36:58+00:00

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Cydney Wallace, a Black Jewish activist and mother of four, is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s final pick to sit on the city’s new 21-member Board of Education.

Her appointment comes two months after Mayor Brandon Johnson named his other appointees, which was required to happen by Dec. 16 under state law. The mayor’s office said the delay was because school board positions “are unpaid and often thankless jobs.”

According to a press release from the mayor’s office, Wallace currently works for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County and is a Chicago Public Schools parent. She is also the vice president of the board of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Wallace lives in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on the 8b side of District 8, according to Chicago Board of Elections records. She will represent schools and communities in the Chinatown, Bridgeport, Back of the Yards, and Gage Park neighborhoods. Angel Gutierrez is the elected representative for District 8 and lives in Garfield Ridge on the 8a side. In 2026, both seats will be up for election.

In 2022, Wallace filed to run for Chicago’s Police District Council, but did not have enough valid signatures to get on the ballot in the 2023 municipal elections.

Wallace will be sworn in at the school board’s next meeting scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 27. She will join the 20 members who were sworn in Wednesday, Jan. 15. The partially-elected, partly-appointed group will serve for the next two years. All 21 seats will be up for election Nov. 3, 2026 and a fully-elected board will be sworn in Jan. 15, 2027.

Chicago held its first school board elections on Nov. 5, 2024, electing 10 people to serve their communities alongside 11 mayoral appointees. The moment begins a historic shift in governance as 30 years of mayoral control in Chicago comes to a close.

Mayor Johnson, a CPS parent, former teacher, and union organizer, will still maintain significant influence over the public school system through his 11 appointees and at least three other elected members who were supported and endorsed by his allies at the Chicago Teachers Union.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers advance measure to untangle student test scores from teacher evaluations

2025-02-05T00:36:31+00:00

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llinois lawmakers are proposing a change to state law that would no longer require school districts to use students’ test scores in teacher evaluations.

Senate Bill 28, if approved, would roll back changes made 15 years ago that were aimed at improving teacher evaluation systems amid a push by the federal government under the Obama administration to link teacher quality to students’ success in the classroom.

Democratic state Sens. Kimberly Lightford, the Senate majority leader who represents neighborhoods on Chicago’s west side and western suburbs, and Meg Loughran Cappel, who represents Plainfield and surrounding suburbs, are co-sponsoring the measure, which would leave it up to districts to decide whether to link evaluations to student growth.

The bill passed out of committee with no discussion Tuesday afternoon. According to the Illinois General Assembly’s website, nearly 400 proponents, including the Illinois Educators Association, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Principal Association, and Illinois Stand for Children have signed witness slips in support of the change. There were only 11 opponents and two with no position, notably one from the Chicago Public Schools.

If the bill is passed into law, changes would take effect July 1, 2025.

Lightford was a part of the legislative push to require schools to tie teacher evaluations to student performance in 2010.

At that time, the Obama administration encouraged states to make changes to their teacher evaluations by throwing federal funding into the mix. Illinois requires up to 30% of an educator’s evaluation be based on student growth in most cases, as outlined by the Illinois State Board of Education.

In recent years, several states have stopped tying teacher evaluations to student performance, signaling a change in attitude towards the policy.

In 2024, the Illinois State Board of Education commissioned a report from the American Institutes for Research, or AIR, a nonpartisan research organization, on the state’s teacher evaluation policy. The report noted that other factors can affect a student’s learning “outside of teacher’s control such as family issues, health, or access to resources.” The report recommended that the state either eliminate the use of student test scores or reduce the percentage of student test scores on an educators’ overall evaluation.

Alison Maley, government and public relations director for Illinois Principals Association, one of the organizations supporting the proposal, noted that over the years, she has heard many educators say the student test scores component of the evaluation system is burdensome for both teachers and principals and has not been an effective metric to use.

“Teachers have to come up with all of these artifacts that demonstrate student growth in addition to what they are already doing, aligned with the frameworks that are in place in many districts to manage these teacher evaluations,” said Maley.

Teacher evaluations are sticking point in CTU contract talks

Paul Zavitkovsky, an assessment specialist at the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois Chicago, agrees that student test scores are problematic to use when it comes to teacher evaluations because large scale assessments are not precise enough.

“In almost all cases, large scale standardized tests are designed to measure generic curriculum — the stuff that gets taught in most places across the country at a particular grade level,” said Zavitkovsky. “They can’t really be very precise and measure the specific kinds of growth that an individual district’s curriculum calls for.”

Chicago uses Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago’s Students, or REACH, a district-developed test for its teacher evaluations that gives teachers an overall rating based 70% on classroom observations by administrators and 30% on student growth as measured by a test given at the beginning and end of the school year.

That system — and the tests that teachers must give to measure student growth — have become a sticking point in contract negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union.

Kurt Hilgendorf, legislative coordinator for CTU, said the union’s position on REACH is that the exam and the state law that created it need revisions.

“We are trying to ensure that [teacher evaluations] are fair, that they provide useful feedback to the practitioners, that they are free of racial bias, and that they actually aren’t burdensome,” said Hilgendorf, “so that the best parts of improving educators’ practice — the feedback and the opportunity to reflect— that those things are part of the evaluation system.”

Racial bias has been the main criticism from the union over the years and research has backed their claims. A study from 2020 found that Black educators who taught in high-poverty schools were more likely to receive lower teacher evaluation scores than their white colleagues.

According to CTU, Chicago Public Schools has agreed to address racial disparities in teacher evaluations. In CTU’s roadmap to a contract settlement, the union is still pushing for a three-year evaluation cycle for tenured proficient educators and “joint legislative advocacy to abolish REACH.”

More states are turning away from requirement

Across the nation, states have moved away from including test scores into their teacher evaluations. As of 2022, only 30 states continue to require test scores to be included in teacher evaluation, down from 43 in 2015, according to a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.

In 2022, Colorado revised its teacher evaluation laws to reduce the student growth requirement from 50% to 30% of an educator’s overall rating. In 2023, Michigan removed a requirement that student test scores make up 40% of an educator’s overall score. New Jersey put together a task force in 2024 to look into its evaluation system after educators urged lawmakers to make a change to their system.

“Research has found that the best evaluation systems are ones that use multiple different measures of teacher qualities, so incorporating things like observations of teachers, student surveys, and then also objective data on student growth is really important,” said Hannah Putman, managing director of research at the National Council on Teacher Quality. “Those are the systems that are going to give you the most consistent and reliable ratings and ones that really get at the heart of which teachers are doing well by their students.”

Effective teachers play a role in student success

Lauren Sartain, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an affiliated researcher with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, has studied teacher evaluation systems in Chicago since 2008. She said if Illinois makes student growth metrics optional, it won’t be “a huge loss, necessarily,” and it could “give teachers and students time back” for instruction, not testing.

“Teaching is a really complex task, and there are lots of things that happen in the classroom that aren’t necessarily reflected by test score growth,” Sartain said.

Past research by Sartain and others has found a slight positive correlation between test scores and teacher quality. In Chicago, test scores went up after the new evaluation system was fully implemented in 2012-13 and Sartain said “it also had the effect of removing really, really low-performing teachers from the classroom.”

But the majority of teachers still get high marks, and Sartain said there’s work to be done to improve the classroom observation process.

“The power is in these conversations between principals and teachers about what good instructional practice looks like,” Sartain said. “The more it’s taken out of this hyper-evaluative framework, it’s easier to have those honest conversations with your principal, who is your supervisor.”

Whatever changes Illinois lawmakers decide to make, Sartain said it’s important to remember that teachers play a key role in student success.

“Having a great teacher can make a really, really big difference for [students] that translates into their outcomes into adulthood,” she said. “Supporting teachers and helping them improve can be like a great equalizer.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools chief of safety and security Jadine Chou reflects on her 14-year tenure

2025-02-03T15:16:52+00:00

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Jadine Chou is leaving her role as Chicago Public Schools Chief of Safety and Security after 14 years — a tenure not often seen in district leadership roles.

Chou oversaw the safety plans after the closure of 50 schools in 2013, grappled with spikes in youth violence, dealt with the disconnection brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and managed the removal of police from schools beginning in 2020.

She first came to CPS in 2011 under then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel from the Chicago Housing Authority, where she served as senior vice president. She was the first Asian and first female to hold the role, which was historically filled by someone with a law enforcement background.

Chalkbeat sat down with Chou recently for a conversation about her time at CPS and what’s in store next. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been at the school district for 14 years, through three mayors, seven CPS CEOs, dozens of board members, Taylor Swift released nine different albums in that time. Looking back, how do you define the eras you’ve been here?

There’s a cliche that the only thing constant is change. And going into this, I knew that was going to be the case. One could argue maybe it shouldn’t have happened as often as it happened. It happened a lot. We had a lot of change here, but one thing that was very helpful was in the Office of Safety and Security, with me being here 14 years, and with my team having high retention, they’ve stayed with me this whole time, we’ve been able to keep things steady while everything else was moving on around us.

How did you do it? Was it ever tempting to leave or to not stick around? It’s a long time for a chief to stay in any organization, particularly CPS.

For one thing, I feel like I had landed at a place where I really felt like I was at home. I felt like all of the roads leading up to this were the reason I came here. I felt good about the work I had at CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) but coming here expanded that to at the time, over 400,000 families. Making connections with individual families, parents, students and principals and teachers really felt a natural fit for me.

What is the role of the Office of Safety and Security and has it evolved?

When I first arrived, we were kind of like Domino’s Pizza. People would just wait until you got a call: “We need you at the school” or “We need you to handle this situation.” Very reactive. That is something we don’t like to do in safety.

When I was at the Chicago Housing Authority, if you wait until something happens, it’s too late. It’s already happened. And so we immediately said: How can we move upstream from that? How can we find what is happening before it happens, so we can prevent it? That was one of the first things we did.

But people thought, “Oh, why are you here? We didn’t call you.” It was really changing, sort of the culture and the mindset to say, “We’re here not because we want to be in your way. We’re here because we want to be helpful in making sure that bad things don’t happen.” You can only do that by building relationships. Once you have those relationships, and they see the value that the team can add, then they start being a little bit more receptive to that culture evolution.

Do you think that it’s a misnomer that the security department is meant to be another level of policing?

That’s absolutely intentionally what it was in 2011. That was security’s role. I mean, they weren’t police officers because they’re not sworn, they don’t carry weapons, but they are meant to be enforcers. If a student violates the Student Code of Conduct, security is the first person that’s going to come address it. They’re going to pick you up out of the room and walk you down to the principal’s office.

We heard from students over and over again that doesn’t make anybody feel safer. Even if I’m not the person who’s committing the infraction, when I see my classmates being walked out of there like they’re criminals, I don’t feel safe because maybe I’m next.

That’s what we tried to turn around. What is the role of security? That first summer that I was here, after interviewing all those students and principals, we totally turned it on its head. And we’re saying, Okay, we’re going to have to do this differently,

I had buy-in from the top all the way up to the mayor to turn this out on its head. So it wasn’t just one person doing this by myself. I had buy-in from the cabinet level. People said, “Let’s figure this out, because this is not working. We’re suspending too many kids, and every week there’s a big fight, every week we’re arresting too many kids.”

So, what does it mean to build relationships? What does it mean to support students? How do you change that mindset? And the answer is: we brought that security officer’s personal experiences into it. What did you experience when you were in school? They would talk about their traumas, and we had a lot of grown adults break down and cry because the trauma came back. We said, “Obviously you’ve made yourself a career and you’re a security officer. Now, what changed?” And they said, “An adult reached down to me and told me I was worth something.” And we said, “Guess what? You’re now that adult.” And that really resonated with them.

I knew it worked, because that first fall that we came back after that training, I was getting complaints from principals saying, “What did you do with my security officer? He’s soft. He’s a different person. What did you do?” That’s when we realized, Okay, now we need to train the administration.

CPS Chief of Safety and Security, Jadine Chou poses for a portrait.

One of the first things you faced in this job was the closure of 50 elementary schools. What are your memories of that time and how do you feel like that went?

It feels like a million years ago. The decision had been made at the upper levels and so knowing that that decision was going to happen with or without any of us, the next thing was: How can we do this in a way that can make sure children are safe?

We believed back then, as I do now, as I did even before that, it’s all about the engagement. As much as people did not like that decision, we had to go in there and face families and talk to them about it. What are we going to do to keep your children safe? What are your fears? What can we do about their physical and emotional safety?

We had, I’m not exaggerating, hundreds of parent meetings individually, and I attended every single one, and the importance of that was to build the relationship so people knew: I’m not hiding from this. You can call me, you can email me, and I will respond. You’re going to see our plans. And for those of you coming to this meeting, you will have a say in the creation of the plan. If you don’t like it, we’ll talk about it. We’ll figure it out. Those are safety transition plans — the safe passage maps — parents wrote those maps with us.

More recently, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the police killing of George Floyd, there was an effort to remove police from schools, which culminated in the board ending the contract last spring. How did you evolve on the question of whether or not police should be stationed in schools?

I can talk about that quite openly now. My job, I feel, has been successful because of my partnership with the Chicago Police Department. I am so grateful. We didn’t count how many superintendents I had to work with at CPD, but those come from relationships as well. All the commanders, all the chiefs over there, I just want to put on the record that they have been amazing partners.

When the reckoning around police and schools came, I knew that people were not on the same page. We had many schools that wanted them removed. We had many schools who wanted to keep them. The board was mixed too at the time. Some of them said, “We absolutely want to remove police.” And the other half are like, “We absolutely do not want to remove police.”

We brought in five organizations, four of whom are still with us on the effort. These are community organizations who care deeply about this topic. They wanted police out of schools, but they also understand we have to honor the spirit of the engagement.

Chicago Public Schools district head of safety and security, Jadine Chou poses for a portrait.

I got the board to agree, “Let us do this engagement.” They wanted to just pull them out wholeheartedly and they might have had the votes to do that. Other school districts were pulling them out left and right.

If you pull police out without engagement, if you do it unilaterally, and one bad thing happens. Guess what? They’re going to come right back in. That flip flopping is actually more dangerous than either solution.

We’re equipping schools with the setup, the circumstances, and the buy in. They need to make sure this sticks. Because once we remove them, I am not going back to CPD and saying. Oh, we need you back, and that’s not the right answer for communities, right?

We worked with these partners to develop a process where we allowed Local School Councils to vote, and this was created out of the engagement and interviewing tons of people, thousands of people, doing surveys with thousands of people. We came up with a process to vote. And it really backed up my hypothesis. Almost half the schools removed them. Almost half of them kept them.

And just last summer, the new board decided, “Okay, four years. We’ve given you four years. Let’s start moving them out.” I think it would have been helpful to have more time.

Have you gotten feedback from security officers or school administrators that wish sworn Chicago police officers were still in schools?

I haven’t had a single person, not a security officer, not a parent, not a principal, not a teacher, say, “I want or I need them back.” And here’s why, because the police are still partners. If we have a catastrophic situation where we need their support, we have a process in place where we can work with them, and that’s the benefit of having that partnership and relationship. So it’s not like we’ve cut ties with the police. It’s just a matter of reassigning the role.

I think that was the difference in some other school districts. It was a more hostile separation, almost like a divorce, where they were cutting ties. And that was never something I would have supported. That doesn’t work. We need each other. Let’s talk about how we define that relationship and how we do it so that we’re both successful.

Looking back, do you have any regrets, or anything you would do differently?

I try to live my life with no regrets. I think that there are lessons learned versus regrets. I might have said a few things in a different way, but I think how I approached every challenge and every interaction — if there was something to have learned from it, then I’m constantly correcting course. But as far as regrets, this has been the best opportunity of a lifetime for me.

I really wasn’t looking to leave. And I’m not leaving because I don’t like it. I actually love it here, and I’ve delayed my departure. I really could have left a lot earlier, and I just delayed it because I’m so committed and I love it. I love the people. I love the students. I love the mission. I love all my security officers, and so it’s a hard separation. The good news is, I’m not separated. Everyone’s going to have my contact information. I’m staying in Chicago. I have not announced yet what I’m doing yet, but it’s going to be in school safety, and it’s going to be connected to this work from just a different vantage point.

Where are we as a city with youth violence, and where do you see it going from here? Has it gotten better? Has it gotten worse?

This is an important question to me. Thank you for asking.

When I joined CPS, if a student was shot and killed outside of the school, there really wasn’t much of a follow up, to be real honest. I mean, there was a crisis team back there for grief counseling, so that existed, but the follow up to what happened? Why did this incident happen, and what are the effects of this child’s friends, his family, and how do we know this isn’t going to happen to one of them?

The answer at the time was, “Well, it didn’t happen on school grounds.” Which, by the way, it usually doesn’t. And people were like, “This is CPD’s job.” That mindset was not sufficient, that was not acceptable. And so we started to make it our business.

We have a whole approach. How are we going to go into school? How are we going to respond? Who were this child’s friends? How do we make sure that we have the appropriate plans for friends, opposition, whatever, to make sure there isn’t a cycle of retaliation?

We’re also providing emotional support, and that’s where the crisis team comes in. I think most adults have lost a loved one at some point in their life or other. That grief as an adult is tremendous. As a child, it’s unspeakable, because it’s not natural.

When you lose a child, a friend, your best friend, how do you process that? We worked hard to make sure that we had protocols in place. Not just following a list, but making sure from the human side, how are we supporting this child and their family?

To answer the question of: where are we now in terms of youth violence?

We had the spike from COVID. Now, it’s going back down and my team knows the goal is still to get it to zero. Violence is very stubborn, and there’s all these other things that have beyond the pandemic that have arisen. I think that we are on track to reclaim that progress, and it is still our goal, because if we’re here to educate children, we can’t do it if they’re not safe physically and emotionally.

With the city, we’ve worked with the state’s attorney, we work with the public defender’s office, we work with the community organizations. We’re all connected. So if there’s something we can’t do, we have someone that we can work with who can do it, and vice versa.

Correction 2/3/2025: This story has been corrected to say Chou started at the district in 2011, not 2012.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Spending during Chicago’s first school board campaign season exceeded $13 million

2025-01-27T13:00:00+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

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The Chicago Teachers Union was the biggest spender in Chicago’s first school board elections, which pitted the union against pro-school choice groups as both angled for influence on a new, partly-elected board.

Overall, between candidates’ own war chests and money spent separately by political action groups and super PACs, more than $13 million flowed in the run-up to the historic November elections, a Chalkbeat analysis of campaign disclosures from late March to the end of December filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections found.

Brisk spending has become a hallmark of school board races in large urban districts. The Chicago total — which includes spending by both candidates and interest groups — outpaced spending in districts such as Denver and Detroit. In Los Angeles, however, nearly $15 million was spent on its school board races in 2020. Teachers unions have often faced off against pro-charter and school choice groups, but — unlike in Chicago — unions have usually spent less than those groups.

“This is not a typical school board election in any way, shape, or form,” said Jonathan Collins, assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College at Columbia University. “It’s an entirely new system at a critical moment when education is arguably more politicized than we’ve ever seen.”

Last fall, Chicago residents elected 10 board members, including one who ran unopposed; they were sworn in alongside 11 mayoral appointees on Jan. 15. In 2026, all 21 seats on the board will be up for grabs at the ballot box.

Candidates raised more than $5.6 million between March 26, when they could first begin gathering signatures to get on the ballot, and Dec. 31, 2024. They reported $3.3 million in expenditures during the same period.

In addition to candidates’ direct spending, the union’s two political action committees spent $4.3 million — including a $1.5 million spending spree the week of the election — during that same time period. In some cases that spending could have also given a boost to other candidates in other races, but most went to nine candidates in contested school board races, three of whom won seats on the board.

Two pro-school choice super PACs — those for the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center — jointly spent roughly $3.5 million during the same period. These groups also backed three candidates who prevailed at the polls.

In some cases, Illinois Board of Elections disclosures can include errors or duplicate spending reports by candidate campaigns and political action committees spending on their behalf. The latter groups also do not always list specific candidates when they report expenditures. State law requires campaign finance disclosures be filed every quarter. The latest ones, which covered the final quarter of 2024, were due Jan. 15.

Chalkbeat’s analysis of financial disclosures comes after a historic and hotly contested election season that saw the union and charter camps trading sharp words ahead of election day. Each accused the other of aiming to buy board seats: The CTU slammed the charter group for leaning on large checks from deep-pocketed donors, including from out-of-state billionaires such as Netflix CEO, Democratic mega donor, and charter supporter Reed Hastings. The charter group said it wanted to push back at a time when it said city leaders are hostile to charter, selective enrollment, and magnet schools. Some candidates also called out the CTU for sending voters direct mail portraying candidates — including active longtime Democrats — as puppets of now President Donald Trump.

The CTU declined to answer specific questions related to its campaign finance reports. But in a statement, the union said the expense was necessary to advocate for high-quality neighborhood schools and ensure “public school champions were the biggest bloc of candidates Chicagoans chose to represent them.”

“We fought hard to create the elected school board and shouldn’t have had to fight so hard or spend so much to counter the influence of out-of-state billionaires and forces of privatization,” the statement said.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools spent about $2.3 million in the election’s nine contested races, backing candidates in some and opposing CTU-endorsed candidates in others. Andrew Broy, the network’s executive director, said the expense was worth it.

“Somebody had to be a counterweight to the million-plus dollars the CTU was going to spend to promote their agenda,” he said.

Chicago voters also elected three candidates who benefited from neither CTU or pro-school choice spending. Two of these candidates, Jessica Biggs and Therese Boyle, had some of the smallest war chests and spent the least per vote they earned, suggesting there are clear limitations to how much money can buy in the city’s fledgling school board elections.

Bruce Leon, an independent candidate in District 2 on the North Side who loaned himself $620,000 of his own money, had the largest war chest of any school board candidate. He finished second to CTU-backed Ebony DeBerry.

Despite the wave of spending, the teachers union and others who supported an elected school board have called for additional campaign spending limits specifically for Chicago school board elections.

Currently, candidates running for office in Illinois are bound by limits on how much they can raise, such as $6,900 from an individual contributor and $13,700 from a corporation or a labor union. But super PACs are not subject to those limits. And as spending to back or oppose any one candidate exceeds $100,000, the campaign contribution caps for all candidates in that district are lifted. In most Chicago school board districts, spending by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center lifted those caps by early October.

Collins, at Columbia University, said there’s only so much the city and state could do, given the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision cementing the ability of super PACs to spend with few restrictions, as long as they don’t coordinate directly with candidates’ campaigns.

Collins, who has followed school board campaign spending in recent years, says that roughly $1 million per seat has been typical in large urban district board elections. And the spending standoff between teachers union and charter advocates has also become a fixture of such races across the country, from Providence, Rhode Island, to San Francisco.

“In large urban districts in blue states especially, those have been the two prize fighters in the ring,” Collins said.

It’s unusual, however, to see a teachers union, which usually leans more on its ability to put boots on the ground for door-knocking and phone-banking, outspend pro-school choice groups so handily, he said. Those groups have had a clear financial edge in other cities.

According to Board of Elections disclosures, the union’s political committee spent more than $500,000 on field work between March 26 and Dec. 31.

According to Chalkbeat’s analysis, candidates and political groups in Chicago spent a combined $3.8 million on direct mail to voters, almost $1.2 million on digital ads, and nearly $500,000 on text messaging, among other expenditures.

Urban Center Action — the pro-school choice PAC run by former UNO charter network head Juan Rangel and affiliated with Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who lost the 2023 Chicago mayoral race to Johnson — spent about $1.1 million, mainly on field work.

Broy, of the charter network, said the CTU holds a “structural advantage” in being able to draw on dues from its almost 30,000 members, forcing advocacy groups like his to rely on large checks from a relatively small number of individuals to compete. Broy also questioned the CTU practice of underwriting smaller political groups that used funding from the union to support CTU-endorsed candidates — a practice that, had the spending caps remained in place, could help circumvent them.

But Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections, said his agency has received no formal complaints about spending in the school board races. The board sent a letter to CTU leadership in the fall asking why the union has two separate political action committees — a potential campaign rules violation.

Dietrich said it is possible that one PAC is affiliated with the union and another with its foundation. The board has not received a response from the union.

Asked about the final price tag of the election, Dietrich said, “No amount would surprise me given how quickly the spending limits came off, and the big players who got involved.”

Broy said the network is already recruiting candidates and fundraising for the 2026 school board race.

“I think there’ll be a lot of interest in that election,” he said.

Between his appointees and CTU-backed elected candidates, Johnson appears poised to hold continued influence over the board’s decisions in the next two years. But Collins, the Teachers College expert, said the intense spending clash in last year’s board races raises the possibility of a divided, gridlocked board in the district’s not-too-distant future.

“Will they be able to agree on tough budget decisions that will keep the district afloat?” Collins said.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools, teachers’ union turn to arbitrator to help reach new contract

2025-01-22T21:26:44+00:00

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A third-party labor arbitrator is hearing arguments from Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union Wednesday and Friday in an effort to reach an agreement on a new contract.

This fact-finding process involving an arbitrator has been used three times since it was established in state law in 2010. Twice, teachers still ended up going on strike. Under the timeline required by the law, the soonest a strike could now occur would be mid-April.

Once arbitrator Martin Malin reviews materials from CPS and CTU and issues his recommendations, which are nonbinding, both could accept his recommendations or either of them can reject the proposal. If one party rejects them, Malin’s report will be made public and after 30 days, the union can issue a 10-day strike notice.

The teachers’ contract expired last June. While the two sides have tentatively agreed to a host of issues, such as additional social workers and class size limits, key sticking points remain. The negotiations have taken place amid some of the most volatile moments for CPS leadership in the district’s history.

The slow pace of negotiations at the start of the school year picked up after the union requested fact-finding last October. The two agreed to instead keep working to get a deal done without the help of an arbitrator.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said talks then slowed to a halt in late December after the school board appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson took a dramatic vote to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who then filed a lawsuit requesting an injunction. A judge ruled that Martinez— who will remain on the job until June — is in charge of the contract negotiations, and that school board members cannot attend talks without his permission.

CPS officials disputed Gates’ comments. They said negotiations continue to progress, including over the past month, and that they “will continue to meet our labor partners at the negotiations table and bargain in good faith.”

But on Wednesday, Davis Gates expressed dissatisfaction with entering fact-finding and said starting this process shifts “what we talk about in bargaining only to finances, not what children need.”

Nevertheless, the union’s legal team filed an 80-page pre-hearing brief with Malin on Monday and outlined what they want him to consider when making his recommendations.

In a statement, the school district characterized its approach to bargaining as “fully student-centered” and aimed at preserving and building on “robust programs that have supported CPS’ impressive academic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The district hired more than 7,000 additional staff using federal COVID relief money over the past four years, and there’s evidence that CPS students benefited from the district’s approach to using the aid with respect to reading. District officials have said they are committed to maintaining those positions even though the federal dollars are now gone.

CPS released its own pre-hearing brief asking Malin to consider the district’s financial position, current salaries and benefits, and its position on teacher prep time and evaluation procedures. The district continues to post additional updates about labor talks on its website.

Thad Goodchild, the CTU’s deputy general counsel, said Malin is expected to issue his recommendations for a settlement by mid-February.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Teachers Union alleges paycheck errors, asks new school board to help reach contract deal

2025-01-15T22:28:29+00:00

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The Chicago Teachers Union is calling for a systemwide audit of Chicago Public Schools’ payroll processes after reporting Tuesday that multiple union members are being underpaid this school year.

The union filed a grievance over the issue with CPS Tuesday, amid heated negotiations between CTU and CPS over the union’s new contract.

The grievance claims at least five unnamed staffers have not been paid according to their seniority with the district. In all five cases, the union alleges, employees have reached out to the district for help in correcting the issue, but CPS has not fixed their pay.

The examples include:

A school counseling office assistant, who has worked for a consecutive 19 years with CPS, should be paid at three levels higher than she is currently and should also receive more sick days, based on her seniority, the grievance said. The union estimates this employee is being underpaid by at least $8,000. She hasn’t heard back from the district since October, the grievance said.
An elementary school teacher should be paid $101,593 based on his seniority but his listed salary is $99,005, the grievance said. He has not heard from the district since reaching out in September.
A second elementary school teacher is being paid about $2,000 less than she should be, the grievance said. She reached out to CPS in September.
A high school teacher is in her 22nd year teaching for CPS but is being paid at a lower level. She reached out for help in September.
An elementary school counselor who earned her master’s degree should be placed at a higher salary level because of her additional degree, the grievance said. However, despite providing “relevant documentation” and sending multiple follow-up emails, she has not yet received a “substantive response,” according to the district.

Ben Felton, chief of talent for CPS, said the school district has run into “minor payroll mishaps” in the past, but he doesn’t have “any reason” to believe it’s a widespread issue.

“In a system of more than 45,000 employees, sometimes there are payroll errors, but of course we’re committed to looking into any issues or pay discrepancies,” Felton said. “We certainly would never deliberately shortchange our employees, and we appreciate the union bringing it to our attention.”

Asked why payroll representatives have allegedly not addressed employees’ complaints, Felton said the district has “not had the chance to look into it,” and Tuesday was the first time CPS leadership became aware of the complaints.

During a news conference Tuesday, Alex Rodriguez, a union delegate and middle school social studies teacher at Lasalle Language Academy, said he began hearing from colleagues in December that they were being underpaid, then realized his own pay was shorted. Rodriguez said he and his coworkers reached out to CPS for help, but the issue hasn’t been fixed.

Rodriguez was not one of the employees listed in the grievance, the CTU said.

“As an early career educator and father, every dollar counts as my family and I budget for our mortgage, groceries, and student loans,” Rodriguez told reporters.

The union has asked CPS to correct the reported salary issues and give them back pay. It is also asking the district to “perform a system-wide salary audit” and “review and implement changes” to the payroll and staffing services departments so that concerns about pay are “responded to and resolved within contractual timelines.”

Separately, the union urged the new partially-elected school board sworn in Wednesday to help the two sides reach a settlement.

Outside CTU headquarters Wednesday afternoon, union leaders walked through the outstanding sticking points laid out in a document they published last Friday.

Notably, the document shows the union reduced its proposal on annual raises to 4 or 5% each of the next four years, which is what CPS put on the table last September. But the union also wants guarantees from the school district that there will be no layoffs or furloughs.

The union continues to push for an agreement on issues it says are no-cost, such as adjusting the district’s teacher evaluation system and giving elementary school teachers more prep time.

CTU vice president Jackson Potter said the longer the negotiations drag on, there’s a risk of “reputational damage to both the school board and the schools themselves.”

“We need the school board to step in, use its advocacy, its power, its ability to, you know, make sure students get what they need and bring the parties together,” Potter said.

CTU also released a letter Stacy Davis Gates, the union president, sent to Board of Education President Sean Harden asking for “the opportunity to present to the Board in a public meeting a direct update” on the outstanding issues at the bargaining table. She acknowledged a court order barring school board members from negotiations without CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s permission and wrote that the union “does not seek a negotiation session.”

Asked Wednesday about the state of negotiations, Felton, who is part of the district’s bargaining team, said both sides are making progress, including on bilingual education.

“This indecision, this back and forth, isn’t good for anybody — it’s not good for our teachers, it’s not good for our students, families,” Felton said. “So we’re at the table working relentlessly to try to get a deal that’s fair for our educators and fiscally responsible to the district.”

The two sides are also scheduled to engage with a third party fact-finder next week.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Meet the new Chicago Board of Education

2025-01-14T22:29:28+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education is changing. After the city held its first school board elections in history, 10 people elected by their communities will join 11 mayoral appointees to serve for the next two years.

The 21-member hybrid school board will be sworn in Wednesday, Jan. 15 — marking an historic shift in governance as 30 years of mayoral control in Chicago comes to a close.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer, will maintain significant influence for the next two years. Although he advocated for an elected school board alongside his allies at the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson has struggled with the move toward a more independent board as he pushes to transform the school district with the control he still maintains.

On Dec. 16 he announced 10 of his 11 appointments, and last week, told Chalkbeat that his final pick would be made soon.

Here are the people who will serve on the Chicago Board of Education.

Sean Harden will serve as Chicago Board of Education President.

Sean Harden, President of the Chicago Board of Education (appointed)

Serves at-large and represents all 77 community areas

Sean Harden, a South Side native, was picked to serve as school board president by Mayor Brandon Johnson in December. Harden worked for the city and Chicago Public Schools in the 2000s, before launching consulting firm, Harden Wright Consultant Group.

Harden worked under former CPS CEO Ron Huberman as deputy CEO of community affairs. Before that, he held a position as executive assistant for former Mayor Richard M. Daley, then moved on to deputy commissioner of human relations.

Harden is also chairman of three nonprofit organizations: Inner Voice, an organization focused on supporting people who are homeless; Friend Health, a health center that serves low-income and uninsured Illinois residents; and the Revolution Institute, which offers assistance with job training and placement for those in marginalized communities.

Ed Bannon and a map of District 1a.

Ed Bannon, District 1a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Edison Park, Irving Park, Dunning, and Norwood Park

Number of CPS schools: 22

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced on Dec. 16 he would appoint longtime community organizer Ed Bannon to serve the other half of District 1 on the far northwest side of the city. A resident of the Dunning neighborhood, Bannon currently serves on the Dever Elementary Local School Council as a community representative and ran for 38th Ward alderman in 2023 against incumbent Ald. Nick Sposato. His campaign fundraising committee is still active.

Bannon formerly served as the president of the Six Corners Association, according to Block Club Chicago, and organizes an annual family-friendly bike ride, called Tour de Dunning. According to the mayor’s office, he is the parent of three CPS graduates.

Jennifer Custer and a map of District 1b.

Jennifer Custer, District 1b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Montclare, Portage Park, Mayfair

Number of CPS schools: 20

A mom of two with a third on the way, Custer is an educator who worked as a teacher and dean of students in suburban school districts before taking a break to raise her children. A resident of the Montclare neighborhood, Custer will represent subdistrict 1b after winning a two-way race 51% to 49% against Michelle N. Pierre, a former charter school leader, district official, principal, and teacher.

Custer was supported by multiple labor unions and endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, though she has spoken out against the firing of CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and short-term borrowing pushed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, an ally of the CTU, to pay for pensions and added contract costs for teachers and principals.

Ebony Deberry and a map of District 2a.

Ebony DeBerry, District 2a (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Rogers Park, West Ridge

Number of CPS schools: 18

In November, Ebony DeBerry won 42% of the vote in a four-way race to represent the far north lakefront on Chicago’s school board. The lifelong Rogers Park resident is the manager of educational initiatives at ONE Northside and a former CPS student, teacher, and parent.

DeBerry was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and shares many of the same progressive views on education policy. On the campaign trail, she said she wants to increase parent involvement, expand after-school programming, and strengthen tutoring and counseling in CPS. She’s also a supporter of Sustainable Community Schools, a model in which schools partner with community organizations to provide wraparound services.

Debby Pope and a map of District 2b.

Debby Pope, District 2b (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Andersonville, Edgewater, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood

Number of CPS schools: 19

A retired CPS teacher, Debby Pope formed a campaign fundraising committee last spring, but decided not to run in the crowded District 2 race, telling Chalkbeat she would instead support DeBerry’s candidacy. In late October, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced her as one of his new appointees after the mass resignation of his first group of school board appointees amid tensions with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

Pope is a former member of the Chicago Teachers Union and has served in their House of Delegates. According to her bio on the Board of Education website, she is the parent of two CPS alumni and a grandparent of a current CPS kindergartener.

Norma Rios Sierra and a map of District 3a.

Norma Rios-Sierra, District 3a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Logan Square, Avondale, Kelvyn Park

Number of CPS schools: 23

Rios-Sierra is an artist and cultural events manager with Palenque LSNA, a neighborhood community group serving Logan Square that also works in schools helping provide after school programming and parent mentors.

According to the mayor’s office, Rios-Sierra is a CPS parent. She also runs a stained glass art studio in Logan Square where she teaches classes for kids and adults.

Carlos Rivas Jr. and a map of District 3b.

Carlos Rivas Jr., District 3b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Humboldt Park, Hermosa

Number of CPS schools: 32

Born and raised in Humboldt Park, Rivas graduated from Lowell Elementary, his neighborhood school, and Northside College Prep, one of the district’s top selective enrollment high schools. He taught through Teach for America and worked as an alumni counselor for the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

Rivas won a two-way race against another Humboldt Park native with 56% of the vote. He was endorsed by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and was part of the Democrats for Education slate of candidates.

Rivas Jr. currently serves as the director of public affairs for the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability and worked on the city’s response to the influx of migrants arriving from Texas as part of Operation Lone Star. He still lives in Humboldt Park and serves as a transitional foster parent, fostering unaccompanied migrant children who need to be placed in Spanish-speaking households before they are sent to an adult sponsor.

Karen Zaccor and a map of District 4a.

Karen Zaccor, District 4a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Uptown, Buena Park, Lakeview

Number of CPS schools: 15

Karen Zaccor, a longtime community organizer and Uptown resident, is one of the mayor’s appointees to the new school board. She was a CPS teacher for 28 years and most recently taught at Uplift Community High School in Uptown, a school she co-founded, before her recent retirement. She also raised a daughter who graduated from CPS.

Zaccor has used her advocacy efforts to push for an elected school board, establish full-day kindergarten, and stop school closures. She ran unsuccessfully for school board and was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union as well as 46th Ward Ald. Angela Clay.

Ellen Rosenfeld and a map of District 4b.

Ellen Rosenfeld, District 4b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Lincoln Park, Lakeview

Number of CPS schools: 18

Ellen Rosenfeld, a former teacher and mother of four, held various education-related roles before running for school board.

Rosenfeld, originally from St. Louis, taught for five years on the city’s South Side. She later joined the Local School Council at Bell Elementary School, where her children attended. For the past seven years, she worked as a family and community engagement specialist at CPS, which involves communicating with families at forums or public meetings.

Rosenfeld has since quit that job in order to serve on the school board.

Rosenfeld beat her five opponents with 41.6% of the vote. She raised the second largest amount of campaign cash in her district, with close to $187,000, as of late October. Rosenfeld was endorsed by state lawmakers Rep. Ann Williams and Sen. Robert Martwick, who were behind legislation to create the elected school board, as well as multiple Chicago alderpeople, Cook County commissioners and U.S. Rep. Jan. Schakowsky. She was was part of the Democrats for Education slate of candidates.

Jitu Brown and a map of District 5a.

Aaron “Jitu” Brown, District 5a (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Austin, Ukrainian Village, West Town

Number of CPS schools: 38

Aaron “Jitu” Brown, who grew up on the South Side, lives in Austin. His son attends Kenwood Academy High School.

As the only person on the ballot for District 5, Brown won 100% of the vote. He was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and got an early vote of confidence from Mayor Brandon Johnson, who Brown considers a friend. Brown raised about $55,000 in campaign funds.

Brown is a longtime community organizer who, over the past two decades, has advocated for many school-related issues, including creating an elected school board and fighting school closures.

Since the 1990s, Brown said he helped run school youth leadership programs on the South and West sides. He also volunteered for and eventually oversaw the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, a progressive advocacy group focused on several issues, including education.

Brown is the national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, a progressive coalition of organizations that advocates for improving schools through “community-driven” approaches and is against privatization.

Michilla Blaise and a map of District 5b.

Michilla “Kyla” Blaise, District 5b (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: West Town, West Loop, Garfield Park, North Lawndale

Number of CPS schools: 62

Michilla Blaise, who was appointed to the board in October after the entire previous board resigned, grew up in Chicago and attended Catholic schools. Blaise used to live on the North Side but said she moved with her children — who attend Kenwood Academy High School — to her mother’s apartment building in East Garfield Park.

Blaise launched a career in politics when she went to work for former 46th Ward Ald. Helen Schiller.

She later started her own political consulting firm. She is currently chief of staff for Cook County Board Commissioner Frank Aguilar and is also board secretary for Westside Justice Center, a legal services nonprofit organization.

Blaise ran for school board last year against fellow board member Aaron “Jitu” Brown before dropping out of the race.

Anusha Thokatura and a map of District 6a.

Anusha Thotakura, District 6a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Streeterville, River North, Wicker Park

Number of CPS schools: 14

Despite finishing second in the November election, Anusha Thotakura is one of Mayor Johnson’s picks to serve on the school board. As the recently-promoted executive director of Citizen Action/Illinois, Thotakura leads a coalition of progressive organizations advocating on a number of different areas, including education.

Thokatura grew up in Chicago’s northwest suburbs and worked as a middle school math teacher in San Jose, California through Teach for America before returning to Illinois. A resident of River West, she was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and said on the campaign trail she would be focused on early childhood education, expanding after-school programming, and improving school facilities.

Jessica Biggs and a map of District 6b.

Jessica Biggs, District 6b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, Woodlawn and Hyde Park

Number of CPS schools: 37

Former CPS principal and current CPS parent Jessica Biggs won a three-way competition with 45% of the vote in November. She ran as an independent candidate and raised the least amount of money in her race. Still, Biggs got the endorsement of progressive alderwoman Jeanette Taylor.

Biggs left CPS after serving as principal for six years at Burke Elementary in Washington Park. According to a report by WBEZ in 2018, she was fired for directing staff members to mark students tardy when they would have been marked as absent for half a day. Biggs said her departure from the district should not color her time as a leader in CPS.

During her campaign, Biggs said she would prioritize working with state lawmakers to fully-fund the state’s evidence-based funding formula and work to ensure strong neighborhood schools.

Emma Lozano will represent District 7a.

Emma Lozano, District 7a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Little Village, Pilsen, Near West Side

Number of CPS schools: 46

A pastor and long time immigration rights activist, Emma Lozano has fought for sanctuary policies in Chicago and elsewhere. Mayor Brandon Johnson named her last month as one of his picks to serve on the school board and called her a “champion for bilingual education and immigrant rights.”

Yesenia Lopez and a map of District 7b.

Yesenia Lopez, District 7b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Gage Park, Brighton Park, McKinley Park, Bridgeport

Number of CPS schools: 33

A former Latino outreach director for Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s campaign, Yesenia Lopez now works as an executive assistant for the Illinois Secretary of State. A Gage Park resident, Lopez graduated from Pickard Elementary School and Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen and earned a degree in political science and gender studies from DePaul University.

Lopez won a three-way race to represent the south west side with 56% of the vote. She had the early endorsement of Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a longtime progressive politician in Chicago and one of the first Latinos elected to the City Council. Lopez does not have children, but has volunteered and worked in several schools in her community.

Angel Gutierrez and a map of District 8a.

Angel Gutierrez, District 8a (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Garfield Ridge, West Lawn, Marquette Park, Clearing, Midway Airport

Number of CPS schools: 29

A resident of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood, Angel Gutierrez handily won a two-way race in November against Felix Ponce with 63% of the vote. A non-profit consultant, Gutierrez has experience in governance, fundraising, strategic planning, and management. He worked in fundraising roles at Chicago Hope Academy, a Christian high school on the west side, and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

On the campaign trail, Gutierrez said he would advocate for financial stability, school choice, and campus safety. He was endorsed by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and was part of the Democrats for Education slate of candidates.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has not yet appointed someone to serve District 8b.

TBD, District 8b (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Back of the Yards, West Lawn, Bridgeport

Number of CPS schools: 36

The mayor has not yet selected an appointee to serve in this position.

Frank Niles Thomas and a map of District 9a.

Frank Niles Thomas, District 9a (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Auburn Gresham, Englewood, Canaryville

Number of CPS schools: 47

A Johnson appointee last October, Thomas is a CPS graduate, a U.S. Air Force veteran and the father of four CPS graduates. He led the Department of Streets and Sanitation in the 21st Ward and the local school council for Dunne Elementary, where he also founded a mentoring program.

In coming onto the board, Thomas touted his experience handling contract negotiations and other labor-management issues.

Therese Boyle and a map of District 9b.

Therese Boyle, District 9b (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Beverly, Morgan Park, Pullman, Roseland

Number of CPS schools: 46

Boyle is a retired educator with 35 years of experience as a CPS school psychologist and teacher. An independent candidate in the school board race, she also ran unsuccessfully to lead the Chicago Teachers Union in 2019. In November, she won a four-way contest with 36% of the vote.

Boyle, a mother of two CPS teachers, has said the district should step up efforts to recruit and retain seasoned educators — and strike a balance in supporting both neighborhood and selective enrollment or magnet schools. She also wants to focus on improving students’ academic achievement and mental health and on balancing the district’s budget.

Che 'Rhymefest' Smith and a map of District 10a.

Che “Rhymefest” Smith, District 10a (elected)

Neighborhoods served: Kenwood, Oakland, Hyde Park, South Shore, Woodlawn

Number of CPS schools: 33

Smith is an award-winning musician, community activist, and former aldermanic candidate. Smith, who largely self-funded his school board bid, has said his priorities are boosting arts, science and mental health programs in CPS, growing partnerships with nonprofits and other local organizations, and weeding out waste in the district’s budget. He won a competitive four-way race in November with 32% of the vote.

Smith, who co-founded a youth outreach nonprofit named Art of Culture, also would like to see more student involvement in district decision-making. Late last year, he spoke out forcefully against Martinez’ firing.

Olga Bautista and a map of District 10b.

Olga Bautista, District 10b (appointed)

Neighborhoods served: Avalon Park, Altgeld Gardens, Chatham, East Side, Hegewisch, Pullman, South Chicago

Number of CPS schools: 56

Bautista, an environmental activist on Chicago’s Southeast Side, was one of the board members Johnson appointed in October following the previous board’s resignations. The mother of two CPS students and a former aldermanic candidate, she is the co-executive director of Southeast Environmental Task Force. She has also served as a mentor in the youth organization Rebel Bells and as community leadership director for Our City Our Voice, a civic engagement nonprofit.

She has said she is passionate about fully funding the district’s schools and promoting more environmentally friendly school buildings through the Green New Schools initiative.

This story has been updated to clarify Jennifer Custer will represent subdistrict 1b.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson talks class size, contract talks, school board appointments

2025-01-08T18:01:49+00:00

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Mayor Brandon Johnson defended his decision to stay on “union leave” from Chicago Public Schools in an interview with Chalkbeat Tuesday.

The mayor taught middle school in CPS before going on leave in 2011 to become an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. He launched a political career when he was elected as a county commissioner in 2018 and went on to win the competitive race for mayor in 2023.

Chicago’s mayor still maintains significant power over the city’s public schools even as the city transitions away from 30 years of mayoral control. Johnson appointed school board members during his first year in office and recently replaced that group after all of them resigned amid tensions between the mayor and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. He selected new appointees and will maintain control over 11 appointments on the new 21-member, partially elected school board.

Staying on union leave allows him to accrue seniority and ensures his job protection, should he decide to return to the classroom. But Johnson denied his employment status is a conflict of interest, because he’s not currently earning a CPS paycheck.

Chalkbeat sat down with Johnson in his office on the fifth floor of City Hall for a brief interview Tuesday to discuss that and other topics like class size, migrant students, and Martinez. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

The school board is going to be sworn in on Jan. 15. You announced 10 of 11 appointments in late December, but have you selected somebody to serve in that 11th seat?

I’m incredibly excited and thrilled and humbled to be the first mayor in the history of Chicago to not only commit to elected representative school board, but see that come to fruition. In my time as an organizer and as a teacher and as a parent, the public education system in the city of Chicago ran by previous administrations have just been abysmal as it relates to showing up for working people. So I am, again, humbled by the opportunity, and we will have a fully appointed and represented board that reflects the values of the people of Chicago.

But you haven’t picked the person to serve in District 8?

We will.

What have you told the school board appointees that you’ve selected so far that you want them to prioritize?

I want them to prioritize what the people of Chicago want. As the first mayor in the history of Chicago to believe in public education so much that I send my children to the public schools in Chicago, I know exactly what parents want. I’m one of them. Smaller class size is something that parents want. And I know that experience too as a public school teacher, by the way, the only mayor in the history of Chicago to actually have taught in our public schools.

I want them to fight hard to ensure that we have libraries and librarians in our schools, social workers and counselors. I told them that we have to fight hard for resources and funding to have psychiatrists and psychologists in our schools, to have a well-rounded, rich curriculum that includes after-school activities, right? The bell rings, learning shouldn’t stop, right?

I told them that we also have to ensure that we are fully funding special education, that we are fully funding our bilingual education. There are parents who do transport their kids from one neighborhood to the other, because their neighborhood does not have all the resources that those families deserve and need. We have to have reliable transportation within our public schools to ensure that families can have reliable access to those resources.

Leading the way in this moment requires us to show up for working people, whether you live on the north side or the southeast side or anywhere else in between that we can be proud of our public school system that prioritizes families.

Class sizes are one of the sticking points in the contract negotiations. As I understand it, there’s disagreement about the caps in the middle grades. You were a middle school teacher.

You know how I feel about this then!

What do you think is an appropriate class size in the middle grades?

In some of the top school districts in the state of Illinois you have some classes that are anywhere from 17 to 22 children. Look, the middle school age is a very critical moment in our child’s children’s development. The middle school age is a transformational and transition time for young people.

As a former middle school teacher, the social and emotional development of a child is critical at that moment, particularly, as we see rises of behavioral and mental health challenges. This is why I fought, and will continue to fight hard for appropriate class sizes, because we want to ensure that children can balance equations as well as draw conclusions, but they should also feel safe and secure in their overall development.

On the campaign trail, you said “who better to deliver bad news to a friend than a friend?” Is there an example you could give of a time you’ve had to deliver bad news in the contract talks right now?

I don’t think there’s any debate that our schools are not fully funded. I wish we had the evidence-based funding model that the state of Illinois has calculated, that $1.1 billion were available to us today. You know, it’s unfortunate that that doesn’t exist.

But that’s not just confined to my friends. That’s the state of Illinois. There’s $3.6 billion that the state of Illinois, just based upon this funding formula, should be appropriated for school districts.

We have this strong triangulation — probably for the first time in the history of Chicago or, I don’t know, for the first time that I’ve ever experienced — with the Board of Education, the mayor’s office, and workers all aligned around the vision for our public schools and that that is progress in and of itself.

Your appointed school board, as one of its last acts, voted to end the contract with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. You didn’t mention him just now as you were talking about alignment. Who would you like to see lead the school district?

I’ll be perfectly frank with you. I’ve spent most of my time thinking about the 325,000 families that want transformational leadership. They want and elected a mayor who’s a parent and has been a former teacher, and that’s what my focus has been on. This is not about some individual, because there’s not one single individual that can transform our public schools.

The Board of Education will get an opportunity as they have made a decision to go into a different direction, and when that time comes, I’m confident that the interests of the people of Chicago will be front and center as we think about this one position.

But keep in mind, we have 30,000 workers in our Chicago public schools. That’s where my heart is — 30,000 workers who show up every single day fighting for resources to ensure that their students have everything that they deserve and need. It’s the 325,000 children who rely upon our public schools. That’s where our focus should be. That’s certainly where mine is.

Can I ask why you didn’t replace the CPS CEO right after taking office?

Look again, this is not about just one individual. What were we focused on in May 2023? We were focused on [parental] leave. We got it done. We were focused on the evidence-based funding formula to ensure that we are funding our schools based upon needs.

We were focused on our bilingual education. The governor of Texas used human beings to attack us, right? It’s a very nasty way to govern. There are 20,000 more students in our public schools who were bussed from Central or South America. And so that’s what my focus has been on.

It’s not on one individual, right? Because if it was one individual, perhaps, we could find a prototype and plant that person down, and they can overcome systemic racism that has existed in our public schools for decades.

This was not about one individual. This is about the hundreds of thousands of families that are looking to me to fight and advocate on their behalf.

You mentioned the influx of new migrant students. Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago have reported on the lack of support and staffing for bilingual education in some schools. Do you think the district’s done enough?

No, it hasn’t. This is what I’m saying. We have to have more resources for special education. We know that Chicago Public Schools, historically, has not lived up to the promise and expectation of parents, like when I was in the classroom.

We have not properly supported special education, bilingual education, particularly with this influx. That’s why it requires bold leadership in this moment, and that’s what I’m calling for. This is why I believe that some people are having a tough time with my leadership, because I have been very bold and outspoken about investments, not austerity, not privatization, not cuts, consolidations, closures, all of that crap that destroyed public education in this city,

A story published earlier this week in the Chicago Tribune looked at the wave of expiring special taxing districts, known as TIFs. There is a projected increase of tax revenue that would go to sister agencies, including the Chicago Public Schools. What would you like to see the district do with that additional revenue?

That’s always been my goal — to ensure that the tax dollars that were designed to support these sister agencies, that those dollars actually show up for the people of Chicago.

As far as what we need to see, we need better staffing. We do. We need more staffing. We saw this during the pandemic. One of the reasons why our schools were able to recover, you know, the way they did, is because we actually had paraprofessionals to help support these educators. But we also need to make sure that we have libraries and librarians, social workers and counselors. We don’t talk enough about the number of psychiatrists and psychologists that we need in our schools.

Do you understand how difficult it is when you’re living and trying to survive in a city where disinvestment has been the prevailing form of governance? Kids show up [to schools] who are hungry or unhoused, right? We need to see more support for our unhoused students in the city of Chicago, 20,000 children are underhoused in the city. And so as we ensure that there are more dollars available for these sister agencies, we have to respond to what families want.

We need to make sure that we’re providing support services for special ed, bilingual education, and transportation. We need better staff and stronger staffing in our schools to support these efforts, but we also have to support the entire community so that families are fully supported in a way that gives them the ability to experience the wholeness and the purpose of what public education was designed to do.

Would you ever like to go back to teaching in a classroom in Chicago Public Schools?

I really enjoy being mayor of the city of Chicago. I will say teaching middle school is still the best job that I’ve ever had. I did teach a year of high school, but I really enjoyed teaching seventh and eighth grade.

I haven’t really thought about what happens two terms from now or three terms from now. But I will say this, as mayor of the city of Chicago, I’m committed to making sure that you know the people who do teach, the people who are in our schools, that they know that they have an advocate on the fifth floor, and to ensure that our public schools and our public teachers are fully supported.

You are still on leave from CPS.

That is correct.

A number of people have said that is a conflict of interest.

Right, because at first, folks were saying that it was a conflict because I was on leave from the CTU. When they realized that wasn’t right, then they found another reason to figure out there’s a conflict of interest.

Do you believe that’s a conflict of interest? Have you considered resigning that position, given that you are now no longer on “union leave” because you no longer work for the union?

Let me just say this, there isn’t one. There’s no economic benefit for me as a CPS employee on leave as mayor of the city of Chicago. We have firefighters who are on leave [in] City Council, and they actually vote on their contracts. There are police officers who are on leave and they actually vote on those contracts. I don’t vote on any contract, so there’s no conflict of interest.

It’s not like there’s this classroom just waiting for me that once I’m done as mayor of the city of Chicago, I can just roll back in and start teaching the five causes of the American Revolution. Can I just say this respectfully? I just find it to be quite fascinating that somehow, as a parent, as a public school teacher, that somehow that will be in conflict with me as mayor of the city of Chicago advocating on behalf of the people of Chicago.

I wanted to give you a chance to respond. It’s brought up in Pedro Martinez’s lawsuit against the school board and people are pointing to it as ethically problematic.

Let me just say this, right, there have been board members who have been a part of banks and corporations that benefited from CPS contracts. Board members who were on boards of private charter schools that benefited their friends economically. And what has that done for the people of Chicago?

Now you have a parent, you have a public school teacher, that is advocating on behalf of the public that somehow that’s some sort of conflict. You know what? That’s a conflict to the interest of corporations who want to run our school districts to the ground. And guess what? They’ve done it. But now, with bold progressive leadership, we are rising out of the ashes of those who saw public education as a way to line their pockets, and now we actually have someone who believes in the public good.

Jen Johnson is no longer deputy mayor of education. Have you looked into filling that role?

That’s a very good question. Thank you for that. And let me just say Jen Johnson is a remarkable human being, just a classy human being that has served in this city as a social studies teacher, just like myself. Just a brilliant mind.

We’re going to go through a robust interviewing process to find the right person who understands my vision, the vision that I was elected on to ensure that every single school in the city of Chicago is fully funded and supported. That process continues to unfold. We’ll let you know once we make an announcement.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago schools watchdog urges ‘vigilance’ against improper political activity

2025-01-08T10:45:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools Inspector General is urging vigilance against improper political activity by district employees and campaigns as the city is now electing school board members.

The recommendations, made in the Office of the Inspector General’s annual report, follow an investigation into former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign staff emailing teachers to solicit student volunteers. That investigation found no coordination between the school district and Lightfoot’s campaign but rather “poor management and oversight.”

Eight students volunteered for the former mayor’s 2023 unsuccessful bid for a second term as a result of the emails to CPS teachers. However, none received class credit as the email initially promised, the investigation found. The inspector general also found these students all signed non-disclosure agreements without their parents’ knowledge, which Lightfoot denied knowing about and admitted was inappropriate.

Although Lightfoot is no longer in office, the inspector general’s report noted that the findings in this case raise important questions for CPS with the advent of school board elections in Chicago.

“The District must maintain vigilance against candidates and campaigns attempting to exert pressure on CPS employees and students,” the report said.

This past September, the district sent school board member candidates guidance on their ethical obligations under the CPS Code of Ethics. The email included links to a school board member’s legal and ethical requirements and a video explaining what is and isn’t acceptable political activity for CPS staff.

In the report, CPS also said the new board members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson last fall received ethics training in October. A district spokesperson confirmed it took place on Oct. 18. Newly appointed board members were given an ethics presentation and also provided with the political activities video outlining CPS policies.

The district also confirmed to the Office of the Inspector General that students do not get credit for volunteering on campaigns. But a district spokesperson did not say how long that has been district policy.

High school students must complete a service learning project in order to graduate. But the district said service learning projects “should be linked to current academic goals and classroom curriculum and should build social, civic, and academic skills.” They cannot be “partisan-oriented” but can include lessons about elections, including raising awareness about voting or organizing a voter registration event.

The investigation of Lightfoot’s campaign emailing teachers on their work accounts began just over a month before the Chicago mayoral election on Feb. 28, 2023. Lightfoot failed to make the runoff, coming in third among a field of nine candidates. Instead, Johnson, then a county commissioner and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, came in second behind Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO and education reform leader. The two would go on to compete in a runoff election that Johnson ultimately won.

The inspector general found that although Lightfoot’s campaign sent more than 7,500 emails to 247 CPS email accounts, most were more general “blast” emails sent to people who voluntarily signed up. The campaign staffer who solicited student volunteers sent 219 emails to 113 district employees whose email addresses they found by searching the internet, the report said.

Still, the inspector general report notes that the emails effectively asked CPS employees “to make a professionally and ethically fraught choice: pass along the message to students and violate CPS policy or ignore outreach from the highest elected official in the city.”

A spokesperson for Lightfoot reiterated in a statement that the former mayor was not personally involved or aware of the recruitment emails.

“As we made clear at the time, in the course of a hotly contested, city-wide campaign in the third largest city in the country, of course the Mayor herself was never involved personally in these volunteer recruitment endeavors,” she wrote. “The OIG report also notes, correctly, that this initiative, spearheaded by one staffer, did not actually have the effect of intimidating any CPS employees into doing anything unethical or inappropriate, and led to fewer than 10 volunteer signups.”

The spokesperson agreed with the OIG’s policy recommendations, but noted they weren’t in effect when the 2023 campaign was taking place.

A CPS spokesperson said the district took additional measures in June 2024 to filter out political emails sent to CPS email addresses. The district’s Ethics Office also did not get any reports of political emails sent to employee email addresses during the most recent election.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Here are the remaining sticking points in contract talks between CPS and CTU

2025-01-04T00:34:45+00:00

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After eight months of contentious talks that cost CEO Pedro Martinez his job, Chicago Public Schools teacher contract negotiations are entering a decisive phase.

The union and the district provided separate bargaining updates late Friday afternoon suggesting they are making some progress — and both sides said they agreed to pause a neutral fact-finding process that started in October.

The district and union both said they have reached tentative agreements to expand the number of Sustainable Community Schools to 70 over the next four years, hire more English learner teachers and other staff, and jointly look for ways to offer housing help to homeless students.

But many sticking points remain, and union leaders this week accused Martinez of standing in the way of a final deal, saying progress at the bargaining table stalled after a judge ruled on Dec. 24 that the CEO remains in charge of negotiations during his six remaining months on the job.

“The fact that we don’t have a yes now is because of one person, and only one person,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, citing alignment between their proposals and the district’s new five-year strategic plan.

On Friday, Martinez and other district leaders forcefully rejected the idea that the district has blocked progress, countering that in fact much headway has been made.

Martinez had accused school board members, appointed by former CTU employee turned Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, of trying to hijack the process after they voted to fire him without cause late on Dec. 20, the Friday night before the district’s two-week winter break.

CPS officials stressed again that they are pushing back against proposals that the district simply cannot afford amid massive looming deficits — or ones that would hamstring school leaders or affect the amount of time students spend learning core subjects.

“If we overextend ourselves today,” Martinez said at a Friday evening press conference, “it will be our children and our staff who will pay for it tomorrow.”

Here’s a look at some of the remaining disagreements.

Prep time for elementary teachers

For months, the two sides have clashed over a union proposal to give teachers more time during the school day to prepare lessons while students spend extra time in enrichment classes. Davis Gates said Friday there was finally movement but not a formal proposal.

“We are engaged in a discussion that may hopefully get us closer to an elementary school day that provides our young people with a more rounded school day that includes art, music, physical education, instrumental music, choral music, just a wide variety of opportunities,” she said.

CPS officials have said the district is already a leader in providing significant preparation time, with 330 minutes per week on average compared with 240 minutes in New York City and 90 in San Diego. They say they are unwilling to cut back on core instruction, especially at a time when students are still recovering from the academic toll of the pandemic.

Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s chief education officer, stressed that shortening time for core instruction remains a no-go for the district, and the two sides are exploring new ways to add more prep minutes, including the possibility of lengthening the school year.

In some ways, the disagreement harkens back to 2012, when the district lengthened the school day to seven hours for elementary schools and seven-and-a-half for high schools — a key campaign promise and significant win for former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The change was possible because the district and union agreed that elementary teachers could start their day when students do — removing 30 minutes of prep time that they previously had. The union pushed for getting those 30 minutes back in 2019 but were unsuccessful.

Amount of annual raises

The union opened negotiations by asking for 9% raises annually. CPS countered with 4% to 5% per year. The district says that thanks to these raises, the average teacher in the district would make $115,000 or more a year by the end of the contract in four years. The district has also agreed to health coverage increases at no cost to teachers, whom officials have stressed are the highest paid among colleagues in large districts, except in New York City.

A union update to members this week called the district’s counterproposal “a decent initial offer.” But they are still pushing for additional pay improvements that they argue will help keep veteran educators in the district. And they are upset CPS won’t guarantee that paying for the raises won’t trigger layoffs or furloughs.

CPS officials have noted that the district is once again facing a structural deficit of roughly $500 million, which was papered over the past four years with federal COVID relief money and is slated to balloon to almost $1 billion in the coming years even before teacher contract costs are factored in.

Martinez said Friday that the CTU is still demanding 6% raises in the first two years and 5% the second two years of the contract, but he said, “We need to maintain our current proposal for the fiscal health of the district.”

Additional staff and class size limits

The union’s latest email said they have come close to reaching agreements on staffing social workers, librarians, tech coordinators, and bilingual teacher assistants, but the two sides are still bargaining over additional hires and job security for them. Davis Gates said Friday the two sides appear close to an agreement on class size caps in the early grades and high school, but remain stuck on what the limit should be in the middle grades.

In an email to parents, district officials again touted that they created roughly 7,000 new positions during the pandemic, even as enrollment dipped — an investment that officials say helped spur academic recovery and a return to relative normalcy for schools. They say they are concerned about maintaining that higher level of staffing without the federal COVID aid that helped power it — even before adding more jobs in response to union demands.

“Protecting those investments as we move into a tough budget season is a top priority for our CEO and our bargaining team,” said Ben Felton, the district’s chief talent officer.

The district said it has agreed to add several hundred positions that reflect an increase in the number of students with disabilities and language needs, including English learner teachers, case managers, social workers, and more.

Teacher evaluations and curriculum autonomy

How teachers are evaluated changed in the CTU contract under Emanuel’s administration more than a decade ago — at the height of a national conversation about the issue. Emanuel and many pro-education reform leaders pushed for teachers’ performance evaluations to be tied to student performance and the federal government under then-President Barack Obama incentivized districts and states to do so. What resulted was a new CPS system for evaluating educators called REACH, based in part on a test that students take at the start and end of each school year.

Though many educators and administrators find the new system helpful, some have worried it’s too punitive and can turn teachers away from the profession. The CTU is pushing to curb REACH now, including less frequent evaluations, pointing to research showing that Black educators and even white teachers in predominantly Black schools tend to get lower marks.

CPS says REACH remains an important way of holding schools accountable and ensuring educators improve their work, though the district is open to changes such as providing more mentoring to educators in high-poverty schools. It has also pushed back against a union proposal that would allow teachers to select their own curriculums. Some principals and the district’s principals union have also spoken out against that and other proposals they say will hamper school leaders’ ability to set a unified vision for their campuses.

“Strong schools are only possible with strong leaders,” Chkoumbova said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Johnson announces 10 of 11 appointees for new Chicago Board of Education

2024-12-17T03:12:39+00:00

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Mayor Brandon Johnson picked 10 of 11 people Monday to round out the city’s new half-elected, half-appointed school board — including some who ran unsuccessfully in Chicago’s first school board elections this November.

The new board will be sworn in Jan. 15, 2025, and will include 10 people who won in November. State law required the mayor choose the other 11 people, including a board president, by Monday.

The shift to an elected school board in Chicago has been years in the making. The process set forth in state law is complicated. Though there were 10 school board races in November, each district was split into two subdistricts. State law limited who Johnson could pick — allowing him to only choose people who did not live in the same subdistrict as winners of the election.

Johnson announced the school board appointees late Monday, just hours before the deadline.

Sean Harden, a South Side native and former CPS employee, will serve as president of the Board of Education and represent the city at large.
Ed Bannon, who ran for alderman in 2023 and served on the Dever Elementary School Local School Council, will represent District 1a alongside Jennifer Custer in 1b.
Debby Pope, a current appointed school board member and former CTU employee and retired teacher who filed campaign finance paperwork and considered running for an elected school board seat, will represent District 2b alongside Ebony DeBerry in 2a.
Norma Rios-Sierra, an artist who also works as cultural events manager for nonprofit Palenque LSNA, will presumably represent District 3a alongside Carlos Rivas Jr. in 3b.
Karen Zaccor, a retired teacher and active CTU member who finished second in a six-way race in November’s election, will represent District 4a alongside the winning candidate Ellen Rosenfeld in 4b.
Michilla Blaise, a current school board member who withdrew as a candidate one month before Election Day, will represent District 5b alongside Jitu Brown in 5a.
Anusha Thotakura, a former teacher who also lost her bid in November, will represent District 6a alongside Jessica Biggs in 6b.
Emma Lozano, a Pilsen pastor and advocate for bilingual education and immigrant rights. It is not clear which district Lozano lives in, but it would presumably be either district 7b or 8b alongside either Yesenia Lopez in 7a or Angel Gutierrez in 8a.
Frank Niles Thomas, a current board member appointed last month, will represent District 9a alongside Therese Boyle in 9b.
Olga Bautista, a current board member appointed last month, will presumably represent District 10b alongside Che “Rhymefest” Smith in 10a.

It was not immediately clear why the mayor only announced 10 of 11 picks before the deadline. State law does not spell out any impacts for partially missing the deadline.

Johnson’s picks will make up a majority of the board, giving him significant influence over a governing body that for the past three decades was exclusively controlled by Chicago’s mayor.

The mayor’s appointees included most of the current board members as well as losing school board candidates who were endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, a close ally of the mayor’s.

Johnson’s office announced the names after the mayor struggled to negotiate a deal with aldermen on his second city budget. Late Monday, after multiple amendments and Johnson tossing out his proposed property tax increase entirely, the City Council approved a $17.1 billion city budget by a vote of 27 to 23.

After that budget vote, as he called for more state revenue, Johnson told reporters he was looking for school board members “who understand the urgency of this moment, people who know that they have to organize and work collectively to fight for progressive revenue in the state.”

“But really the big characteristic that I’m proud that people demonstrated was a real care for the families who do the work as well,” Johnson said, adding that he also searched for people who were not “dismissive” of teachers.

The mayor’s influence over the school board may extend beyond his own picks. Four of the election winners were backed by the union, which ideologically aligns with the mayor. That means 15 of the 21 members could often vote in alignment with his policy preferences, such as avoiding school closures and sending more money to neighborhood schools.

It also could mean the board could vote to borrow money in order to cover pension obligations and labor union costs, as Johnson pushed CPS to do in the spring and summer, helping to lead to the resignation of the entire previous board.

Before taking office, school board members are required to complete state-mandated training. Last week, newly elected board members were notified by the school district’s board office that training planned for this week would be postponed, per a request from the current board. Carlos Rivas, who was elected to represent District 3 on the West Side, said the Academy of Local Leadership at National Louis University, in light of the district’s cancellation, is now providing training this week. Rivas was part of an inaugural fellowship with ALL Chicago this spring.

“At the end of the day, what’s most important is that we are prepared to govern on day one,” Rivas said.

Rivas said the school district’s board office said they still plan to hold five days of sessions with new board members from Jan. 6-10.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

GoCPS deadline extended to Dec. 15

2024-11-15T23:01:03+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is extending the application deadline for students who want to go to schools outside their assigned neighborhood option.

GoCPS applications will now be due at 5 p.m. on Dec. 15 instead of Nov. 15. This applies to all eighth grade students who are applying to high school.

The district had extended the deadline earlier this month from Nov. 15 to Nov. 22. But amid concerns over pending charter school closures at the Acero network, the school board urged the district to again extend the deadline. The district also extended the GoCPS deadline in 2022.

Last year, the High School Admissions Test crashed on the day CPS eighth graders were scheduled to take the exam, but the deadline remained in early November. However, high school applicants were given extra time to re-rank their choices.

The HSAT did not have any technical problems this year. CPS students took the exam on Oct. 9. The test will be given to non-CPS students applying to district high schools for the last time on Nov. 23 and 24.

The process for applying to school in CPS has been criticized for being stressful and inequitable. Even so, in Chicago, about half of all public elementary school students go to a school that is not their assigned neighborhood school. At the high school level, about 75% travel to a high school and attend an option that is not their zoned option.

The new CPS five-year strategic plan hopes to shift away from an overemphasis on school choice and increase the number of students attending school in their neighborhood or closer to home.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

In wake of Trump win, Chicago Board of Education moves to reaffirm protections for immigrants

2024-11-15T01:17:43+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education passed a resolution Thursday reaffirming its commitment to protect students of various immigration statuses, gender identities, and sexual orientation following last week’s presidential election.

The resolution, approved unanimously by the school board during a special board meeting, acknowledged that the results of the election “may have caused fear, concern, confusion, sadness, anger, or anxiety in CPS staff, students, and their families.”

“We stand very steadfast to these principles and we will defend every student here,” said board member Olga Bautista. She added that it’s “unconscionable” to see anyone “emboldened” to call immigration officials on “our people at work or at schools.”

While on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump has said that he wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Many are students attending public schools around the country.

“It’s the body that has a duty today, an urgent one, to model what it looks like to be a beacon to the rest of the country,” said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, during the meeting.

The board’s resolution called for the district to provide training and support for students, their families, and staff on immigrants’ rights and resources in multiple languages on legal assistance, mental health care, and public safety. It said the district will advocate on the state and federal levels for programs that assist or protect people with varying immigration statuses, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrant children. The board said it would oppose any legislation that creates “a Muslim registry system” or erodes civil rights.

The resolution also said the district “will not provide assistance to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law” and that ICE will not be allowed to enter or interact with district facilities or staff unless it provides CPS with a criminal warrant.”

Chicago Public Schools is one of hundreds of school districts that have declared themselves sanctuaries or safe havens for immigrant students since Trump was elected the first time. But Chicago has been a sanctuary city since 1985, well before Trump even entered politics. Then-Mayor Harold Washington signed an executive order declaring protections for immigrants that became law in 2006.

Chicago appears to be one of the first large school districts to make a public display of resistance and support for students after the 2024 election.

The district passed a “welcoming district” resolution in December 2016, but first committed to the idea of sanctuary schools in 2019 as part of its contract agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union and affirmed its position in 2022. In 2017, Denver Public Schools took steps to reassure immigrant families their students would be protected. Philadelphia’s school board passed a sanctuary resolution in 2021. Newark Public Schools passed a similar resolution in 2017.

Since 2022, CPS has enrolled thousands of migrant students, many of whom are seeking asylum from political and economic upheaval in Central and South American countries.The district said its share of students learning English as a new language increased by more than 12% this school year — far more than any other student group.

This past spring, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, urged states to require public schools to charge tuition to migrant children and children with undocumented parents, denying them a free public education.

Trump has expressed a willingness to target immigrant children and their families and target policies that would protect them.

Samantha Smylie contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Election 2024: Here’s who won Chicago’s first school board elections

2024-11-06T07:05:59+00:00

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Chicago voters delivered a mixed message in the city’s historic first school board elections Tuesday, backing a set of candidates representing different, sometimes clashing views.

Unofficial results showed four teachers union-backed candidates, three pro-school choice candidates, and three independent candidates either winning or holding leads.

Ten seats representing 10 districts across the city were contested in the election. The winners will join 11 other members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer. In 2026, all 21 school board seats will be on the ballot.

Tuesday’s election will end 30 years of mayoral control in the nation’s fourth largest school district. It comes at a contentious time: CPS is in a period of leadership turmoil marked by divisions over how to cover costs at a time of expiring COVID aid and enrollment decline.

The makeup of the new board will help shape how the district answers thorny questions about money and its future direction.

Early Wednesday, The Associated Press had yet to declare winners in three races: in Districts 1, 9, and 10.

Based on preliminary results, the board will likely include 15 members either appointed by Johnson or endorsed by the CTU, a close ally of the mayor’s. That means Johnson will likely have a solid bloc of support for policies he and the union support, including avoiding school closures and pumping more money into neighborhood schools.

The other six seats will likely be filled by school choice, charter-aligned, or more independent candidates, who could press for different priorities or challenge Johnson’s agenda.

Some observers and critics of the teachers union have characterized Tuesday’s results as a blow to Johnson and the CTU, given that they spent nearly $2 million to help their endorsed candidates win in three of 10 races.

But others, especially CTU president Stacy Davis Gates, framed the election as a success. At a union election watch party Tuesday night, she led the crowd in a chant of “Whose Schools? Our schools!”

“You all created an expansion of democracy in an entire society that’s toying with the idea of fascism,” Davis Gates said.

She decried an influx of large checks, including some from out-of-state billionaires, in support of pro-school choice candidates.

Chicago Democrats For Education, a political organization that backed candidates who weren’t endorsed by the union, claimed victories in at least three races: Districts 3, 4 and 8.

“I am incredibly proud of the campaigns all our candidates ran,” Hugo Jacobo, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “These candidates had to fight through desperate lies and misinformation spread about them. This is a clear signal against CTU’s agenda—and just the beginning of a transformation in Chicago’s educational opportunities for students and not self interested union bosses.”

Earlier in the day, Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Max Bever said voters in a few precincts were given ballots with the wrong school board district candidates. The mixups occurred because the new electoral districts don’t follow ward and precinct lines.

“It looks like this issue was raised fairly immediately, and proper ballots were located,” Bever said, adding that he did not know how many voters were impacted.

Unofficial results showed 63% of all registered voters had voted, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

A total of 47 people filed to run for school board, but just 31 made it on the ballot. Candidates staked out positions on school choice, taxes, and district leadership. The campaign was distinguished by big spending and sharp words over the role the teachers union and education reform advocates have played in the race.

District 1: Far Northwest Side, Irving Park

Jennifer Custer, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 1st District, poses for a portrait in Union Park on Sept. 19, 2024.

Jennifer Custer, a former teacher and CPS mom, appeared to clinch a narrow victory against Michelle N. Pierre in the race to represent families and residents on Chicago’s Northwest Side in District 1.

“We worked really hard and knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a lot of voters,” Custer said when reached by phone late Tuesday night. She said it felt “surreal” to be part of the historic first school board elections in Chicago.

Moving forward, Custer said she wants to start building relationships with other new school board members.

“All of us have to work as a team,” she said. “We have a common vision and a common goal, and I think that’s the students of CPS and making sure we can do the best for them.”

Both candidates raised more than $100,000 in their bids to secure a seat on the board. Custer brought in significant amounts from labor unions, including the Chicago Teachers Union, which endorsed her candidacy. Pierre received backing from pro-school choice groups and benefited from spending by two super PACs supporting school choice candidates.

At an election night party downtown, Pierre said she was on “pins and needles,” unsure how the race would shake out.

Pierre said every moment of Election Day was stressful. But she said she felt hopeful when she met a voter at a poll who said she came to vote specifically for presidential candidate and vice president Kamala Harris — and Michelle Pierre.

“I know that my message resonated with a lot of people,” Pierre said.

In all, 43 schools in District 1 serve 32,410 students, most of whom are Hispanic and white. There is one charter school and one alternative school.

District 2: Rogers Park, Edgewater, Lincoln Square, Albany Park

Ebony DeBerry, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 2nd District, poses for a portrait in Oz Park on Sept. 11, 2024.

Ebony DeBerry, a former teacher and the CTU-backed candidate, won a four-way race to represent District 2, which spans the city’s far north lakefront, according to unofficial results.

She’s one of three CTU-backed candidates to win in the 10 contests for school board seats.

At a CTU election watch party, DeBerry’s voice broke as she spoke about backing from educator volunteers and others for her campaign.

“This has not been easy and it hasn’t been short,” she said. “I am ready to brawl and fall for you guys.”

DeBerry portrayed herself as a true product of public schools and the confidence teachers instilled in her and vowed to be an advocate for students and teachers. She said she will push for expanded staffing, including for counselors, social workers and librarians, and more sports, arts and other programs.

She edged out Bruce Leon, a retired human resource entrepreneur who self-funded his campaign and argued for a fiscally prudent approach to running the school district. DeBerry also beat Kate Doyle, a former teacher and nonprofit cofounder who tried to position herself as an independent-minded progressive candidate, and CPS mom Maggie Cullerton Hooper, the daughter of former Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, who ran on a progressive platform.

District 2 serves 27,637 students in 37 schools, including three magnets and three charters.

District 3: Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa

Carlos Rivas Jr., a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 3rd District, poses for a portrait in Oz Park on Sept. 11, 2024.

Carlos Rivas Jr. notched a victory over Jason Dónes in the predominantly Latino District 3, according to unofficial results from the Chicago Board of Elections.

District 3 includes 55 schools serving 31,598 students, many of whom are bilingual or English language learners.

The two candidates have similar backstories: Both grew up in Humboldt Park, graduated from coveted selective enrollment high schools, and went on to work as educators through the Teach for America program.

But the two diverged on school choice. Rivas formerly worked at the Noble Network of Charter Schools and has said he will be an independent board member devoted to preserving the variety of schools that exist today, including charter, magnet, and selective schools. He drew financial support from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and another pro-school choice group and has received a slew of small-dollar donations.

Dónes raised more than $300,000, largely from the teachers union and its allies, while Rivas brought in just over $75,000. However, super PACs, which are not allowed to coordinate with candidates, spent more than $280,000 in support of Rivas.

At an election night party, Rivas said the amount of attack ads against him were hurtful, especially mailers that stuck his face next to Donald Trump. He said he proudly voted for Kamala Harris today.

Rivas, who has run on a platform that’s critical of the mayor, said he hopes to work to build consensus with the board. A majority of the board will still be made up of mayoral appointments.

“It’s gonna be really difficult with 21 members, but we have to be able to do that for the good of our city, for the good of our students and our families,” he said.

Dónes is backed by the CTU and other unions as well as some local elected officials. He ran on a progressive platform focused on expanding school staffing and ensuring curriculums are culturally relevant.

District 4: Lakeview, Lincoln Park

Ellen Rosenfeld, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 4th District, poses for a portrait in Oz Park on Sept. 11, 2024.

Ellen Rosenfeld, a former CPS teacher who currently works for the district doing family engagement, won a competitive race to represent neighborhoods along Chicago’s north lakefront.

The area includes 36 schools with diverse student bodies. Just over a third of students attending District 4 CPS schools are white, roughly one third are Hispanic, just under 16% are Black, and 8.5% are Asian American. There are no charters and about a dozen selective enrollment and magnet schools.

Rosenfeld said Wednesday that the win feels like a vindication after facing an onslaught of negative messaging that she argued aimed to mislead voters. She said she feels district residents gravitated toward a long-time neighbor, parent and educator — and, as turmoil in CPS leadership grew, increasingly spoke of wanting a counterweight to the mayor and the teachers union.

“I think that CTU and the mayor underestimated how smart the constituents are when they sent the ads that said I was the Trump puppet in Project 2025,” she said, noting it was easy for voters to confirm she is a lifelong Democrat. “Arguably it worked in my favor.”

“I know the ecosystem that is Chicago public schools, and I’m ready to do the work on day one,” she added.

Karen Zaccor, a retired CPS teacher and longtime community organizer who advocated for an elected school board, was behind Rosenfeld. Zaccor is backed by the Chicago Teachers Union and raised almost $236,000, the most of any District 4 candidate.

Zaccor said the CTU-backed candidates who did not win will remain active in school advocacy.

“No matter the outcome of the election, we’ll all continue in this fight,” she said.

Zaccor lives on the opposite side of the district from Rosenfeld, meaning she could be a potential choice for the mayor as part of his 11 appointments for the board.

That’s because of the way state law established representation on the new board. Each district will be split into two districts for the 2026 election. Tuesday’s winners become incumbents in the subdistrict in which they live, while Johnson must appoint people by Dec. 16 to represent the other subdistrict.

Other candidates who were vying to represent District 4 on the school board were Kimberly Brown, a marketing professional and adjunct professor at two colleges; Andrew A. Davis, a former owner of a brokerage firm and former head of a state agency focused on higher education who now heads up an education-related nonprofit; Thomas Day, a veteran who is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy; and Carmen Gioiosa, a former CPS teacher and central office staffer who now teaches early childhood education at National Louis University. Every candidate has children who are CPS students or graduates.

Rosenfeld, who has been endorsed by a slew of state and local elected officials, has raised nearly $187,000. After Rosenfeld and Zaccor, the rest of the candidates raised nearly $25,000 or less.

District 5: West Side, West Loop, Near West Side

Aaron "Jitu" Brown will represent the 5th District on the Chicago Board of Education.

Aaron “Jitu” Brown will represent District 5, which spans from the West Loop to Austin and includes 105 schools — the most of any school board district.

Brown is a longtime community organizer who has fought school closures and advocated for an elected school board. He was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and ran uncontested after Michillia Blaise withdrew from the race in early September. Blaise has since been appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson to serve on the school board.

In District 5’s public schools, 62% of students are Black, 5% white, almost 28% Hispanic, and nearly 3% Asian American. A quarter of these schools in District 5 are charters.

District 6: Downtown, Bronzeville, Near South Side

Jessica Biggs, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 6th District, poses for a portrait in Washington Park on Sept. 12, 2024.

Former CPS principal Jessica Biggs won election to represent District 6, which features a diverse school population serving several South Side neighborhoods..

Biggs ran on a platform of being an independent voice. A CTU-backed candidate, policy advocate Anusha Thotakura, finished second while Andre Smith, a finance manager, finished third. Danielle Wallace, a nonprofit leader, ran as a write-in candidate.

Biggs expressed surprise at the outcome given the large disparity in spending. Biggs raised the least of the three candidates on the ballot — about $42,600 as of the most recent filings – while Thotakura’s campaign had brought in more than $360,000.

“You never really know the impact that that money is going to have,” Biggs said. “I knew … talking with voters, talking with people at forums that our message was resonating with voters across the district. I knew people wanted an independent voice on the board.”

District 6 covers neighborhoods on the city’s South Side, such as Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, Woodlawn and Hyde Park and neighborhoods on the city’s north side such as Streeterville and River North.

The district has over 50 schools with 21,000 students enrolled. The district’s population is majority white, but Black students are the majority of schools. About 70% of students enrolled in the district’s schools come from low-income families and 15% of students have Individualized Education Programs.

Thotakura lives on the opposite side of District 6 from Biggs, so Mayor Johnson could still choose to appoint her to the school board.

District 7: Pilsen, Little Village, Bridgeport, Brighton Park

Yesenia Lopez is a candidate to represent District 7 on the Chicago Board of Education.

Yesenia Lopez won in a three-way contest to represent District 7, which covers parts of the city’s South and Southwest sides.

The district has 79 schools with nearly 45,000 students — the most student enrollment of any school board district.

Lopez, a CPS graduate, is an executive assistant for the Illinois Secretary of State and has worked in multiple state and federal campaigns. She was endorsed by the CTU and Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. According to recent vote counts from the Board of Elections, she is ahead of Eva A. Villalobos, also a CPS graduate and a former accountant and mother of four children who attend private schools, and Raquel Don, a CPS graduate and parent, former accountant, and current member of the Jones College Prep Local School Council.

At the union election watch party, Lopez said her victory was a collaborative effort, with unions, elected officials, and fellow Southwest Side residents backing her campaign.

“It was not Yesenia on the ballot,” she said. “It was a community on the ballot.”

She said she would be a champion of working class families, advocating specifically for more afterschool programs and special education services.

“We still have many challenges ahead,” she said. “We saw out-of-state billionaires trying to buy our education system.”

Villalobos also noted that a lot of money was spent in the District 7 school board race.

“I’d like to think I made them sweat,” she said with a laugh.

Of the three candidates, Lopez has raised nearly $167,000. Villalobos has raised nearly $37,000, including from Urban Center PAC, led by former CPS CEO and mayoral candidate Paul Vallas. Don has collected nearly $3,000.

She said her advice to Lopez, which she has previously shared with her, is that she wants her to make her decisions independently without considering the agenda of political or private interests.

“I wanna make sure whatever decision she makes comes from her and not from the union and another bigger group,” Villalobos said. “We are being elected in this position because we are supposed to represent our students. We are supposed to speak on behalf of our parents. And overall make sure we increase and better our schools.”

District 8: Far Southwest Side, Back of the Yards

Angel Gutierrez is a candidate to represent District 8 on the Chicago Board of Education.

Angel Gutierrez, a nonprofit consultant, will represent voters in District 8. Unofficial results from the city’s board of elections show that Gutierrez beat his opponent Felix Ponce, a CPS music teacher and CTU-backed candidate, in a landslide.

At an election night party Tuesday, Gutierrez said his immediate priority in office will be to do a “forensic analysis” of the district’s expenses and understand how to solve CPS’s budget challenges and get the “maximum dollars into the classroom.”

One of the lessons that he said he’ll bring with him from the campaign trail is to always “elevate” the students who are the most vulnerable, such as those with disabilities.

“These are elected positions. I am beholden to the people who elected me and even the people who didn’t vote for me — I’m representing them,” he said. “That means listening to parents, listening to students, listening to teachers, listening to elected people.”

Gutierrez and Ponce were the only two candidates vying to represent families and school communities on Chicago’s Southwest Side and a smaller sliver of the Loop. District 8 includes neighborhoods like West Lawn, Marquette Park, Ashburn, McKinley Park, and Bridgeport.

Ponce raised around $295,000, while Gutierrez brought in about $86,000. A majority of Ponce’s campaign funds came from the CTU and other contributions from state and local officials. Gutierrez received money from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. Two super PACs supporting pro-school choice candidates also spent at least $270,000 on direct mail and ads in support of Gutierrez.

CTU-backed Ponce lives on the opposite side of District 8 as Gutierrez and could be considered by Mayor Johnson for an appointment to the school board.

District 9: Englewood, Roseland, Beverly, Morgan Park

Therese Boyle is on the ballot for Chicago's District 9 school board race.

Therese Boyle looks to have secured a seat on Chicago’s Board of Education to represent District 9. According to unofficial results from the city’s board of elections, Boyle won an overwhelming majority of votes cast in Tuesday’s race. The AP had not called the race as of early Wednesday.

Boyle was in a four-way race with Lanetta Thomas, who was endorsed by the CTU, La’Mont Raymond Williams, and Miquel Lewis, who received financial support from pro-school choice PACs.

Boyle, a former longtime Chicago teacher, ran against Stacy Davis Gates for CTU president in 2019; Lewis served on the school board for a brief time under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and is the acting director of Cook County Juvenile Probation and Court Services. Thomas is a U.S. Army veteran and community organizer in Roseland and Willians is chief of staff and general counsel to a Cook County commissioner.

District 9 covers the city’s south side in neighborhoods such as Morgan Park, Roseland, Pullman, Beverly, Auburn-Greshman, and Englewood.

Candidates raised a combined $108,000 for their campaigns, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of most recent campaign finance disclosures. Boyle raised the most, with over $55,000 coming from her own pockets, small donations, and loans. Lewis’ campaign raised the second highest amount, over $27,000. Two pro-school choice super PACs also spent more than $300,000 in support of Lewis, though by law they are not allowed to coordinate with candidates.

District 10: Hyde Park, South Shore, Woodlawn, Southeast Side

Che “Rhymefest” Smith, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 10th District, poses for a portrait in Union Park on Sept. 19, 2024.

Rapper Che “Rhymefest” Smith appears to have beat all three of his opponents to represent District 10. Early Wednesday, Smith held a narrow lead over Karin Norington-Reaves, who also captured a large number of voters in District 10 according to unofficial results.

In one of the city’s most spread-out and socioeconomically diverse districts, four candidates were vying for the school board seat.

The Rev. Robert Jones, one of the hunger strikers who opposed the closure of Dyett High School in 2015, received a significant financial and in-kind boost from the CTU. Nonprofit CEO Norington-Reaves, the mother of a CPS student with a disability, got the backing of pro-school choice super PACs and what she described as an “anti-CTU coalition” concerned about the union’s growing influence.

Education consultant and former CPS principal Adam Parrott-Sheffer billed himself as an independent-minded candidate and the only one with both experience as a CPS educator and children attending the district. And rapper Smith, who garnered endorsements from some high-profile elected officials, said he would be a creative change agent on the board.

Meanwhile, a former CPS educator and teachers union official, Rosita Chatonda, ran as a write-in candidate after petition challenges knocked her off the ballot.

There are roughly 90 CPS schools in District 10 serving 34,700 students. With both popular specialized programs and campuses that have struggled with rapidly shrinking enrollment, the district captures the uneven student experiences in CPS.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s new school board president resigns a week after taking office

2024-10-31T20:00:35+00:00

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Chicago’s new school board president, the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, resigned Thursday after his past antisemitic and misogynistic comments online resurfaced.

It’s more leadership turmoil for the Board of Education, which will soon transition to a 21-member partially-elected governing body, ending 30 years of mayoral control.

Johnson’s departure comes less than a month after Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed him on Oct. 7 alongside five others. The shocking overhaul came after the mayor’s first set of appointees resigned en masse amid tensions between the mayor and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.

The newly appointed school board members swore themselves in just last week and are scheduled to meet Friday.

The mayor said in a statement Thursday afternoon that he asked for Johnson’s resignation and that he resigned effective immediately.

“Reverend Mitchell Johnson’s statements were not only hurtful but deeply disturbing,” Mayor Johnson said. “I want to be clear: antisemitic, misogynistic, and conspiratorial statements are unacceptable.”

The mayor said that his office would “identify a qualified individual” — he did not provide a timeline — and that the school board would meet as scheduled.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker called for Johnson’s resignation earlier Thursday.

“Any person charged with the stewardship of the Chicago Public School Board must exemplify focused, inclusive, and steady leadership,” he said in a statement. “The views expressed in the current Chair’s posts – antisemitism, misogyny, fringe conspiracy theories – very clearly do not meet that standard.”

Pritzker is of Jewish Ukrainian descent. As of Thursday afternoon, 40 of 50 Chicago aldermen and the City Clerk Anna Valencia also signed a letter calling for Johnson to step down.

Earlier this week, Jewish Insider reported that Johnson crafted more than a dozen Facebook posts with antisemitic statements following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Johnson issued a statement late Wednesday apologizing “to the Jewish community.”

“The remarks I posted were reactive and insensitive, and I am deeply sorry for not being more precise and deliberate in my comments posted last year,” Johnson wrote. “Since then, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues, who helped me be more thoughtful in the way I address these sensitive matters.”

But additional Facebook posts surfaced Thursday in which Johnson supported a conspiracy theory that 9/11 was “an inside job” and questioned why working women don’t want families.

Mayor Johnson said when he announced the new appointments that the members were still being vetted. The mayor also said the new appointments, including Johnson, would stay in their roles after the transition to a hybrid elected and appointed board.

But it’s not clear if the new appointees can continue to serve past Jan. 15, when elected and appointed members are set to be sworn in. That’s because the mayor must appoint people who live on the opposite side of the geographic districts as the elected winners, which won’t be known until after Nov. 5.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

How much has been spent on Chicago’s school board elections? Almost $7 million.

2024-10-31T12:31:39+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

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Chicago’s first school board elections are getting expensive, with nearly $4 million pouring directly into candidates’ coffers and almost $3 million spent separately by pro-school choice super PACs as of Oct. 28.

Super PACs, which face no contribution limits and are not allowed to coordinate with candidates, have sent direct mail, texts, and run political ads supporting seven school board candidates.

The Chicago Teachers Union and a number of groups allied with and funded by the union have spent at least $1.5 million directly on CTU-endorsed candidates, according to campaign finance disclosures.

In eight of the 10 school board races, the CTU-backed candidate has raised the most cash. CTU-endorsed Rev. Robert Jones, Felix Ponce, and Jason Dones top the list of candidates citywide who have received the most direct cash and in-kind contributions, with a quarter of a million dollars or more each, based on the most recent data reported to the Illinois Board of Elections.

The candidate with the most money so far, however, is Bruce Leon, who is self-funding his campaign and loaned himself $550,000.

As the pace of spending has picked up, so has the heat in a war of words between the teachers union and school choice proponents, who have decried greater scrutiny of charters, selective enrollment, and magnet programs in the city amid a push to revitalize neighborhood schools.

The union and its supporters held a Monday press conference in front of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ downtown offices, calling out large checks the network’s super PAC got from wealthy individuals outside of Illinois — including Netflix executive Reed Hastings, a major Democratic Party donor and charter school supporter — and vowed to push for legislation curbing such spending. Two other super PACs have spent money on Chicago’s school board races, Urban Center Action and Parents for Great Schools Illinois.

But some school board candidates have decried how CTU is spending money in the election. The union and allied groups, such as Chicago Working Families, have sent mailers presenting candidates they don’t support as puppets of former President Donald Trump and tying them to Project 2025, the conservative playbook on how to remake the federal government. The mailers have incensed candidates who say they are registered Democrats known for yearslong involvement in liberal causes.

The charter network shot back this week, arguing the union is borrowing from Trump’s playbook with a divisive effort to distribute “fake news.” The group said the union — in close alignment with a network of groups which it has helped fund — is spending big to cement its influence on the board.

Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members from 10 geographic districts this Nov. 5. Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU employee and close union ally, will appoint 11 people to serve on a hybrid board for two years. In 2026, all 21 seats will be up for election.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Hilario Dominguez, the union’s political coordinator, said the union has had to step up its spending to keep up with the influx of cash from the charter network and Urban Center, another pro-school choice group led by former UNO charter network CEO Juan Rangel and affiliated with former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas, who lost the 2023 mayoral race to Johnson.

“We’re being forced to spend because they are outraising us,” he said. “Our spending is in response to their war chest.”

CTU bankrolled effort that removed 12 candidates from ballot

The latest campaign spending disclosure data also offers the first clear evidence that the union paid several law firms to mount challenges to the ballot petitions of numerous candidates, successfully knocking 12 of them off the ballot this past summer.

The union paid a collective $40,000 to Stephen Fine, Mike Kreloff, and Sorling Northrup, the firm where Kevin Morphew is an attorney, according to campaign disclosures filed Oct. 15. Fine, Kreloff, Morphew, and one other attorney, Michael Kasper, were listed as representing people challenging 19 candidates.

The CTU also paid legal fees to Sorling Northrup on behalf of Dones and Jones, both of whom fought challenges to their own petitions.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools has called the union’s spending to remove candidates from the ballot “hypocritical,” coming from an organization that has long advocated for turning decisions on who serves on the board over to Chicago residents.

Dominguez declined to comment on that spending but argued the issue is a distraction from the real problem with the board races: a massive influx in large donations from billionaires the CTU argues have little connection to local schools. The union says these donors have a shadowy, pro-Trump agenda to shutter public schools, expand charters, and boost private schools.

Andrew Broy, the head of the charter network, said claiming that candidates backed by the group are Trump supporters or pushing Project 2025 is “absurd.”

“If anyone is trying to buy the election, it’s the CTU,” he said.

Project 2025 mailers ignite misinformation charges

In the past month, Chicagoans’ mailboxes have been filled with mail from candidates running for school board — and from their opponents.

One paid for by the Chicago Teachers Union pictures a faceless puppet with the claim that “Donald Trump and out-of-state billionaires are pulling the strings” of certain candidates.

One of the candidates targeted by these mailers is District 2’s Leon, a retired human resource company executive whose campaign is entirely self-funded.

Campaign mail ad in Chicago.

Asked about evidence that the targeted school board candidates are connected to Trump, Dominguez at the CTU said the mailers are fair game. He noted that some contributors to the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, such as Arkansas-based Walmart heir Jim Walton, have supported efforts to elect Republicans in the past. Walton has given $738,000 to the charter group’s independent expenditure committee in 2024.

The Waltons have a varied track record of giving, with charter schools and environmental conservation among their top causes. (The Walton Family Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat.)

Dominguez also pointed to candidate endorsements by the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute and, in a social media post the CTU has circulated, by the Chicago Republican Party. The Chicago Republican Party has said it is not endorsing any Chicago school board candidates and the post was not authorized by party leadership.

Still, Dominguez argues that some candidates’ pro-school choice message echoes the education policy proposals in Project 2025, which calls specifically for expanding tax-credit programs that allow families to send their children to private schools, like one that sunset in Illinois last year.

Carlos Rivas, a candidate in District 3, said the CTU-funded fliers targeting him — a lifelong registered Democrat who said he already cast a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris — are “shameful.”

“I am a gay Latino man who grew up in poverty, and I am being called a Trump puppet,” he said. “It’s sad how much money is being spent on these ads.”

Rivas raised about $60,000 as of Oct. 28, with about half coming from Jim Frank, an automotive fleet leasing executive who has also donated to the charter school network’s political fund. Most of Rivas’ remaining donations are less than $1,000 from individuals, including $250 from Miguel del Valle, the former Democratic state legislator and school board president.

Rivas’ opponent, Dones, has received more than $250,000 in donations and in-kind support from the CTU’s two PACs and union allies United Working Families and Grassroots PAC. He said the recent influx of money came after spending by the charter network’s super PAC in support of his opponent led to the lifting of a state campaign contribution cap.

But the totals do not include roughly $280,000 spent in the District 3 race by the two pro-school choice super PACs in support of Rivas. Rivas, a former CPS teacher, said he doesn’t control or coordinate with the charter network on its spending backing his campaign. He said he is a strong proponent of strengthening neighborhood schools — while maintaining selective enrollment and other options.

“I am someone who does believe in protecting choices for families, and that doesn’t mean just charters,” he said.

Dones said he is proud that the CTU, SEIU, which represents some support staff in CPS, and other unions rallied to keep his campaign viable. He said his candidacy has come under attack as well, in the form of text messages that said he would do the bidding of Mayor Johnson if elected to the board.

“I’m running in a district where the line is so clear,” Dones said. “Against me is someone almost entirely funded by people who support privatizing schools.”

Asked about his stance on private school vouchers, Rivas said his focus is on equitable funding for CPS.

Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the Illinois Board of Elections, said his agency does not get involved in evaluating the veracity of political advertising. It only investigates campaign finance violations when people file complaints. He said no formal complaints have yet been filed in the Chicago school board elections.

The elections board, however, has reached out to the CTU to ask how its two separate political action committees are different; state rules do not allow separate PACs for the same purpose.

Candidates running for office in Illinois are bound by limits on how much they can raise, such as $6,900 from an individual contributor, or $68,500 from a political action committee. But as soon as the spending by super PACs, which face no such limits, exceeds $100,000 in a certain district, the caps for all candidates in that district are lifted. Those caps have since been lifted in all but one of Chicago’s school board districts.

Teachers union wants limits to out-of-state spending on school board races

At Monday’s downtown press conference, the union and its allies doubled down on ringing the alarm on charter advocates’ spending, which they described as a bid by billionaires to “buy” seats on the school board.

State lawmakers, such as Sen. Robert Martwick, one of the architects of a 2021 law that cleared the way for an elected school board in Chicago, vowed to take action to limit such spending in future elections. They did not share a specific bill but suggested legislation could be modeled on cities where local candidates only receive a set amount of taxpayer funding to campaign — or could take the form of limiting contributions from non-Illinois residents and requiring candidates to disclose their top five donors on all materials.

“This type of money pouring in our school board elections is shameful. What are they trying to do? What are they trying to buy?” said state Rep. Lilian Jiménez.

Several CTU-endorsed school board candidates also attended the event.

“CPS ain’t for sale today, tomorrow, and not forever,” said Jones, a school board candidate in District 10.

Campaign finance filings show Jones has raked in more than $300,000 in donations and in-kind contributions, primarily from the CTU — the most of any candidate in District 10. However, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center superPACs spent $250,000 to support another District 10 candidate, Karin Norington-Reaves.

Jones told Chalkbeat the influx of financial support has allowed him to send mailers and hand out fliers with the help of some 40 volunteers he said his campaign has enlisted.

Norington-Reaves was targeted with a CTU-funded flier linking her to Trump. She said the mailer was “gross” and disturbing in a highly polarized and volatile political climate in the days leading up to the presidential election.

“I am a lifelong Democrat,” she said. “I have never pulled a Republican ballot in my life, and the worst part is the CTU knows that.”

She said she is pushing back on the negative ads in community forums, on social media, and via phone-banking and door-knocking. Norington-Reaves, a nonprofit CEO, said that after decades working in public service, her campaign has drawn varied support, including from an “anti-CTU coalition” concerned about the union’s influence expanding beyond the mayor’s office.

“I have a very large network,” she said. “The people who are supporting me are doing so because of who I am.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago considers giving pre-K students priority in kindergarten admissions at same school

2024-10-23T19:40:31+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is considering an enrollment policy change that would give pre-K students priority to stay in the same school for kindergarten, even if they live outside the school’s boundary or are at a magnet school.

Currently, if a pre-K student lives outside a school’s boundary or attends full-day pre-K at a magnet school, they are not guaranteed a seat in kindergarten. If approved, the proposed policy would give current pre-K students priority after siblings and children of staff, but ahead of other applicants. For neighborhood schools, students living in the boundary would still get top priority. After them, siblings of students and children of staff, and then pre-K students would be offered seats before other students from outside the boundary. The policy would not apply to selective enrollment schools.

If approved, the changes would take effect in next year’s application cycle for attendance in the 2026-27 school year.

Full-day pre-K for 4-year-olds in Chicago is a relatively new program. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised universal pre-K in 2018 shortly before announcing he wouldn’t seek a third term. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot followed through on the promise, and now, the school district offers 4-year-old full-day pre-K across the system.

Leslie McKinily, head of the Office of Early Childhood with Chicago Public Schools, said the goal is to increase the number of pre-K students who remain in the same school for kindergarten.

It’s unclear from the data why families change schools for kindergarten, McKinily said. For some, it may be that their child got an offer in a selective enrollment program or different school the family prefers. But McKinily said there are instances where pre-K students do not want to leave.

“There are a small number of schools that are forced with telling families, ‘No, you cannot stay here for kindergarten because I just don’t have the space,’” McKinily said.

That can be difficult for principals who have used universal pre-K as a recruitment tool to build enrollment at their school, McKinley said.

Seth Lavin, principal of Brentano Elementary Math & Science Academy in Logan Square, said his school has faced this issue. After the school was spared from closure in 2013, they worked to boost enrollment — and offering pre-K helped.

“Even if families have apprehensions about CPS or one particular school, they’ll often feel good when they walk into a preschool classroom and see great preschool teachers doing great preschool work,” Lavin said. “Then once you’ve got a family in your school, and they realize this is a nice place to be, my kid is happy here, it’s easier to convert them to kindergarten.”

But as Logan Square gentrified and Brentano grew in popularity with neighborhood families, Lavin said it’s been harder to continue offering seats to students who live outside the boundary. Because pre-K enrollment is still a lottery based on income and other hardship factors, Lavin said his pre-K classrooms are often more diverse than the kindergarten classes.

“Nothing is magic. This one policy change is not going to entirely stop segregation and inequity and how people can all go access school in Chicago,” Lavin said. “But it can be a step that helps give families facing economic hardship access to schools that are gentrifying when they’re in neighborhoods that are gentrifying.”

The proposed changes to the district’s enrollment policy would also allow students to stay enrolled in their neighborhood school in later grades, even if their family moves out of the attendance boundary.

The proposed policy will be posted for public comment for 30 days and is expected to go before the school board for a final vote in December.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s deputy mayor of education is stepping away to focus on health and family

2024-10-21T19:18:33+00:00

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Chicago’s deputy mayor of education, youth, and human services is taking a leave from her role amid an ongoing conflict between Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools.

Deputy Mayor Jennifer “Jen” Johnson told Chalkbeat late last week she would be on leave for the coming weeks. It’s not clear for how long. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Monday he couldn’t comment on personnel matters.

“I’m gonna be taking some time to really focus on my health and family,” Johnson said, adding that she does not want her leave to be misconstrued or used for political fodder.

Mayor Johnson appointed Jen Johnson to be deputy mayor of education, youth, and human services in May 2023. Jen Johnson formerly served as chief of staff at the Chicago Teachers Union and was a high school history teacher. In addition to CPS, her focus over the past year centered on expanding youth jobs and helping migrant students.

Jen Johnson, who is not related to the mayor, said in a June 2023 interview with Chalkbeat that she expected contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union to be “less painful, more inclusive, and driven by a shared set of goals.”

But talks have grown tense, in particular, with CTU taking aim at CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was hired under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

In an interview late last week, Jen Johnson said that the mayor’s administration “signaled all kinds of desire for partnership” with Martinez’s administration.

“We’ve really tried to operate that way, so that we can avoid the acrimony and the fighting,” Johnson said. “I don’t feel like the partnership was there.”

In recent months, the relationship between the mayor’s office and Martinez has grown increasingly tense — as the two sparred over how to cover looming costs, including a pension contribution for non-teaching staff and added expenses related to new Chicago Teachers Union and principals contracts. The conflict also comes as billions in COVID relief money from the federal government expires.

Last month, Mayor Johnson asked Martinez to resign, but he declined. The school board has the sole power to fire the district’s CEO. Earlier this month, tensions boiled over when all seven members of the mayor’s appointed school board resigned amid the turmoil. The mayor announced six of seven new members the following week.

Next month, in Chicago’s first school board election, the city’s voters will elect 10 school board members and the mayor will appoint 11.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

Pro-school choice super PACs nearly double the money spent so far in Chicago’s first school board elections

2024-10-02T22:36:38+00:00

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The super PAC of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools poured more than half a million dollars into Chicago’s school board elections in the past week, nearly doubling the total money flowing into these historic races so far.

The influx of cash also lifted the limits on campaign contributions to candidates in certain districts, according to state campaign finance reports.

In what the charter advocacy group has described as an effort to counter the influence of the Chicago Teachers Union and a shift away from school choice in Chicago, the money will pay for digital ads and mailers supporting seven candidates and opposing one. In all, 35 people are running across 10 electoral districts in the Nov. 5 school board election, Chicago’s first after decades of mayor-appointed boards.

The nearly $557,000 spent by INCS Action Independent Expenditure Committee is a significant amount in the city’s historic school board elections, which as of mid-September had seen more than $650,000 flow into campaign coffers of candidates.

The wave of expenditures puts the charter advocacy group at the top of all special interest groups spending in Chicago’s first school board elections — more than double the $238,000 spent by the political action committees of the Chicago Teachers Union and a CTU-led coalition of community organizations.

The union was quick to take aim at the spending, which it described as an effort by rich out-of-towners to buy board seats. Hilario Dominguez, a political coordinator for the union, said the influx of dollars from the charter group was not surprising.

“We anticipated that we were going to be outspent by charter school groups as well as billionaires, minimum of three to one,” Dominguez said.

Andrew Broy, the executive director of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said the group is backing candidates who are supportive of charter schools, school choice, and fiscal stability in the district — and who have a likely path to victory in November. The group’s independent expenditures committee, which is fueled mostly by large donations from a handful of billionaires, will report another significant spend in the coming week, he said, though the amount and beneficiaries have not been finalized.

“The question is do these candidates running for school board support the concept that parents should have a choice of where to send their kids to school,” he said.

In recent years, school board races in cities such as Denver, where $1.9 million was raised for three open seats in 2023, and Los Angeles have seen special interest groups pump significant dollar amounts to influence the outcomes, with national teachers unions going against supporters of charter schools and school choice.

In addition to the 10 candidates Chicago voters will elect this fall, the mayor will appoint another 11, as part of a transition to a fully elected school board by 2026.

Latest spending does away with campaign cash caps

Candidates running for office in Illinois are bound by Illinois State Board of Elections limits on how much they can raise, such as $6,900 from an individual contributor, $13,700 from a corporation or a labor union, and $68,500 from another candidate for office or political action committee.

However, so-called super PACs, such as the charter network’s independent expenditure committee, face no limits on how much they can raise and spend in a race in support or opposition of candidates, as long as they are not coordinating this spending with candidates’ own campaigns. And as soon as the collective spending of these super PACs exceeds $100,000 — either to back or oppose a candidate in a certain district — the campaign contribution caps for all candidates in that district are lifted.

“To make it a fair playing field, limits are lifted so that candidates who are not supported by that particular spending can raise any amount as well,” said Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Though the INCS Independent Expenditure Committee cannot legally coordinate with candidates, it will spend the following amounts to support or oppose the following candidates:

$40,000 for digital media supporting Michelle Pierre, District 1
$60,000 for digital media and $30,990 for mailers supporting Carlos Rivas Jr., District 3
$30,000 for digital media opposing Karen Zaccor, District 4
$40,000 for digital media and $36,416 for mailers supporting Andre Smith, District 6
$30,000 for digital media and $22,326 for mailers supporting Eva Villalobos, District 7
$40,000 for digital media and $27,290 for mailers supporting Angel Gutierrez, District 8
$60,000 for digital media and $41,484 for mailers supporting Miquel Lewis, District 9
$60,000 for digital media and $38,468 for mailers supporting Karin Norington-Reaves, District 10

This spending resulted in lifting campaign contribution caps in Districts 3, 9, and 10. In some cases, such as District 10, the total spending from the charter network’s super PAC did not exceed $100,000, but it did once added together with another super PAC.

The other super PAC spending in Chicago school board races is Urban Center Action. It is run by Juan Rangel, the former head of the UNO charter network, now named Acero, and a former strategy director with Empower Illinois, one of the state’s top scholarship-granting organizations under the now-sunset tax-credit scholarship program. It is also affiliated with Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who lost the 2023 Chicago mayoral race to Johnson.

Urban Center also has a political action committee it created in April that has contributed to at least one school board candidate directly – Eva Villalobos. In all, the two committees have spent $123,000 on Chicago school board races since June.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ super PAC reported $2.8 million in its coffers as of June 30. Since then, three billionaires donated six-figure sums: Helen Zell, wife of real estate tycoon and former Tribune Media owner Sam Zell, gave $500,000 in early September, while Netflix co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings and private investor Craig Duchossois each gave $100,000 in July and September, respectively. Previous donors to INCS Super PAC include former Wheels Inc. CEO James S. Franks and billionaire Jim Walton, the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

Candidates weigh in on charter advocate spending

In addition to spending to support candidates in most school board districts, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ super PAC also spent to oppose one would-be board member: former teacher Karen Zaccor, the CTU-backed candidate in District 4.

“The fact that they are targeting the one retired teacher is, I think, just another indication of their agenda to destroy public unions in schools and push the privatization agenda.” Dominguez, with the CTU, said.

Broy of the charter network declined to discuss the group’s campaign strategy, but said it has spent in opposition of candidates to help its preferred contenders in political races before.

Angel Gutierrez, the INCS-backed candidate in District 8, said the idea that he is part of a scheme to privatize schools in Chicago is untrue. He said he has vowed to respect two moratoriums currently in place in the city: one the school board approved last month against closing any schools for four years and another against opening new charter campuses, which are public schools managed by private entities.

He said the CTU’s own candidates are receiving financial, in-kind, and volunteer support — and argued he is a pro-labor candidate who believes the city should keep investing in high-performing magnet, selective enrollment, and charter schools.

“The CTU is really nervous because you are starting to see a coalition coalesce — people who don’t always see eye to eye politically, but who love this city and are adamant that the CTU and their mayor don’t gain any more power,” Gutierrez said. “The CTU is trying to hire their next boss so that the board will give them anything they want, no questions asked.”

Like Gutierrez, two other INCS-backed candidates – Carlos Rivas and Miguel Lewis – said in separate statements they did not know much about the spending on their behalf and the upcoming ads and mailers supporting them. They both said they are concerned about limits on school choice and the possibility of taking out a short-term loan to close the district’s budget deficit under Johnson.

“The mayor and his candidates are trying to limit educational opportunities for kids that look like us and bankrupt their future with high-interest loans,” Rivas said in his statement.

Zaccor, the District 4 candidate the charter network is spending to oppose, said she was not surprised by these expenditures. She said her priority as a candidate is advocating for under-resourced neighborhood schools, campuses she said lost students and funding amid the city’s charter school expansion in the 2000s. She said she hasn’t yet seen any ads or mailers opposing her campaign, but she stressed she is against closing any schools, including any charters.

“I am the one candidate in this district that’s clearly standing up for public education and clearly opposes privatization,” she said. “They are working to buy seats while we’re working with grassroots groups.”

Candidates and political action committees are due to report all money raised and spent between June 30 and Sept. 30 by Oct. 15

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board election 2024: Here are the candidates running in District 1

2024-09-25T11:00:00+00:00

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Two educators and mothers with children in Chicago Public Schools — Jennifer Custer and Michelle N. Pierre — are vying to represent families and residents in District 1 on Chicago’s far north west side in the city’s first school board elections.

The winner will represent the neighborhoods of Edison Park, Portage Park, Jefferson Park, and Norwood Park. In all, there are 43 schools in District 1 serving 32,410 students, most of whom are Hispanic and white. There is one charter school, CICS-Northtown, and one alternative school, Ombudsman. Six are considered “Exemplary” — meaning they’re in the top 10% in the state — and of those, five are neighborhood elementary schools. One high school is among the lowest performing 5% of schools, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

District 1 is home to many city workers, including teachers and police officers who are required to live in Chicago as a term of their employment. The area is also unique in that the suburb of Norridge sits within the boundaries. Norridge has two school districts — one elementary district with two schools and another with one high school.

Custer and Pierre both have children in Chicago Public Schools and are educators who spent most of their careers outside of Chicago.

Custer started teaching at a district outside Madison, Wisconsin. and spent the last decade as a teacher, dean of students, and suburban districts in Addison, Itasca, and Bloomingdale. She is currently a stay-at-home mom with a 4-year-old and 2-year-old. Her oldest attends pre-K at their neighborhood school in CPS.

Pierre taught at schools in New York City and Maryland, before becoming a principal in Washington, D.C. and administrator in Cleveland. She most recently worked for the LEARN Charter School Network in Chicago as chief of schools and is currently the national senior executive director of strategic partnerships and alumni impact at New Leaders. Her daughter attends The Chicago High School for the Arts, a CPS contract school.

Both cited the district’s budget and school choice as top issues for families and residents in District 1.

Jennifer Custer, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 1st District, poses for a portrait in Union Park on Sept. 19, 2024.

Who is Jennifer Custer?

Custer has always taught middle school, which, she jokes, means either “you’re a saint or you’re crazy.”

A native of West Bend, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee, Custer said her late grandmother inspired her to become a teacher.

“When I was a little kid, she used to bring me her old school paper planners and her old school paper grade books,” she said. “I’d line up all my stuffed animals and I’d play teacher.”

Since leaving the classroom two years ago to raise her two children, Custer said she’s running for school board to ensure her kids – and all kids in Chicago — have a good experience when they go to school.

“More than anything, I want school to be a very positive place for kids to go, a place that they at least don’t say that they hate going, that they can find some kind of joy and some kind of passion,” she said.

Custer’s campaign had raised more than $35,000 as of early September. Her husband, Jeremy, is the political director for Operating Engineers Local 150, whose political action committee is one of Custer’s top campaign contributors. She’s received more than $12,000 from the Chicago Teachers Union’s political arm to pay for field staff and data consulting

Custer also has endorsements from the Chicago Teachers Union and several other trade unions, as well as more than a dozen local elected officials, including state Sen. Robert Martwick, who championed the elected school board legislation in Springfield and whose district overlaps with District 1.

Custer said her top priorities, if elected, are balancing the CPS budget, improving achievement, and improving school facilities.

In talking with voters, she said people are most concerned about CPS’s budget deficit impacting their local neighborhood schools and many families worry that the district’s new equity formula could impact selective enrollment and magnet schools negatively.

Read Custer’s full questionnaire responses.

Michelle Pierre, a candidate for the Chicago Board of Elections in the 1st District, poses for a portrait in Oz Park on Sept. 11, 2024.

Who is Michelle N. Pierre?

Pierre’s first two teaching jobs shaped her philosophy as an educator.

In 1998, fresh out of college, she was hired at a private school she attended as a child. She was the school’s first Black teacher.

“Parents actually did a request to the head of school for my transcripts and for the board to oversee my teaching, to make sure that I was good enough for their kids,” she said.

Pierre decided to take a new job at P.S. 45 in the South Bronx after winter break – going from teaching a class of 12 to one with 40 students.

The class’s original teacher had walked out in the middle of the day, and Pierre followed a string of substitutes.

Once Pierre found her footing with the fifth graders, she said the principal who hired her asked: What’s your educational philosophy?

She responded that if she was still at the private school, she would have been teaching Shakespeare.

His response? “My kids deserve that too.”

“That has stuck with me for my lifetime,” Pierre said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “I think there’s a perception about certain kids, certain neighborhoods, certain backgrounds, that don’t deserve the same level.”

She moved to Washington, D.C. to become a principal through New Leaders for New Schools, then a new organization. In 2003, when she was 27, Pierre became principal of Tyler Elementary School in Southeast D.C. – then ranked 113 out of 115 schools in the district, she said.

Channeling that “my kids deserve that too” belief, Pierre launched a Spanish immersion program at Tyler, similar to one across town in a more affluent neighborhood. Within three years, Tyler was the fastest growing school in D.C., she said. It is now named Shirley Chisholm Elementary, after the first Black woman elected to Congress.

Pierre later became the chief academic officer for Cleveland Metro Schools, a district with 100 schools, 40,000 students, and a $1 billion budget. In 2018, she moved to Chicago to become chief of schools at the LEARN Charter School Network, Her daughter enrolled at the Ogden International School of Chicago - Jenner campus the year after a high-profile merger and now attends the Chicago High School for the Arts, or ChiArts, a CPS contract school. Pierre currently serves on the board of ChiArts.

If elected to the school board, Pierre said she’s well-equipped to work with people of different viewpoints and is dedicated to improving outcomes for all students. She ranked her top priorities as balancing the budget, improving achievement, and increasing school choice.

Pierre’s campaign had raised about $20,000 as of Sept. 20, with the largest amount — $6,900 — coming from Jim Frank, former CEO of Wheels, Inc. and longtime political donor who also supports the political arm of the education nonprofit Stand for Children. Pierre also received $1,500 from the Leadership for Educational Equity political action committee. That group also donated $1,500 to District 10 candidates Adam Parrott-Sheffer and Karin Norrington-Reaves.

Read Pierre’s full questionnaire responses.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

This story was published in partnership with Block Club Chicago.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson asks CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to leave, but he won’t go

2024-09-20T23:44:21+00:00

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This story has been updated to include statements from the mayor’s office, the Chicago Teachers Union president, and Chicago Public Schools.

Mayor Brandon Johnson asked Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to resign on Wednesday, but Martinez declined, according to published reports and at least one source familiar with internal discussions.

The mayor’s request, which was first reported by FOX32, as well as the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, comes weeks after reports first surfaced that Johnson was laying the groundwork to replace Martinez. The schools chief was first appointed in September 2021 by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Martinez is “taking it hard because he loves this job,” a source familiar with internal discussions told Chalkbeat.

It is now up to the Chicago Board of Education to decide if Martinez should stay or go. Sources previously told Chalkbeat that school board members were unwilling to fire Martinez. But on Friday, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ quoted a source close to the mayor who said Martinez has “lost the board.”

Board members, including President Jianan Shi, Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland, and others did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment. The board is scheduled to meet next Thursday.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the office does not comment on personnel matters.

“What we can say is that Mayor Johnson has a clear vision for public education that includes fully funded schools, access to the arts, athletics and special education resources, and a nurse and social worker in every building,” the statement said, echoing some bargaining table demands of the Chicago Teachers Union, which propelled Johnson, a former union organizer, to the mayor’s office last year.

In a statement, a CPS spokesperson said Martinez and his leadership team are focused on the “positive momentum of the new school year” and implementing the recently approved five-year strategic plan. They touted post-pandemic academic gains and said “students have clearly benefited from the increased stability in our school system.”

“Our top priority has always been investing in our schools and students while ensuring long-term stability for the system. That means being true to our new school funding model which will promote more equity, and being consistent in our pledge not to close or consolidate any schools,” the statement said.

Johnson’s desire to replace Martinez comes after he pushed school district leaders to take out a short-term loan to cover a pension payment for non-teaching staff and new costs related to the yet-to-be-settled Chicago Teachers Union contract.

It also comes as school district leaders are in tense contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union. The mayor is also struggling to address looming deficits to the city budget he now oversees. Those deficits are driven, in part, by the CPS administration and school board’s refusal to take out the short-term loan.

Earlier this summer, Johnson also voiced criticism about the district’s budget, which maintained the same level of funding for schools but had a slew of cuts in order to close the deficit. Most of those cuts were to central office and other expenses that did not directly affect classrooms. But they also included the positions of hundreds of teaching assistants and other support staff – prompting intense criticism from the union – even as the district guaranteed that most would get jobs on other campuses or it would cover their salaries for the next year.

In the past, the union would target the mayor for slow or tense contract talks. This year, the union directed its criticism directly at Martinez, saying Martinez is not budging or fighting aggressively enough to find more money for its proposals, which include 9% raises for teachers and a range of ideas to add staff, limit class sizes, and expand support for homeless students, migrant families, and others.

Martinez’s administration has offered the union raises of up to 5% in each of the next four years, which would bring the average educator salary to more than $110,000 by the contract’s end, according to the district, along with significant benefit increases at no cost to teachers. CPS and CTU are scheduled to hold a public bargaining session on Tuesday.

The union turned up the pressure on Martinez this week after alleging that it has documents showing that the district is considering school closures. Martinez and CPS have insisted they are not looking to close any schools, and one of the sources close to Martinez said the issue appears to be a tactic to undermine Martinez as the mayor’s office and union are pushing for his ouster.

Stacy Davis Gates, the CTU president, invoked the closures in a statement Friday. She pointed to the rumored closures and unspecified “massive cuts” she said Martinez is planning as reasons why he should step down.

“We need a leader at CPS who will be a champion for funding in Springfield and a partner with parents, teachers, and communities to actually invest in transforming the district, carry forward the just passed plan, and not use that as lip service to hide what they’re actually planning,” her statement said, referring to Martinez’ five-year strategic plan unveiled this week.

The district, which recently closed a half-billion-dollar budget deficit, is facing a challenging financial outlook and did not budget funds to cover a new teachers contract or pension costs for non-teaching staff. So far, despite some joint lobbying from the Martinez administration and the union, state lawmakers and the governor have not shown interest in a major funding increase for CPS.

Chalkbeat submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the mayor’s office for internal emails sent over the summer discussing the district’s CEO position. The correspondence received in response showed various exchanges between top officials in the mayor’s office regarding the district’s budget and related issues, but most emails were redacted in their entirety, citing a provision in the law that protects some correspondence reflecting deliberations ahead of making decisions.

About 460 district principals and assistant principals representing almost 70% of the district’s campuses recently wrote to the school board urging members to keep Martinez at the helm. They argued that Martinez has ushered in a more responsive, collaborative leadership after years of CEO churn — and that his dismissal would cause enormous disruption at a key juncture for the district and hurt students.

One principal who signed the letter and requested anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive matter said in an interview with Chalkbeat that reports of Martinez’s possible ouster are a grave cause for concern for school leaders.

“We have leadership in place that has started to listen to everybody — and they have a plan,” he said. “There is no smooth pathway to helping kids if the leadership is constantly changing.”

The principal noted Martinez has presided over academic recovery in the district post-pandemic and just unveiled a five-year strategic plan that school leaders and educators can rally around. The plan reflects some key teachers union priorities, including strengthening neighborhood schools and expanding arts and other programs.

“This has nothing to do with performance,” he said. “This has everything to do with politics.”

Amid the district’s increasing financial pressures, he added, “CEO Martinez is just being set up to be the fall guy.”

The advocacy group Kids First Chicago’s parent advisory board also voiced dismay at the prospect of Martinez’s ouster.

“This decision, at the beginning of the school year, during ongoing negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union, and just months before the transition to an elected school board, could have a negative impact on Chicago’s students,” the parents said in a statement, calling on the mayor and school board to be transparent about any decisions about the district’s leadership.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Explaining Chicago Public Schools: The buildings

2024-09-19T10:00:00+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education owns more than 800 school buildings, annexes, and other property.

The average age of a Chicago public school building is 83 years and 70 schools operate in facilities built before 1900. The oldest building — James Ward Elementary — was built in 1874 and is 149 years old.

According to the district’s most recent Educational Facilities Master Plan, it would cost $14.4 billion to update and repair all of Chicago’s public school buildings, and of that, $3 billion is considered critical.

Across the nation, school buildings are considered public infrastructure owned by the community and decisions about facilities upgrades and construction typically filter through elected officials who sit on the local school board.

Explaining CPS

Aging buildings can be a major challenge, especially in urban school districts with large real estate portfolios. In Chicago, decisions about what schools to repair and rebuild each year have been voted on by the school board, but are developed and proposed by district officials, the mayor, and other elected officials, such as city aldermen and state representatives. In the past, the process has been criticized for being inequitable and lacking transparency.

Decisions about what schools to repair and rebuild each year can be fraught and in Chicago, the process has been criticized for being inequitable and lacking transparency.

For decades, the mayor and to some extent other elected officials, such as local aldermen or state lawmakers, have controlled the purse strings when it comes to when and where to build new or repair old schools. Still, the Chicago Board of Education must vote to approve school construction projects and the financing that makes them possible.

That means school board members who will be elected by communities starting this November could influence decisions around school construction. Some school board candidates have already made updating school facilities a core part of their platform.

How does student enrollment impact CPS facilities?

Chicago Public Schools calculates how much each school’s building is being used and labels them using one of three categories: underutilized, efficient, and overcrowded.

Of the roughly 500 school buildings CPS labels with a utilization rate, 287 are tagged as underutilized, 179 are deemed efficient, and 26 are considered overcrowded.

Some have argued that 70% is not a fair cutoff for efficiency and overstates how much of a building is being used. Still, 172 schools are considered less than 50% utilized and 35 are less than 30%.

The district’s utilization data is seen by some as a lightning rod because it was used to inform which 50 schools would close in 2013. Chicago has not closed schools since then, with the exception of four high schools in Englewood, which were replaced by a new $85 million state-of-the-art STEM school in 2019.

Despite an effort by state lawmakers to extend a moratorium on school closings in Chicago to 2027, the school board will be allowed to shutter buildings beginning Jan. 15, 2025 when the new, 21-member, partially-elected school board will be sworn in.

Chief Operating Officer Charles Mayfield said “a conversation needs to happen” with communities regarding enrollment and school facilities because “everything has a cost to it.”

Low enrollment is more of a challenge facing neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. District data indicates many school-aged children in those areas travel to other communities for school, leaving their local neighborhood schools with fewer students. Under the district’s old budgeting formula, this created a cycle of disinvestment where schools losing students would have to cut staff, which would lead to more students leaving.

For roughly a decade, Chicago’s appointed school board approved closing a handful of schools annually and opening new ones at the same time as it created a school choice system with a variety of specialty schools families could choose in lieu of their zoned schools.

How do school building repairs happen in Chicago Public Schools?

In 2011, state lawmakers passed a law requiring Chicago Public Schools to develop an Education Facilities Master Plan every five years. The district issued its most recent plan in 2023, with an interactive map that allows the public to search school utilization and facility needs.

These reports provide a snapshot of the district’s overall real estate footprint, deferred maintenance, and enrollment patterns. But they do not spell out which schools might be prioritized for capital upgrades.

Chicago’s school board members approve capital projects and the borrowing that often makes them possible.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the district’s facility needs data found that some school board districts are facing much higher facility needs than others.

Where does CPS get school infrastructure money?

Chicago Public Schools develops a capital plan every year to determine which building construction and improvement projects it will undertake.

These capital projects are supported mostly by tax dollars collected by the school district or state, but several other sources of taxpayer money get dedicated to school projects every year. The two most notable sources of funding are tax-increment financing — or TIF — districts and the Chicago School Building and Improvement Fund tax levy.

The tax levy has been authorized by the state legislature since 2002, but it wasn’t until 2015 that it was proposed by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and approved by the City Council. It funded nearly $1 billion in capital projects beginning in 2017. Annual revenue collected by the levy continues to pay off the bonds that paid for those projects.

City Council also routinely dedicates money from special tax-increment financing districts to school infrastructure projects. This money regularly pays for new playground equipment, athletic fields, and critical building repairs.

Aldermen control where TIF money – sometimes referred to as a ”slush fund” or “shadow budget” – gets spent and areas with more development tend to have more TIF money available to spend. This can lead to inequities across the city, leaving schools in some areas waiting longer for new playgrounds or updated school facilities. Mayor Brandon Johnson has been an outspoken critic of TIF money and plans to end most of these special taxing districts over the next several years.

A report issued in 2022 flagged the financing of school construction projects as one of several financial entanglements the school board has with City Hall.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Modern Schools Across Chicago program issued bonds backed by city and school district funds to spend $1 billion building 17 new facilities and renovating two others, mostly on the South and West Sides.

In 2013, then-mayor Emanuel closed 50 schools and mothballed or sold off school facilities in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods. In 2015, he passed an annual $45 million property tax levy for school construction to bankroll building new annexes in overcrowded areas. The district is still paying off debt from these projects using the school capital improvement tax levy.

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot allocated more than $215 million in special tax-increment financing dollars to fix up aging buildings. Her CPS administration focused their capital spending on adding pre-K classrooms, technology upgrades, and building accessibility required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.

Johnson has yet to take on any major school capital projects. Chicago Public Schools put forward a relatively small $155 million capital budget shortly after he took office and a $611.1 million capital budget for the 2024-25 school year mostly focused on critical repairs and updates.

On the campaign trail, Johnson promised a “Green Schools Facilities Plan” that would focus on making school buildings more energy efficient, installing solar panels, and expanding composting and community gardening at schools. But there’s not been much movement on such a plan.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

Explaining Chicago Public Schools: The employees

2024-09-17T10:00:01+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education is one of the state’s largest employers — with more than 41,000 people on staff as of June 30, 2024.

On top of that, the city’s more than 100 public charter schools, which operate on contracts approved by the school board, employ thousands of additional workers.

Explaining CPS

Although student enrollment has declined, the number of teachers, principals, school support staff, and central office administrators directly employed by the school district has increased — growing from around 36,000 staff five years ago to more than 41,000 in the 2023-24 school year.

As of June 30, 2024, more than 47,000 positions were budgeted. However, not all of these positions are filled each year and often schools operate with vacancies and long-term substitutes instead of full-time teachers.

The mix of school staff has also shifted.

Last school year, there were about 19,500 teachers, more than 7,500 teaching assistants, 1,500 counselors and social workers, 1,200 school security guards, 1,000 custodians, and 1,000 principals and assistant principals.

While the number of teachers and school leaders has remained relatively flat over the past decade, the number of school social workers and counselors increased in recent years after the Chicago Teachers Union bargained for more of these positions in its 2019 contract negotiations.

A Chalkbeat analysis of district staffing records also found an increase in Special Education Classroom Assistants, or SECAs, from around 2,500 in 2014 to more than 6,000 at the start of last school year. In addition, the number of school nurses roughly doubled in the past decade — from around 300 to just over 600 — and the number of custodians jumped recently from around 700 to more than 1,000.

Most Chicago schools do not have a full-time librarian and haven’t since their ranks dwindled a decade ago. The Chicago Teachers Union has said this is a position it intends to advocate for in contract talks.

Which unions represent Chicago Public Schools’ employees?

The Chicago Board of Education has 10 active collective bargaining agreements with various unions representing school district employees.

CPS principals are also taking steps toward bargaining a contract with the district after Illinois lawmakers passed legislation to allow school leaders to unionize.

The three largest unions that CPS employees belong to are:

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which represents more than 24,000 teachers, counselors, social workers, and nurses.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73, which represents about 11,000 school support workers, including custodians, special education classroom assistants, bus aides, security officers, crossing guards, and parent-workers.
UNITE-HERE Local 1, which represents more than 2,000 lunchroom workers.

The CTU is one of the largest and most powerful unions in Chicago – and one of the most influential teachers unions across the country.

After 15 years of organizing around broader progressive social issues, a former CTU organizer is Chicago mayor, paving the way for a potentially less contentious relationship with district management.

The shift comes after CTU went on strike twice — in 2012 for seven days under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and again in 2019 for 12 days under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot — after acrimonious public disagreements over the future of the city’s public schools.

In the past, district leaders and their lawyers would work to reach a tentative agreement with the union and their lawyers. Once that happened, it would go to union members for a ratification vote and then the school board would vote to approve the deal.

School board members have sat at the bargaining table in the past. Under Emanuel, school board president David Vitale participated in contract talks and provided updates to the public. However, the district’s bargaining team under Lightfoot did not involve anyone from the school board.

Elected officials have also, in the past, weighed in publicly about the prolonged cancellation of classes or in support of the teachers.

Once a deal is made, the school board typically has to amend the budget to account for the cost of promises made in the bargaining agreement, such as salary raises or additional staff.

The CTU contract expired on June 30 and the school board approved a $9.9 billion budget for the 2024-25 school year in July. By August, talks between the district and union had made little progress after a series of public bargaining sessions over the summer.

Earlier this year, the district reached an agreement with SEIU Local 73 after more than a year of bargaining on behalf of school support staff, including custodians, special education classroom assistants, bus aides, security officers, and crossing guards. The deal includes 4-5% pay raises each year of the agreement and is set to end June 30, 2027.

Charter schools and other third party contractors

Thousands of workers also work in public schools in Chicago, but are not captured in the district’s staffing data.

This includes the staff at more than 110 charter schools serving nearly 55,000 students.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately managed. The school board evaluates and votes on whether to renew or award new charter school agreements, but these schools otherwise operate independently from many of the school district’s rules and policies, including union contracts.

However, many charter school teachers are unionized and represented by the CTU, though each charter network has its own contract.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Explaining Chicago Public Schools: The students

2024-09-16T10:00:00+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education is responsible for the education of about 323,000 students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools, currently the nation’s fourth largest school district.

The vast majority are students of color, with 47% identifying as Hispanic, 35% as Black, 11% as white, and 4.5% as Asian American. About 70% come from low-income households, 16% are students with disabilities, and 24% are learning English.

These demographics shifted over the past decade — as Black families left Chicago, birth rates declined, and new immigrants arrived.

The 2023-24 school year was the first time since 2011 that CPS saw an increase in student enrollment with 323,251 children enrolled as of the 20th day of school, when the district takes its official count. That was 1,185 more students than the year prior.

What’s more, Chicago’s public school enrollment as of mid-April 2024 rose by more than 5,000 students to 328,971, according to district officials and a Chalkbeat analysis of preliminary enrollment data from the spring.

The proportion of Black students has declined, while the number of Latino, white, and Asian American students has grown. Chicago has also seen a large decline in students who come from low-income households. Although still a large majority of the CPS student body, low-income students now make up 71% of enrolled CPS students as opposed to 86% in 2011 – a decline of 15 percentage points.

As the Chicago Board of Education shifts from being appointed by the mayor to elected by voters, the demographics of each school board district can be a window into what elected representatives advocate for and what matters to CPS families.

Although each school board district represents 275,000 Chicagoans, the number of schools and students attending those schools varies significantly. For example, District 5 has 105 schools within its boundaries, while District 4 has just 34. And the racial demographics of students enrolled in the schools within each can vary widely.

CPS enrollment changes over time

The number of students in CPS has been declining steadily for years. Thirteen years ago, 400,000 students were enrolled in CPS, but in recent years that number has hovered around 320,000, according to district enrollment data. In 2022, Chicago became the nation’s fourth largest school district after decades as the third largest.

Demographic shifts have sometimes coincided with major events.

In the wake of Chicago closing 50 schools in 2013, enrollment dropped. But the sharpest declines occurred between 2016 and 2018, when the district lost approximately 10,000 students each year. Between 2019 and 2020, when the pandemic shut down in-person schooling, enrollment decreased by nearly 15,000 students.

In 2020, with the emergence of COVID and virtual learning, total enrollment in the U.S. dropped by 3% in the first year of the pandemic, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2021, nationally, enrollment numbers stabilized, but in Chicago, the decline continued, with another 10,000 students leaving CPS.

Declining enrollment seems to have stopped in the past school year, as waves of new migrant families have arrived from the southern border.

How student racial demographics have shifted

Chicago Public Schools serve mostly Black and Latino students, but the share of each racial group has shifted over time.

In 2010, Black students made up 43% of CPS and Latino students were 44%. Today, Black students are 35% of CPS students and Latino students are 47%.

Chicago’s overall Latino population has also edged out Black Chicagoans as the second largest ethnic group in the city, making up 29% of the city’s population in 2023, according the U.S. Census bureau’s estimates.

The number of Latino students in CPS steadily increased from 2010 to 2013, but despite the city’s growing population of Latino residents, Latino enrollment numbers began to decline in 2014, just after 50 CPS schools were closed primarily in majority-Black areas on the South and West sides in 2013.

Latino student enrollment dipped by its largest margin — about 2,700 students — in 2016 as well. But since then, the number of Latino students enrolled in CPS had steadily declined by about 3,000-5,000 students each year.

That is, until the 2022-23 school year, which saw an increase of 1,959 Latino students.

There have been less dramatic increases in the number of White and Asian American students, except during the pandemic years when enrollment across nearly all ethnic groups declined. The number of Asian American students, who make up 4.5% of CPS students today, increased by 1,704 students overall since 2010, with little variation over the past decade and a half. Asian Americans are about 7% of Chicago’s population.

The number of white students in CPS also increased by 1,291 students since 2010, steadily increasing until 2020 and now inching back towards pre-pandemic levels. Although white Chicagoans are the largest ethnic majority in the city, white students only make up 11% of CPS students.

Fewer CPS students from low-income households, more English learners

Chicago Public Schools is serving fewer low-income families than it did a decade ago — in part due to gentrification in some neighborhoods and less public and affordable housing.

The number of CPS students who have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs – programs and services for students who require extra support – has also seen an overall increase of about 2,500 students. However, the number of students with IEPs has bounced back and forth between 49,000 and 52,000 for the last decade and a half and that trend continues with the 2023 enrollment numbers at 51,910.

The group with the largest increase in enrollment since 2011 is English language learners. Even as enrollment has declined overall, the number of English language learners has increased by nearly 16,000 students since 2011.

Students who speak multiple languages now make up 25% of CPS students. With plans to expand dual-language programs, the district is working to keep up with the influx, but designated bilingual educators working with students who are recent migrants say they’re overwhelmed and need resources beyond staffing.

Except for dips in enrollment in 2016 and 2020, that number has steadily increased every year since 2011. The largest increase occurred just last year, when nearly 8,000 additional students were identified as English language learners.

These factors can play a role in a school’s performance and most of these designations also drive funding and policy decisions. Chicago’s Board of Education announced this spring that it is moving away from a system of budgeting where dollars mostly follow students, in favor of a new needs-based model that considers factors such as the number of students who are homeless, low-income, English language learners, or have IEPs. The new model also takes into account a school’s diversity and the socioeconomics of its surrounding community.

Birth rates decline as pre-K expands

Chicago has been seeing fewer babies born every year since the early 1990s. The city’s decline matches a national downward trend in birth rates that began in 2007 around the time of the Great Recession.

Declining birth rates showed up roughly five years later in schools, as the number of incoming kindergarteners decreased annually, replacing a larger group of graduating seniors.

But while school enrollment has steadily declined overall, the district has spent millions on expanding its free public pre-K programs since 2020 and it seems to be paying off.

Pre-K enrollment reached a peak in 2019 at 14,300 students, before declining to 9,540 during the pandemic. Now, with 13,097 pre-K students enrolled during the 2023-24 school year, pre-K enrollment numbers are nearly at the same level they were in 2016.

Preschool enrollment has also seen an increase of about 2,578 students since the pandemic, but there’s still a way to go before reaching pre-pandemic preschool enrollment levels of just over 7,000 students.

Crystal Paul is a freelance reporter and editor.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

Who are the Chicago school board candidates for the 2024 election?

2024-09-07T00:23:41+00:00

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Chicago school board candidates have submitted petitions for the city’s first school board elections on Nov. 5.

School board hopefuls need 1,000 valid signatures from residents of their district in order for their name to be printed on the ballot. The deadline to submit signatures was June 24 at 5p.m.

To learn more about the new school board districts and find out which one you live in, Chalkbeat created an interactive map.

Many candidates have also begun fundraising for their campaigns, reporting contributions to the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Here are the candidates running in each district, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.

This list will be updated.

District 1

Jennifer Custer, a CPS parent and former teacher, union leader, and school administrator in the Chicago suburbs
Michelle N. Pierre, a CPS parent and Local School Council member, executive director at New Leaders, a training program for school leaders, former charter school leader, and former district administrator in Cleveland

District 2

Ebony L. DeBerry, director of educational initiatives at ONE Northside, former CPS teacher, parent, and Local School Council member
Kate Doyle, a former special education teacher, co-founder and CEO of youth career development nonprofit KindWork, and Vice President of the Greater Rockwell Organization
Margaret “Maggie” Cullerton Hooper, a CPS parent, Local School Council member, and senior consultant for the Alliance for Black Equality PAC
Bruce Leon, founder of human resources firm and 50th Ward Democratic committeeperson, and a board member of Arie Crown Hebrew Day School

District 3

Jason C. Dónes, chief of people operations at non-profit Beyond 100K, former teacher and leader at Teach for America
Carlos A. Rivas Jr., a spokesperson for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and former alumni counselor at UIC College Prep, a Noble charter school

District 4

Kimberly Brown, a marketing professional, adjunct professor, and CPS parent
Andrew A. Davis, a nonprofit leader, CPS parent, and former LSC member
Thomas Day, a CPS parent, co-founder of Illinois Veterans for Change
Carmen Gioiosa, a CPS parent, Local School Council member, adjunct professor, former CPS administrator, and former CPS teacher
Ellen Rosenfeld, a family and community engagement manager at Chicago Public Schools, a CPS parent, and former CPS teacher
Karen Zaccor, a teacher at Uplift High School and former LSC member

District 5

Aaron “Jitu” Brown, a community organizer with Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, and a Dyett hunger striker

District 6

Jessica Biggs, a CPS parent and former teacher and school principal
Andre Smith, an entrepreneur and recent candidate for Illinois House 5th District
Anusha Thotakura, a deputy director at Citizen Action/Illinois and former teacher

District 7

Raquel Don, a CPS parent and Local School Council member
Yesenia López, a Latino outreach director with Gov J.B. Pritzker’s campaign
Eva A. Villalobos, an accountant and private school parent

District 8

Angel Gutierrez, chief advancement officer at Chicago Hope Academy, a private high school, and a former leader at Catholic Charities of Archdiocese of Chicago
Felix Ponce, a CPS music teacher and professional trombonist

District 9

Therese Boyle, a school psychologist and former candidate for CTU president
Miquel Lewis, acting director of Cook County Juvenile Probation & Court Services and former appointed member of Chicago Board of Education, current member of Special Education Advisory Committee
La’Mont Raymond Williams, chief of staff and general counsel to Cook County Commissioner Bill Lowry
Lanetta M. Thomas, a community activist

District 10

Robert Jones, a pastor at Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church and a Dyett hunger striker
Karin Norington-Reaves, a CPS parent and consultant, former candidate in Illinois’s 1st congressional district
Adam Parrott-Sheffer, a CPS parent, adjunct lecturer at Harvard, author, former principal in CPS and the Chicago suburbs, former district administrator in New York City
Che “Rhymefest” Smith, a Grammy-award winning songwriter, rapper and community activist

UPDATE: As of Friday, Sept. 6, the following candidates have voluntarily withdrawn or been removed from the ballot:

Chuck Hernandez, Republican committeeman of the 38th Ward on the city’s North West side and retired detective with the Chicago Police Department (District 1)
Daniel Steven Kleinman, community organizer and Local School Council member (District 2)
Kirk J. Ortiz, vice president of a private security company and former candidate for Illinois House District 4 (District 3)
Michilla “Kyla” Blaise, a CPS parent, chief of staff for Cook County Commissioner Frank J. Aguilar, political consultant, and public relations professional (District 5)
Anthony Hargrove, an associate director of the Back To Our Future program at nonprofit Breakthrough Urban Ministries and former dean at Chicago Public Schools (District 5)
Kernetha Jones, a retired CPS teacher (District 5)
Jousef M. Shkoukani, an attorney and founder of an education nonprofit Unified Under Hope (District 5)
Brenda I. Delgado, a CPS parent, vice president of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, and former Local School Council member (District 6)
Danielle Wallace, a community youth advocate and non-profit leader (District 6)
Felipe “Phil” Luna Jr., a management systems specialist for the Illinois Department of Public Health and Local School Council member (District 7)
Jesus Ayala Jr., chief of program and strategy operations at Metrosquash (District 7)
Darius Dee Nix, interim impact director for City Year Chicago, former CPS charter school teacher, former candidate in Illinois’s 1st congressional district (District 8)
Brittany Bailey Preston, a construction manager and Local School Council member (District 9)
Rosita Chatonda, nonprofit founder and teacher advocate, former CPS teacher and former teachers union organizer (District 10)
James M. Walton, a former school principal and administrator in CPS and the Chicago suburbs (District 10)
Nathaniel “Nate” Ward, director of community outreach & engagement for City Colleges of Chicago, CPS parent, and Local School Council member (District 10)

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s first school board elections will feature just 1 candidate on ballot for District 5

2024-09-06T20:52:25+00:00

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Voters on Chicago’s West Side will have just one choice on the ballot for representative in the city’s first school board elections, after Michilla “Kyla” Blaise submitted her formal withdrawal from the race to the Chicago Board of Elections Friday.

That leaves Aaron “Jitu” Brown as the sole candidate in District 5, which stretches from the West Loop to Austin. It includes 105 schools — the most of any of Chicago’s new school board districts — with 36,485 students enrolled last school year.

Although District 5 has the most schools, it does not have the highest enrollment. Half of its schools are deemed underenrolled, according to the space utilization formula used by Chicago Public Schools.

Neither Blaise nor Brown, could immediately be reached for comment.

Blaise is currently chief of staff for Cook County Board Commissioner Frank Aguilar. She is also board secretary for Westside Justice Center, a legal services nonprofit organization, whose executive director is current Board of Education member Tanya Woods. Blaise has worked as a political consultant in Chicago since 2011.

She told Chalkbeat in an interview last month before she withdrew that she hoped to focus on improving youth mental health, adding that children and families need a better understanding of how to process grief and loss.

Brown has been an education activist for several years. He leads the Journey for Justice Alliance, a progressive network of organizations that advocate for improving schools through more “community-driven” approaches, such as the community school model, that reject “privatization.”

He participated in a hunger strike in 2015 to push CPS to reopen Dyett High School in Bronzeville.

Brown is also a friend of Mayor Brandon Johnson. At a recent event during the Democratic National Convention, Johnson said that Brown is “gonna be elected for the first time ever in the history of Chicago to a school board that is governed by the people.”

Blaise’s withdrawal comes just days after the ballot was certified. But Max Bever, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said her name will still be printed on the ballot, but any votes cast for her will not be counted.

According to state election code, if a withdrawal is received after the ballot is certified, “votes cast for the withdrawn candidate are invalid and shall not be reported by the election authority.”

Vote-by-mail ballots are sent out Sept. 26, and early voting begins in Chicago on Oct. 3.

The ballot for District 5 will have a space for write-in candidates as well.

Three other candidates had filed to run in District 5 but were removed from the ballot after challenges to their petitions. They were: Anthony Hargrove, an associate director of the Back To Our Future program at Breakthrough Urban Ministries and a former dean at Chicago Public Schools; Kernetha Jones, a retired CPS teacher; and Jousef M. Shkoukani, an attorney and founder of Unified Under Hope, an education nonprofit.

Jones and Shkoukani have both filed paperwork to run as qualified write-ins, according to Bever.

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

It’s the first day of school at Chicago Public Schools

2024-08-26T18:49:19+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools students returned to class Monday — amid an excessive heat warning, ongoing student transportation challenges, and growing friction between district leadership, the teachers union, and the mayor’s office.

Officials touted the district’s momentum in undoing some of the academic fallout from the pandemic and welcoming a larger, more diverse teacher workforce. But the kickoff to the school year was dampened by news that almost 2,000 students with disabilities are still waiting for a transportation route.

Meanwhile, Chicago Teachers Union leaders sharply criticized district CEO Pedro Martinez over what they see as too little progress in negotiations over a new contract for educators, ratcheting up tensions over the bargaining process as the district faces looming budget deficits.

The school year began on the heels of reports that Mayor Brandon Johnson is looking to replace Martinez at the helm amid disagreements over how the district should approach its financial predicament and the costs of a teacher contract. On Monday morning, Johnson and Martinez visited schools on the West Side to greet families together, though the mayor declined to take questions from reporters.

“Getting off to a good start is so critical and this year, we’re going to make sure that our children are seen and valued and that they can experience their purpose with new heights,” Johnson said. “With all the gains that we’ve made as a district, there’s still much work to be done.”

Johnson, a CPS parent himself, joked about the joy parents feel when sending their children back to school in the fall: “To all the parents out there who have been waiting for this moment, you’re welcome. Don’t ever say I ain’t done nothing for you.”

Then, there was the heat: As temperatures climbed above 90 degrees, the district canceled all outdoor sports games Monday and Tuesday, and moved recess and sports practices indoors. The district assured families that all classrooms have air conditioning, but many CPS buildings do not have cooling systems in the hallways and other shared spaces.

Amid tense contract talks, teachers union head criticizes CPS CEO

Last year, Johnson, a former CTU organizer and ally, appeared alongside Martinez and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates on the first day of school to usher in a new era of collaboration. But that was not the case this year.

Davis Gates visited Poe Classical Elementary School Monday morning and said staff there invited her to visit.

Davis Gates told Chalkbeat that she asked the mayor to keep Martinez on during the mayor’s transition period when he first took office – something she said she had not revealed publicly before.

Asked if she thinks Martinez should be replaced now, Davis Gates, who wrote an op-ed Monday in the Chicago Tribune criticizing Martinez, said, “I think that the Chicago Public Schools students deserve to be in an environment that we are in right now at Poe Classical. And if Pedro wants to do that, we should partner and get it done yesterday.”

She said Martinez has not tried hard enough to work with the union to meet its demands — a 700-plus proposal package that ranges from increasing teacher pay and adding more staff to schools to improving facilities, such as adding air conditioning to every school gym, and addressing larger societal issues such as student homelessness.

In negotiations, some of which have been held in public, district officials have pointed to budget constraints, noting that just 52 of those proposals would create a $3 billion budget deficit for the district by next school year. Union officials have pushed the district to find a way to pay for more demands, which Davis Gates said also focus on giving more to students, including librarians at every school, more arts education, and more sports programming.

Davis Gates pointed to Poe’s celebratory atmosphere on Monday that she wished existed at every school. The school continued its annual tradition of having a DJ play energizing music as families and kids walked through the school gates. Some younger students clung to their parents. Older students talked excitedly with their classmates. Staff greeted kids and some hugged. An emcee hyped up the crowd, as “It’s Time For the Percolator” boomed in the background.

“If you wanna know what we’re bargaining for, it is this right here, where the educators and the principals are a team; it is where parents, community, multigenerational [families] feel both welcomed and a critical part of it,” Davis Gates said. “These kids are going back to school — and they are smiling.”

Staff at Poe Classical Elementary School greet students on the first day of school.

Martinez and the CPS board have rejected a request from the Johnson administration to take out a short-term loan to pay, in part, for the cost of contract negotiations. As of mid-August, City Hall had continued to press CPS to take out a loan, a source close to CPS previously told Chalkbeat.

Both CPS and the union have also pushed the state to provide more funding to CPS, but state leaders have said that more money is not coming this year.

“If Pedro’s only resistance is his checkbook, that’s pathetic,” Davis Gates said.

Back on the West Side, the mayor’s Deputy Mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services Jen Johnson told Chalkbeat that the mayor’s office will “make sure the district stays at the table and push them to make sure they’re making progress” with the union.

Hundreds of students with disabilities still without bus rides

As of Aug. 21, 15,586 students were eligible for district-provided transportation: 10,695 students with disabilities, 4,882 general education students, and nine students in temporary living situations, according to a district spokesperson.

Chicago had been under state corrective action for the past two years to ensure students with disabilities had bus routes and were not riding for longer than an hour each way. That state oversight ended earlier this year.

A district spokesperson said Friday that 1,913 students with disabilities still did not have an assigned bus route as of Aug. 21. That’s more than 1,300 more than the roughly 600 who were not on routes at the start of last year. CPS officials said that is mainly due to an increase in students with disabilities qualifying for transportation.

The district is offering stipends of up to $500 a month to students with disabilities who are not on bus routes and live at least five miles away from school.

On Monday, Martinez said the district is trying to get those students routed “as soon as possible.”

“The good news is we’re up about more than 25% in drivers, almost 900 drivers, up from 700 last year, so we’re gonna get everybody routed as soon as possible,” Martinez said.

The district is still not offering busing to general education students, largely those who need rides to selective enrollment or magnet schools.

At Poe Classical – a selective enrollment school where children must take a test to gain admission – mother Brittany Livingston said she and her son took a bus for about 20 minutes to and from their home in Chatham to get to the school last year. The bus wasn’t always timely, especially in the winter. But taking Ubers “means I would have to work more doubles and work more shifts at work to be able to afford [that],” said Livingston, who works as a certified nursing assistant.

Livingston cut the commute in half this year after buying a used car. The “little put-put,” as Livingston calls her car, sometimes requires costly maintenance, which means she’s sometimes taking on extra shifts at work.

“It’s hard, but I’m trying to make it work so that we can at least be able to go back and forth here,” she said.

Martinez painted a more hopeful picture about transportation on Monday, saying it’s probably the best I’ve felt about transportation in the last three years.” He said he hopes to see some busing for general education students by the end of this semester.

Last year, CPS canceled busing for around 8,000 general education students, most of whom attend selective enrollment or magnet schools. This year, officials said they couldn’t guarantee transportation, but would pilot new strategies, including a “hub stop” model that will be phased in later this school year. General education students eligible for transportation can get free Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Ventra cards valued at $35 per month and a companion pass for one parent or guardian

Johnson and Martinez continue plea for more state funding

Even as school celebrated the return to class, questions continued to swirl over whether Johnson might oust Martinez, who, in addition to pushing back on City Hall demands to take out a loan, also pushed back on demands to take on a short-term, high-interest loan and a disputed a staff pension payment. But the mayor and the district’s top leader stood side by side at both schools.

And at Chalmers Elementary in North Lawndale, Johnson asked parents and staff gathered by the playground at the school day’s start to give Martinez a round of applause. Johnson served as a Chicago Teachers Union organizer assigned to the school and said he pushed back on plans to close it in that role.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez (third from left) and Mayor Brandon Johnson (far right) ring bells with students at Chalmers Elementary School on the first day of the 2024-2025 school year on Monday, Aug. 26, 2024 in Chicago, Ill. (Taylor Glascock/for ChalkBeat Chicago)

Johnson also used the occasion to make a plug for an issue he and Martinez agree on: a request for more dollars for schools from the state of Illinois. The state has markedly increased funding for CPS in recent years, but by its own calculation, it’s more than $1 billion shy of what would make adequate funding for the district.

“We need our partners in Springfield,” Johnson said on Chalmers’ playground. “Do we deserve our $1.1 billion?” Parents and staff cheered.

Johnson got the loudest applause when he brought up the prospect of the country electing its first female Black president. He got a less enthusiastic response when he argued that the first day of school is the best day of the year, “only second to Christmas Eve.”

“Listen, if it gets hard, always ask for help,” Johnson told first grader De’Andria Lofton, dressed in the school’s uniform of a green polo shirt and khaki skirt, personalized with a sparkly purple backpack.

She nodded and smiled shyly before she paused for a photo with the mayor and her parents.

“She loves school,” said Cathy Lofton, De’Andria’s mom, who also has a fourth grader at the school. “She always wants to come on the weekends.”

She hopes De’Andria will learn her multiplication table, and that both of her children will feel engaged — and, first and foremost, safe at school and in the neighborhood.

CPS touts filling more vacant teaching jobs

District officials said they have continued to make headway on reining in start-of-school-year vacancies. Roughly 4.3% of the district’s teaching positions are vacant, slightly down from the start of last school year, said Ben Felton, the district’s chief talent officer. That marks a return to pre-pandemic vacancy levels, he said, but at a time when the district employs about 2,500 more teachers compared to when COVID first hit.

“We have more licensed educators in front of kids than at any point during recent history,” Felton said.

He said the district has 125 additional bilingual teachers and 70 more art teachers than last fall. Overall, CPS has staffed 600 more teachers and 700 more paraprofessionals.

Felton also touted a more diverse corps of newly hired educators: About 31% of roughly 2,000 new teachers are Latino, 18% are Black, and 9% are Asian American.

The district was not able Monday to provide its vacancy rate for all employees or the demographics of teachers overall this fall.

Teaira Myles, whose 6-year-old son Brandon started first grade at Poe on Monday, said she felt a mix of excitement and pride for her son. She said she hopes Brandon learns more Spanish at Poe this year, as well as more about music.

Teaira Myles and her son, Brandon, pose for a portrait on the first day of school at Poe Classical Elementary School on Mon., Aug. 26, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

Brandon showed up dressed in yellow Nike sneakers and a T-shirt with a character from his favorite anime show, “One Piece.” His circular backpack was emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, with black and red straps — also merchandise related to “One Piece.”

Brandon, who spent the summer playing football, said he was “a lot happy and a little nervous” for the start of the school year and was excited about his teachers, friends, and the classroom. He remembered the DJ party at Poe when he started kindergarten last year and thought the tradition was “kinda cool.”

Asked if he wanted to say anything else, he added, “My favorite color is red.”

Samantha Smylie contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org .

Noble Street College Prep heads back to school — 25 years after first opening its doors

2024-08-23T21:08:26+00:00

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As Brenda Cora weaved around noisy teenagers who filled the cafeteria of Noble Street College Prep on the first day of classes for the charter school network, she thought back to her time as a student. Twenty-five years ago, she had three different classes in the space: science, math, and advisory.

“This was my advisory classroom,” she said, pointing to a storage room now stocked with food and three large refrigerators off the main room of Burnside Hall.

That was in 1999 and Cora, now Noble’s chief of schools, was one of around 100 freshmen attending what was then an entirely new school still under construction when the school year began.

The previous year — in April 1998 — Chicago’s Board of Education gave two Chicago Public Schools high school teachers and the Northwestern Settlement House permission to open Noble Street College Prep in the city’s West Town neighborhood as one of the district’s first charter schools.

At the time, these privately-managed, publicly-funded schools were a new concept, created by Illinois law in 1997. The idea — which emerged out of the progressive movement and was popularized by Albert Shanker, the former president of the American Federation of Teachers — was to create schools free from bureaucracy and certain regulations to experiment and innovate.

Cora heard about Noble when she was attending Ames Middle School in Avondale, now a military high school. Knowing she wanted to go to college, she applied and went to Noble’s auditorium where she waited to find out if she got a spot through the lottery admissions.

“I do remember there was one of those bingo rollers, where they were pulling out names,” Cora said. “I was just paying attention to whether or not I was going to be able to get into the school that I really wanted to attend.”

Noble Street College Prep school on the first day of classes on Fri., Aug. 23, 2024.

Throughout the 2000s, CPS greatly expanded charter schools, including Noble, which now operates 17 high school campuses and one middle school serving more than 12,300 students. The network has evolved over the past 25 years. After the resignation of co-founder Michael Milkie in 2018, the network moved away from a “no excuses” approach to discipline, loosened its dress code policy, and adopted a more transparent pay scale with higher pay for experienced teachers.

There’s no more bingo roller for lottery admissions either. Now, all CPS eighth graders use a centralized application to get into high school.

Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union have criticized the district’s system of school choice, in which families can leave their assigned neighborhood school to attend a wide array of selective, magnet, and charter schools, for creating “a Hunger Games scenario” for students. Chicago’s Board of Education is reevaluating how school choice works and is expected to share more details in a forthcoming strategic plan.

That looming debate over policy was a world away on Friday, as the cafeteria of Noble’s original campus, dubbed “The OC” by staff and students, buzzed with first-day energy. A group of seniors sitting at a table under an ornate chandelier reflected on why they chose Noble.

“I chose Noble because it prepares you for college,” said senior Lianisse Rodriguez, who hopes to attend Arizona State University next fall. “My sisters went here. They told me it was a good school, and when they went to college it prepared them.”

Senior Mileani Solis, the youngest of 10 children, said she also chose Noble because her siblings attended the school and one now works there.

“I chose Noble because my sister came here,” said senior Ethan Del Valle. “I know that they will get me college ready for when I need it, because I have big aspirations. My dream school is M.I.T.”

These students remind Cora of her younger self. She graduated from Noble in 2003. As a member of the first graduating class, Cora worried that she might not get accepted to college because admissions officers might not know about her newly-created high school.

Brenda Cora stands in the hallway of Noble Street College Prep school on the first day of school on Fri., Aug. 23, 2024. Cora was in Noble's first graduating class in 2003 and now works for the charter school network as chief of schools.

“What if they don’t accept me because they don’t know about Noble? What if this portfolio doesn’t really mean anything to the colleges across the nation?” she remembered thinking.

But that was not the case. Cora went to Grinnell College in Iowa and returned to work at a new Noble campus, Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy, as dean of students in 2007. Now, as chief of schools, she oversees six campuses, including Rowe-Clark, where she served as principal for six years.

There are about 28,700 Noble alumni, 5,000 of whom have earned their bachelor’s degrees, according to Noble spokesperson David Brown. Thousands more are actively pursuing degrees.

Ellen Metz, Noble’s head of schools, said getting students to and through college is still the charter network’s main focus, despite strong headwinds making it a tougher sell for many families, including rising costs, the end of affirmative action, and troubles with the FAFSA.

“We believe that our students deserve college for all the things that college provides whether it’s social mobility, whether it’s longer life expectancy, whether it’s the likelihood that a college graduate will participate in democracy, to just those years in college that hopefully provide an opportunity to explore one’s own identity,” Metz said.

Metz served as the principal of the original Noble Street College Prep from 2014 to 2019. As she walked the halls Friday, she greeted and hugged dozens of teachers, many who were entering their 10th, 18th, even 20th year teaching at the school.

Metz acknowledged there have been “really dire errors that were rooted in structural racism” that led to many neighborhood schools not being funded properly. But she added it’s not possible “to go back and fix history.”

As part of the renewal process for charter schools, the Chicago Board of Education recently renewed Noble to operate another five years.

“We’ve got to move forward,” Metz said Friday, adding that she hopes Noble will continue to work in partnership with CPS for at least another 25 years to come.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Back to school in Chicago 2024: new students, a new school board, and a new teachers contract?

2024-08-21T22:10:16+00:00

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Chicago students and teachers head back to school on Aug. 26 for a new school year — emphasis on “new.”

The 2024-25 school year will be marked in Chicago history books as the year the city held its first school board elections. The district’s oversight body will grow from seven to 21 members — half of whom will be elected. There will be new students who recently migrated to America. And another new teachers union contract — possibly negotiated without a strike like the last one.

Chalkbeat Chicago will continue to stay on top of the latest changes and news in the world of education.

We also want to hear from you! What should be on our radar as we start the school year? Email us anytime at chicago.tips@chalkbeat.org or fill out this form.

Here are five issues Chalkbeat Chicago will be watching this school year:

A CPS budget battle and new contract costs

The Chicago Board of Education approved a $9.9 billion budget for the 2024-25 school year — up from the $9.4 billion budget last year.

But it could grow again because district officials will need to come up with a new, amended budget once a contract agreement is reached with the Chicago Teachers Union. The pace of contract talks has been slow and the new public bargaining sessions have been tense at times.

District officials said earlier this month that if CPS agreed to the teachers union’s proposals, it could lead to a $4 billion deficit by 2029.

At the same time, CPS is running out of the $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief funds it received in 2021 to spend by this September. The district spent the bulk of that money on staff salaries and a Chalkbeat investigation last spring found roughly 7% of school budgets were covered using one-time federal COVID dollars over the past three school years.

Facing tighter finances, Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former organizer for and ally of the Chicago Teachers Union, suggested CPS borrow money using short-term, high-interest loans in order to pay for increased costs related to the teachers’ contract and the pensions of non-teaching staff, which the city used to cover. CPS administration and the school board have pushed back on that suggestion.

The state of bilingual education with more newcomers

Nearly 9,000 new migrant students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools last school year, as waves of buses from Texas carried migrants who had crossed the southern border to urban cities run by Democrats, including Chicago. The influx, in part, helped drive CPS’s first increase in enrollment since 2011.

Although many of Chicago’s schools serve Spanish-speaking students, not all schools have bilingual programs or even bilingual employees who can connect with students. As many families moved out of city’s shelters into apartments with the help of a state resettlement program, their children enrolled in schools with a lack of resources and no bilingual support.

While many of these students may remain enrolled in CPS, some have moved out of Chicago to surrounding suburbs, rural towns, or other states. When the district takes its official enrollment count on the 20th day of school, the public will get a better understanding of how many English learners are in CPS.

The district has said it plans to hire more bilingual staff this coming school year, though it’s unclear exactly which schools will see more bilingual staff or how the district will prioritize schools.

By state law, once a school enrolls 20 or more students who speak the same native language, the school must create a transitional bilingual education program and teach those children in both their native language and English.

Chicago’s first school board elections

Chicago voters will see a brand-new office on their ballot this Nov. 5: school board member. Chalkbeat has some handy resources where you can find out more about your district, figure out who’s running, and see how much money candidates have raised as of June 30.

These first school board elections come after years of advocacy and considerable back-and-forth in the Illinois legislature over how to implement an elected school board.

The board won’t be fully elected right away. Ten people will be elected from 10 geographic districts. Mayor Johnson will also appoint a school board president and 10 more people from each district on or before Dec. 16.

There’s a twist to how he can make those appointments. Each district is also subdivided into two regions. For example, District 1 is made up of two parts: 1A and a 1B. If the winning candidate in District 1 lives in 1A, the mayor has to appoint someone who lives in 1B. If the winner in District 2 lives in 2B, the mayor must appoint someone who lives in 2A, and so on.

This 21-member partially-elected, partially-appointed school board will be sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025 to serve two-year terms.

How the new board begins to govern will be precedent-setting. There are rules and policies, of course, but the new members will quickly take on some of their core tasks: approving a budget and evaluating the CPS CEO. Both issues have been the subject of intense scrutiny lately, with Mayor Johnson reportedly trying to replace current CPS CEO Pedro Martinez amid pressure from the Chicago Teachers Union.

What will a new strategic plan include?

Last December, the Chicago school board passed a resolution directing district leadership to develop a new strategic plan for Chicago Public Schools. Among other things, the resolution said the board wanted to de-emphasize school choice and bolster neighborhood schools.

The edict from Mayor Johnson’s hand-picked school board came after he spent time on the campaign trail criticizing the district’s school system for creating “a Hunger Games scenario” in which families leave neighborhood schools for spots in coveted selective enrollment, magnet, and charter schools.

Still, the test-in and lottery programs are popular among families. State lawmakers threatened to intervene this spring if CPS changed or closed selective enrollment and magnet schools. Johnson and district leaders have said they won’t close or severely weaken these schools. But some, including charter school advocates, worry their schools could be impacted by budget cuts or even closed once a moratorium on school closures lifts in 2025.

The previous five-year plan developed by former CPS CEO Janice Jackson was approved by the school board one week before the 2019 mayoral election that saw a landslide victory for former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Two years later, in 2021, Jackson announced she would step down. Martinez took over as CPS CEO in September 2021 and the following year, released a “three-year blueprint” for bouncing back from the pandemic.

Although officials held public meetings to gather feedback on a new strategic plan, they have yet to release a document laying out their vision for the next five years. But rumblings that the mayor might replace Martinez in the top job and a big shift in the size and governance structure of the school board raise questions about the implementation of a new five-year strategy.

Will bus transportation woes continue?

On the first day of school, all Chicago Public Schools students and accompanying adults can ride Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains for free.

But transportation troubles have plagued the district at the start of the school year since returning to in-person school in 2021 after pandemic-related closures. Chicago, like many districts, suffered from a bus driver shortage, leading CPS to offer stipends for alternative transportation options, such as rideshare, to families entitled to bus service.

Last school year, CPS canceled bus service for roughly 8,000 general education students, most of them attending magnet and selective enrollment schools, in an effort to ensure students with disabilities not only had bus routes, but were also not riding for more than an hour each way. The state put the district under a corrective action for both issues, but recently ended its oversight.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson trying to replace CPS CEO Pedro Martinez?

2024-08-15T01:18:58+00:00

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This story has been updated to include a comment from CPS and the Board of Education.

Chicago Public Schools staff and students could face a rocky start to the school year amid reports of a possible shake-up of the district’s top leadership.

According to WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, Mayor Brandon Johnson is reportedly looking to replace Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, who has overseen CPS since September 2021 and recently pushed back, alongside the Chicago Board of Education, against directives from City Hall.

The news comes less than two weeks before the start of a new school year and as Chicago is about to be center stage hosting the Democratic National Convention.

But three sources close to CPS who spoke on a condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly told Chalkbeat that Martinez is focused on doing his job and has not expressed interest in quitting.

Ultimately, Chicago’s Board of Education is tasked with hiring – and firing – a CEO. Historically, Chicago mayors have selected who they want to serve as CPS CEO and then had their pick voted on by board members, who were also appointed by the mayor.

The mayor’s office declined to comment about plans to oust Martinez.

In a statement, CPS and the Board of Education said, “The Chicago Board of Education, CEO Martinez, and Chicago Public Schools leadership are focused on preparing for a smooth start to the school year on August 26. We’re excited to work together with our school leaders, educators, and parents to continue to put the needs of our students first and build on our academic growth of the past two school years.”

One source close to CPS heard earlier this month that City Hall had drafted a list of potential replacements for Martinez but was not aware of the mayor’s team conducting interviews with anyone. And another source said that while the board has been aligned ideologically with the mayor’s office, it does not seem to have the appetite to fire Martinez right now.

If this board doesn’t act, the decision could ultimately be left to a new slate of people after Chicago’s first school board elections happen this November. That board will consist of 11 mayoral appointees, and another 10 members who will be elected from across the city.

The tensions between the mayor, CPS leadership, and the Chicago Teachers Union on the eve of a new school year are a stark contrast to harmonious spirit one year ago, when Johnson, Martinez, and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates visited schools together on the first day of classes.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Education and Child Development, said she had no idea that Johnson was looking to replace Martinez until Wednesday morning when a longtime City Hall newspaper reporter called her.

“I did not know, but I understand,” Taylor said. “Did the man do what he was supposed to do? Did he do his job? Did he put CPS in a better place than it was when he got there? For me, no.”

Still, Taylor said the timing is bad with the school year about to start and it’s “not a good look” given that CPS is currently bargaining with the Chicago Teachers Union.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas, past chair of the City Council Latino Caucus, which lobbied former Mayor Lori Lightfoot to pick a Latino to lead the school district, said he felt Martinez has done a good job and has been a “voice of neutrality” during the bargaining process with CTU.

“There has to be someone in the room that’s making sure that taxpayers are being heard and their issues are being considered here, and it’s just, it just doesn’t make sense that in the middle of negotiations you want to replace the CEO because he’s providing information that you don’t like,” Villegas said.

In recent weeks, the board passed a budget put forward by CPS leadership that Johnson did not approve of. That $9.9 billion spending plan approved last month closed a $505 million deficit through cuts and other savings. But it didn’t include any funding to pay for an eventual new contract with the teachers union or with the district’s new principals union. It also doesn’t include money to pay $175 million in pension costs for non-teaching staff that the city used to cover until the Lightfoot administration. A Johnson spokesperson has previously said they expect CPS to cover the $175 million in pension costs.

The board and CPS also rejected the Johnson administration’s recommendation to take out a short-term loan to pay for additional expenses, including the cost of new teachers and principal contracts and the pension payment. City Hall has continued to push CPS to take that loan and to cover the pension payment, according to one of the sources close to CPS. That source said Wednesday’s news felt disappointing to read about “when we’re all trying to do the right thing for CPS and for the students going forward.”

Negotiations between the district and Chicago Teachers Union, a close ally and former employer of Johnson’s, have become increasingly tense. CTU leadership has directly blamed Martinez for the lack of movement, saying Martinez lacks “the vision” to make the union’s proposals possible.

The 700-plus proposal package covers a variety of issues, including 9% raises for teachers and other members, additional staff to schools, and more support for students and their families in need, such as housing assistance. During a public bargaining session Tuesday, CPS said just 52 of the union’s proposals would cause the district’s deficit to balloon to $3 billion next fiscal year, roughly $2.5 billion more than what the district is already anticipating.

After that bargaining session, Davis Gates expressed frustration about the district’s deficit analysis related to the union’s proposals. Asked if the mayor’s office should reprimand CPS for defying Johnson’s wishes, Davis Gates pointed to other situations where the board has aligned with a mayor’s will, such as the notorious “Willis Wagons” created in the 1960s under former CPS CEO Benjamin Willis to avoid integrating schools or the decision under Mayor Rahm Emanuel to close 50 schools.

“You gotta ask Pedro why he doesn’t comply with the transition report that the mayor’s team said yes to,” Davis Gates said, referring to a report outlining the mayor’s vision for schools that closely aligns with policies CTU supports. “I can’t answer why they are not subordinate.”

Martinez and the board have carried out several policy changes Johnson favors, including moving away from student-based budgeting, stripping schools of on-campus police, and committing to rethinking the school choice system.

Martinez could resign on his own, though it’s unclear if he would still be eligible to receive severance in that case. If the board fired him without cause, he is entitled to severance equal to 20 weeks of pay, or close to $131,000, and would need six months notice, according to his contract with CPS.

Taylor said paying out Martinez’s contract will be costly, but keeping him could be too.

“Our kids cannot afford for us to keep trying to figure it out and fighting amongst each other,” Taylor said. “We wonder why our city is in chaos, because we [are] in chaos.”

Mila Koumpilova contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org .

More Chicago school board candidates removed from ballot

2024-08-13T21:25:51+00:00

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The field of candidates for Chicago’s first school board elections on Nov. 5 continues to narrow, with five more hopefuls booted from the ballot and two more withdrawing.

In all, 47 people filed paperwork with the Chicago Board of Elections to run for school board. But after rulings issued Tuesday by the elections board, 36 remain in the race, though six could still be disqualified.

To get on the ballot, hopeful candidates had to collect at least 1,000 valid signatures from registered voters in their districts between March 26 and June 24. Then, any registered voter in a candidate’s district could file a challenge questioning the validity of those signatures by July 1.

The Chicago Board of Elections reviews each challenge over the course of several weeks. Objectors and candidates often hire lawyers specialized in Chicago election law to argue the case.

The elections board voted Tuesday to affirm a hearing officers’ recommendations that the following candidates did not meet the signature requirements and would not have their names printed on the ballot: Jesus Ayala Jr., Anthony Hargrove, Kernetha Jones, Jousef Shkoukani, and Nathaniel “Nate” Ward. Daniel Steven Kleinman and Rosita Chatonda withdrew.

Jousef Shkoukani was the only candidate at the elections board Tuesday. As a practicing attorney, he chose to represent himself in the case challenging his signatures to get on the ballot for a school board seat representing District 5, which sprawls from the West Loop to Austin.

“I think it just adds an immense layer, and really just disenfranchises a lot of candidates who would otherwise be able to represent their community, and probably in a really important and good way,” Shkoukani told Chalkbeat Tuesday after speaking to the elections board.

After the meeting, Shkoukani said he plans to run again in 2026, when all 21 school board seats will be up for election.

“I think it’s important that the school board has diversity of thought, diversity of candidates,” Shkoukani said.

Several other candidates who have withdrawn in the face of challenges or been removed from the ballot have expressed concerns about ballot access for these first school board elections.

Jesus Ayala Jr., a 2010 graduate of Chicago Public Schools, was running in District 7 to represent parts of the South West side from Archer Heights to Pilsen. Earlier this spring, he had called unsuccessfully on other candidates to make a pact not to challenge one another’s petitions.

“I don’t fully understand Chicago politics. I know the jokes, I know what people say, like, it’s the way it is,” Ayala Jr. said. “But there’s an opportunity here, and we should seize it.”

Speaking to Chalkbeat by phone, Ayala Jr. said he collected just under 2,000 signatures, but after being challenged by Santos Mendez, Board of Elections employees found that 905 were valid.

“It’s hard not to get a little disheartened by the whole thing,” he said. “At the end of day, it is on me, I came up short. I should have worked harder and smarter.”

Carlos Rivas Jr. successfully overcame a challenge to his petition signatures and his name will be printed on the ballot for District 3, which covers Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Hermosa, Avondale, and parts of Belmont Cragin. He said the person who challenged him, Patrick Gibbons II, did something called a “shotgun objection,” in which he challenged 2,800 of the 3,000 signatures submitted.

“We had to go literally line-by-line to search up every single voter that had signed my petitions, which is why it took so many days,” Rivas Jr. said.

Rivas Jr. said it was a sprint to collect enough signatures before the deadline and make sure people signing his petitions lived in the district and were registered to vote in the district in order for their signatures to count. He said it became a part-time second job.

“I’m wondering how difficult this is going to be in two years for someone who has served on the board to then also run a campaign while serving while having a full time job,” Rivas Jr. said. Chicago school board members are not paid.

Now that he’s safely on the ballot, Rivas Jr. said he’ll shift his energy to fundraising and campaigning.

“We have the joy of being able to talk to folks in the summertime,” he said, “Getting out to block parties, talking to neighbors, doing canvassing in the neighborhood, that’s really what I’m what I’m looking forward to, to talk to folks about their wants and needs for the district.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s Noble Schools CEO Constance Jones stepping down after six years

2024-07-19T19:35:00+00:00

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The head of Chicago’s largest high school charter network is stepping down after six years on the job.

Noble Schools CEO Constance Jones announced in an email to staff and families that she will “pass the torch to a new leader” and work with the network’s board and an outside consultant to find a new CEO.

In a statement, Jones said she is focused on the start of the school year and plans on staying and overlapping with the new CEO “for several months to support a smooth transition during the year ahead.”

“Noble is in strong and stable shape, both organizationally and financially, and recently secured the longest charter renewal term granted by Chicago Public Schools,” Jones wrote in a statement.

Noble opened its first campus in 1999 and now serves more than 12,000 students across 18 campuses.

Jones took the role in 2018 after the sudden resignation of Noble’s CEO and founder Michael Milkie amid concerns over an alleged “pattern of inappropriate behavior with alumni.” At the time Jones took over, Noble staff was also considering unionization, which ultimately didn’t happen.

As the first woman and first Black person to hold the position, Jones led the organization through a series of policy changes impacting Noble’s mostly Black and Latino students, including the relaxing of the network’s once-stringent dress code and a shift away from a “no-excuses” approach to discipline in 2020 amid a broader racial reckoning following the police killing of George Floyd.

Noble CEO Constance Jones stands in front of a window at the network’s downtown office.

The Noble Schools network has had a reputation for strong academics and a college-going culture. In her email, Jones said the network’s recent graduating class received 17,000 college offers, including from Yale, Brown, Howard, and Stanford Universities. The network enrolled more than 2,800 seniors last school year, according to district enrollment data.

Charter schools are publicly-funded, but privately-operated and go through an authorization process with the Chicago Board of Education. Chicago opened and expanded charters throughout the 2000s, but a moratorium on new charters was put in place in 2016 amid declining student enrollment and overall drops in Chicago’s child population.

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s appointed school board increased scrutiny of existing charter schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, opposed charter school expansion and has said he would like to move away from a competitive school choice system.

Despite shifting political winds, Jones has been a vocal advocate for school choice and charters. She was recently selected for an Eisenhower Fellowship, for which she plans to travel to Ghana and Brazil to study community engagement and violence prevention.

Before joining Noble in 2014, Jones was the national development director at KIPP, a network of public charter schools.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

More than $400,000 raised so far in Chicago’s 2024 school board elections

2024-07-17T00:00:42+00:00

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The 45 candidates vying for 10 seats in Chicago’s first school board elections this November have raised more than $400,000 collectively for their campaigns, new campaign finance filings show.

The money is a mix of small donations from candidates’ friends and family, sizable personal loans, and in-kind and financial support from existing political and labor groups, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state campaign finance records.

The political fundraising arms of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which has $3 million on hand, and the Chicago Teachers Union, which has around $175,000, are holding their fire for now, putting off making major donations to candidates. That’s not surprising: Many candidates are still sorting out challenges to their petitions to get on the ballot, and spending is likely to pick up once a clearer picture of the most competitive races and candidates emerges.

School board races in other cities such as Denver, which saw $1.9 million raised for three open seats in 2023, and Los Angeles have drawn major spending by outside groups in recent years, often pitting national teachers unions against supporters of charter schools and school choice more generally.

That money tends to start flowing later in the race, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and co-author of a recent book on school board campaign finance. Chicago, often seen as a bellwether on national education trends, could be a magnet for such spending.

“These groups don’t want to back losers — or sure winners,” Henig said. “The big money tends to hold back strategically.”

More than a dozen candidates either have reported zero contributions or have not yet filed campaign finance disclosure paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Candidates do not have to file disclosures until they’ve raised $5,000 in a 12-month period, according to the Illinois Board of Elections.

Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members on Nov. 5 — one from each new school board district. The mayor will appoint 11 members. On Jan. 15, 2025, the new 21-member school board will be sworn in. The board will transition to a fully elected body in 2027.

Campaign contributions vary across district

More than $438,000 has flowed into the coffers of Chicago’s school board candidates between January 1 and June 30, but it is not evenly distributed across the city’s brand-new school board districts.

District 10, which stretches from Soldier Field to the Indiana border, has seen the most money — with more than $130,000 flowing from Jan. 1 to June 30. But $70,000 comes from personal loans Che “Rhymefest” Smith and his partner gave to his own campaign, campaign disclosure documents show.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer, a former Chicago principal and district parent also running in District 10, said his goal is to run a campaign that’s as lean as possible. His political committee has brought in just over $50,000 in contributions, according to campaign finance records. He said candidates are running to oversee a district with a budget of almost $10 billion at a time of tighter finances, so disciplined campaign spending is key.

Parrott-Sheffer also said he believes voters are looking for candidates who are not indebted to special interests — “somebody nobody sent,” a reference to a phrase ubiquitous in Chicago politics first made famous by the late former Congressman Abner Mikva.

“The key question is, ‘What’s the right way to get the word out?’” Parrott-Sheffer said. “We don’t need to spend money on something that’s not essential.”

Kate Doyle, a District 2 candidate who is one of the top fundraisers so far, said she takes pride in drawing mostly individual contributions, with a total of $38,790 raised as of June 30.

“I think that shows the community is seeking someone qualified, independent, and progressive,” said Doyle, a district parent, former educator, and business leader. She added: “There’s a lot of concern about the board becoming politicized.”

She said her campaign will spend the cash to buy a voter contact directory from the state’s Democratic Party to help with canvassing and other outreach as well as mailers in English and Spanish and advertising later on in the race: “It’s all about getting the message out there, and in this big district that can be really costly.”

Karen Zaccor, a candidate in District 4 who recently retired after 28 years teaching in CPS, raised $3,233 in donations as of June 30, with about half of that from Zaccor herself, campaign finance records show. Zaccor told Chalkbeat she’s received more support in the last two weeks, for a total of roughly 40 donors who donated between $25 to $1,000.

Zaccor has long advocated for an elected school board and has received donations from people she’s worked with in her neighborhood and from members of the advocacy organization Northside Action for Justice, which endorsed Zaccor, Zaccor said. She’s also been endorsed by the CTU.

“People I know from other community work, even from many decades ago who no longer live in the city, have donated to my campaign so far,” Zaccor said. “I can’t honestly say we’ve done a full-court press at this moment, but people who know I’m running, who we’ve talked to about, ‘Hey, come to the launch’ or something like that, have donated to my campaign.”

Teachers union, charter supporters hold off

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools have influenced elections and donated to candidates in Chicago elections in the past, including for mayor and aldermen.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ two political committees have more than $3 million on hand as of June 30, records show. Most of that money comes from a few wealthy individuals: business executive James Frank, Walmart heir Jim Walton, and businessman and philanthropist David Weinberg and his wife, attorney Grace Allen Newton.

The majority of the money — $2.8 million — is in an independent expenditure committee, sometimes referred to as a Super PAC. These committees cannot give directly to or coordinate with candidates, but can influence races in other ways, such as through ads about certain issues.

Some of that money will go toward state senate and other races, but much of it will support pro-school choice school board candidates in Chicago, said Andrew Broy, the advocacy group’s president.

However, save for small donations to a couple of candidates, the group’s political action committees should start spending a “substantial” amount later this summer, once the ballot is finalized and the election outlook is clearer, Broy said. He said it’s hard to speculate how much will go toward the races in the long run.

“The stakes are enormous for every meaningful policy decision that CPS is about to make,” he said. What makes the race unique is the lack of incumbents, he said: “The race is wide-open, with in some cases, four or five qualified candidates.”

The Chicago Teachers Union’s political committees have a collective $175,000 in the bank, some of which has come from member dues. The union has sharply criticized the charter school advocacy group for amassing a large war chest to back political candidates.

Last month, the union voted to endorse the following candidates: Jennifer Custer, Ebony DeBerry, Jason Dónes, Karen Zaccor, Jitu Brown, Anusha Thotakura, Brenda Delgado, Yesenia López, Felix Ponce, Lanetta Thomas, and Rev. Robert Jones.

The charter committee also gave a modest amount to another political action committee affiliated with The Urban Center that could be active in the school board elections and supports school choice. Former Chicago schools chief and former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas and former charter school chief Juan Rangel are listed as its officers. Rangel recently worked for Empower Illinois, a scholarship-granting organization for the state’s sunsetting tax-credit scholarship program.

Rangel said The Urban Center political action committee is on the lookout for independent-minded candidates who are supportive of selective enrollment, magnet, and charter schools — and of allowing local school councils to decide whether to station police officers on campus.

“We are strong believers that parents should have a voice in the education of their children,” Rangel said.

Campaign finance records show the group has a little less than $2,000 in the bank as of June 30, but Rangel said they’re in the midst of fundraising. But he said he hopes to offset some of the CTU’s influence on the election, saying it has a “self-serving agenda.”

Zaccor, the candidate in District 4 on the north side with around $3,000, said she wouldn’t accept funds from INCS or The Urban Center.

“Not that they’re going to offer me any,” Zaccor said. She hopes she’ll get funding and boots-on-the-ground support from the teachers union and other groups that endorse her.

Henig, the Columbia University expert and author of the book “Outside Money in School Board Elections,” said teachers unions are especially good at summoning ranks of motivated educators to volunteer and provide in-kind support, such as door-knocking or handing out yard signs. Illinois campaign finance rules require candidates to report in-kind contributions.

He said it makes sense to hold off on ramping up campaigns during the summer months, when parents — a key constituency — aren’t as engaged as they are during the school year. But candidates would want to get their message out by mid-October at the latest, or risk losing the name recognition battle, Henig said.

“Early money can be helpful, and really late money — which is when outside money sometimes comes in — can be less than helpful,” Henig said.

School board races across the country have attracted big money and outside influence, including from conservative groups, such as Moms for Liberty, supportive of restricting how schools teach about race and sexuality, among other issues. But they do not yet appear to be donating to Chicago school board candidates, a Chalkbeat review of campaign disclosure documents indicates.

School board candidates will have to report donations and campaign spending again in mid-October, ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Reema Amin contributed.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools announces safeguards for laid-off employees as teachers union decries staff cuts

2024-06-28T00:04:49+00:00

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Facing a murkier financial outlook and a budget deficit, Chicago Public Schools has launched “layoff prevention pools” that will guarantee displaced employees positions at other schools — and pay through the next school year.

The district said approximately 600 staffers lost their positions earlier this month. This year, it extended the layoff safeguards — previously in place for teachers — to teaching assistants and other support staff as well. The Chicago Teachers Union held a press conference Thursday to decry at least 330 layoffs of its members, which leaders said disrupt key relationships they build with students and leaves staff in limbo over the summer.

The summer shuffling of staff is a common practice, as student enrollment fluctuates on some campuses. But this year it comes amid a change to the district’s funding formula and as CPS officials have delayed releasing a full budget proposal until July, even though the fiscal year ends this week. Typically, the Chicago Board of Education votes on its annual budget in June.

Instead at their regular meeting Thursday, school board members got an earful from CTU members, as well as some assurance from district officials that school-level funding will stay stable despite an almost $400 million deficit as federal COVID recovery money runs out.

District CEO Pedro Martinez told board members his team needed more time to do due diligence and communicate about the new funding approach, which provides key staff positions to all campuses and uses their level of need to allocate additional dollars.

“There’s no denying that CPS is facing a challenging financial outlook,” Martinez said. “But I remain confident that when our 2024-25 budget is complete, the overall level of funding provided to schools will be maintained or likely increase from what we experienced compared to the last school year.”

The district, which has added thousands of new positions to its payroll in recent years, said it will maintain roughly $500 million in funding increases for schools made since the 2021-22 school year. It stressed that overall, schools will employ more people in the fall compared with this past school year, including 500 more teachers, 600 additional special education paraprofessional positions, and almost 90 more restorative justice coordinators. The district has more than 39,000 employees.

The union said it received a list of laid-off members earlier this week.

Union leaders said most would likely be rehired at other schools, but they argued that the district can do more to avert uncertainty for its employees and disruption to school communities when educators who have bonded with students are reassigned over the summer.

Grisel Sanchez has been working as a bilingual teacher assistant for the past two years at Mark Twain Elementary, supporting and translating for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“I translated almost every assignment that was given to (eighth graders) to make it easier for them to understand the material so they could pass their class and graduate,” Sanchez said during the CTU press conference.

On June 7, however, Sanchez said she was called into the office and told her position was being cut and that she could apply for jobs at other schools.

Edward Ward was laid off as a restorative justice coordinator at Sherman School of Excellence this month. He was also let go last year from Beidler Elementary from a similar role. The repeated layoffs, he said, are damaging to the relationship building that a restorative justice coordinator does.

“We are not disposable, and you’ve made a huge mistake to cut those positions, because at the end of the day, it’s our students who suffer,” Ward said.

Officials said the district adjusted support staffing to reflect enrollment changes. About 300 of the 595 employees affected are teaching assistants, representing a 0.5% reduction of all employees.

“The district is committed to guaranteeing a job for any of the impacted teaching assistants, and historical data confirms that those who choose to remain in the district will have employment within the district,” Chicago Public Schools said in a statement.

The statement said the district worked closely with the CTU and the SEIU, the union that represents some district support staff, on this effort to ensure laid-off staffers are assigned vacant roles before the start of next school year.

“This assertive initiative is crucial for sustaining our educational gains and providing much-needed school stability,” the district said.

The board approved a resolution Thursday that would allow principals to dip into 2024-25 funds in July ahead of the full budget’s approval so they can line up staff and other resources for the fall.

The layoffs of around 20 restorative justice coordinators comes as the district is overhauling its approach to school safety in a way that centers restorative justice and reduces punitive discipline.

“You can’t say that we are going to move in a direction that honors and respects the humanity of our young people and cut 20 restorative justice coordinators,” said Stacy Davis Gates. “Those two things do not match.”

Addressing the school board, teachers union vice president Jackson Potter said the district has made some headway in addressing disruption from the summer reshuffling of employees — but needs to do more.

“This has now become an annual bloodletting ritual that we hope will end or at least become more humane and thoughtful,” he said.

Potter and educators who addressed the board to protest the layoffs took aim at the district’s Skyline curriculum — an in-house $135 million curriculum the district developed during the pandemic. He argued that the district should use some of the money it spends on rolling out the curriculum to ward off support staff layoffs.

“You should ask people, ‘Do you prefer a TA, or do you prefer this curriculum?’” Potter asked, adding that teachers have called Skyline “a dumpster fire.”

But district officials insisted later in the meeting that school teams led by principals voluntarily adopt Skyline, and they said it has been key to a push to roll out high-quality curriculums in all schools. They said 462 schools have chosen to use Skyline in at least one subject.

“While Skyline might not be a perfect system,” said chief education officer Bogdana Chkoumbova, “it’s definitely a system worth iterating and investing in.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Here are Chicago’s new school board districts

2024-06-17T15:45:02+00:00

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This November, Chicago voters will elect school board members for the first time to govern Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s fourth largest school district.

The change will end 30 years of mayoral control.

Activists and parents started pushing for the ability to elect Chicago school board members roughly a decade ago, after years of education reform that changed how schools were funded, how teachers were evaluated, how many schools were opened and closed, and who operated them.

In 2021, state lawmakers passed legislation to create a half-elected, half-appointed 21-member elected school board in Chicago by 2025 and a fully-elected board by 2027.

Explore more in this interactive map.

Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Teachers Union to hold first public bargaining session

2024-06-13T23:40:00+00:00

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Chicagoans will get a window into collective bargaining between the city’s public school district and its teachers union at a first-of-its-kind meeting Friday night.

Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union will hold a public bargaining session at Marquette Elementary in the city’s West Lawn neighborhood on the South Side. As of midday Wednesday, registration to attend in person had reached capacity, but officials said it will be livestreamed on YouTube.

But at Friday night’s session — held on the first weekend of summer break — the two sides do not plan to discuss any provisions of the current CTU contract, such as those dealing with class size limits, pay raises, or other benefits. Instead, they plan to discuss “healthy, safe, and green schools.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, made “green schools” part of his education platform last year. School facilities are typically dealt with in the district’s capital budget, which had its own series of public hearings already this year.

Tonight’s meeting is another sign of a more friendly relationship between the two parties.

The CTU’s current contract expires on June 30. Last week, CPS posted their opening proposals online and sent an email to parents sharing more information about how they will approach labor negotiations. CTU has posted their proposals online for members to access using a passcode, and the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, published a copy of the union’s ideas to their website.

While there is a lot for the two sides to sort out, one thing seems certain: Chicago’s new, partially elected school board likely won’t have much say over the teachers union contract during board members’ first few years on the job.

Though the length of the contract won’t be discussed Friday, the dueling proposals put forward by both sides would lock a new contract in place that would last through the first two rounds of school board elections.

CPS is proposing a five-year contract that would expire on June 30, 2029, while CTU is putting forward a four-year deal expiring on May 1, 2028.

Ten new school board members will be elected from 10 districts on Nov. 5, 2024. Those 10, plus 11 appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, will be sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025. In November 2026, 20 members will be elected from 20 districts and the school board president will be elected at-large.

The current contract is a five-year deal that began after a 12-day strike in 2019, but negotiations between CPS and CTU occurred multiple times during the COVID pandemic around schools returning to in-person learning. The previous contract covered three school years starting in 2016, and the one negotiated in 2012 ended up being four years.

It’s common for public sector labor agreements to extend through one or more election cycles, said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment at the University of Illinois.

“Things like school board elections, things like a mayoral and city council elections, really should not be first and foremost,” Bruno said.

“They should bring a package forward that says, ‘This will be good for the district, it’ll be good for students, and it’s affordable, and teachers, our employees will be supportive of it,’” Bruno said.

A CPS spokesperson said the district wants a five-year contract “to ensure stability and predictability” to allow the district “to more effectively plan our academic and operational programming, supports, and services.”

A CTU representative said school board elections did not factor into their proposal for a four-year contract. The representative added that the union supports giving parents and communities more say over the public school system through an elected board.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago is trying to improve how it funds schools. Not everyone is happy.

2024-05-23T20:45:22+00:00

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Christina Cedeño has spent countless hours helping get the word out about the bilingual gifted program at her children’s school Pulaski International School of Chicago, texting friends and acquaintances and distributing flyers at neighborhood businesses and day cares in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.

But next year, Pulaski’s proposed budget cuts a number of positions, including including a core classroom teacher in the Spanish gifted program, forcing school leaders to consider combining the first and second grade.

Cedeño worries the cuts at the Regional Gifted Center for English Learners — one of just three in Chicago Public Schools — will deter parents who are new to the school.

“If they find out that their classes are going to be combined, they’ll get scared and they’ll pull their kids out and then we’re back to where we were five years ago,” she said.

Pulaski is one of many schools reportedly losing resources as Chicago Public Schools officials overhaul the way they allocate money to individual campuses even as they also work to close a $391 million deficit and grapple with the end of federal COVID relief funding.

District officials have said the overall amount of money dedicated to schools is not being decreased. But many selective enrollment and magnet programs and neighborhood schools in higher income areas are seeing cuts. In some cases, district officials have even suggested they fundraise to fill gaps, parents say, which could create more inequity for schools that can’t raise a lot of money.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has defended the changes to how schools are funded as an “important milestone” aimed at improving education across all schools, but especially for children “farthest from opportunity.”

“It’s a boost for communities that have been stuck in a downward spiral of disinvestment and depopulation,” he told the school board Thursday.

He added that some school leaders at high-need schools have cheered their budgets for allowing them to grow programming and dodge enrollment-related cuts. And he vowed overall funding for schools will stay stable next fall and, thanks to positions covered centrally, more people will work in Chicago’s schools.

But the public does not have the ability to see which schools are benefiting from the new formula.

CPS has twice denied Chalkbeat’s open records request for individual school budget documents, arguing the process is still ongoing. Local School Councils had to vote to approve their budgets by May 3. A district spokesperson said five elementary schools and four high schools rejected their school budgets.

Last year, the district similarly shared only limited details about school budgets when principals received them in April. Officials unveiled a $9.4 billion budget proposal in early June and the school board approved it two weeks later. The school board must approve a budget by July 1.

Meanwhile, Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill that could prevent Chicago Public Schools from implementing “disproportionate” budget decreases at selective enrollment schools and could place a moratorium on school closings until 2027.

Pulaski is in a unique situation because it’s a neighborhood school with a selective program. For budgeting purposes, it is considered one school and the neighborhood school is also facing cuts, according to parents who spoke to Chalkbeat.

The neighborhood school, which has an International Baccalaureate program, serves students from the surrounding Bucktown area, which has gentrified in the last decade. Ten years ago, 81% of Pulaski’s students came from low-income families and today about 38% do.

Parents said the proposed budget, which was rejected by the Local School Council, would cut three core classroom teachers from the neighborhood program, two specialty teacher positions, a tech coordinator, a reading specialist, and one of two clerks that staff the school’s two-building campus.

“We’re not asking for bells and whistles,” said Nicole Wood, a Pulaski parent who has two children in the neighborhood IB program. “We understand that some of our extras that we had in the past are going to go away. We understand that there will be cuts given the deficit in the budget. However, what we expect CPS to provide us are classroom teachers for all of our classrooms.”

‘If you don’t like your budget, fundraise your way out of it’

At Harriet Tubman Elementary School, parents raised concerns to their CPS network officials when they found out that the proposed budget could mean losing three core teachers and other staff next year.

The surprising suggestion: Fundraise money to fill in the gaps.

Other schools, network officials tell them, use “Friends of” money to pay for positions, said Illeana Inserni, the chair of Tubman’s Local School Council and a mother of third-grade twins.

The school, which has an International Baccalaureate program that draws in students from other parts of the city, is also slated to lose a part-time teacher who works with students with disabilities and their interventionist, a staffer who works with struggling students, whose salary was covered by the district through federal COVID dollars.

Tubman sits in a higher-income area of Chicago and 35% of students come from low-income families, less than the 73% at schools districtwide. But the school’s enrollment has also swelled by about 15% since September and is serving more English learners, according to preliminary enrollment records.

“What we’re asking the network and district … is to maintain our current roster,” Inserni said. “We’re not even asking for more at this moment.”

The school received $140,000 in discretionary funding, which is the minimum amount provided to all elementary schools. Inserni said they plan to pay for another core classroom teacher, leaving the school with about $30,000 for basic operations, materials, and supplies, such as copy paper or recess monitors. The district said the average budget for a teacher position is $123,000.

At Skinner North, a selective enrollment elementary school, according to LSC chair Danielle Capilla, whose daughter is in fifth grade, network leads have also suggested parent fundraising to fill budget gaps.

“Principals are also being asked by network leaders and the folks above them, ‘Well, how much does your ‘Friends Of’ raise? How much is in those bank accounts? What can we use that for?’ Essentially, what can the parents and community pay for so the district doesn’t have to?” Capilla said.

“There has also just been an underlying premise of: ‘If you don’t like your budget, fundraise your way out of it,’” she said.

A district spokesperson said decisions made with parent fundraising resources are made at the school level.

In Chicago, parents can fundraise to pay for staff, which isn’t the case for all big cities. In New York City, PTAs cannot use funding to pay for core subject teachers but can use it toward supplemental staff, such as art teachers or teaching assistants.

Capilla, who also has a son enrolled in a different magnet school, said she doesn’t want to alienate families that can’t afford to contribute to fundraisers. “That would be the last thing that we would want to do.”

She’s heard of other schools, like LaSalle Language Academy in Old Town, using outside fundraising to fill gaps. At LaSalle, LSC parent representative Jason Emeott said next year’s budget does not provide funding for seven of their eight language teachers. But the language program is core to the school’s identity, he noted, with students in kindergarten through eighth grade able to take classes in Spanish, Italian, French, and Mandarin.

Emeott is passionate about LaSalle because it is a National Blue Ribbon School that serves students from around the city of different ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Now, he worries programming cuts could hurt future enrollment.

At Thursday’s school board meeting, some parents voiced concerns about their school budgets to board members.

Several parents from Sabin Dual Language Magnet said its proposed budget will erode its ability to provide the language services that have made the campus a model as one of the oldest dual language programs in the city. They said the school is losing three teachers and its dean of students, who has gotten recognition for presiding over the largest decrease in student suspensions of any district elementary school.

Parents said the budget apparently fails to account for a large influx of migrant students to the campus, which has helped push enrollment from 240 to more than 360 students since last summer.

“By losing these teachers, we are losing our dual language capacity,” said parent Debra Gittler.

“With so many new arrivals, the trauma and the issues going on are quite severe,” she added.

Are neighborhood schools getting more resources?

Not all schools are seeing cuts. Although all school budgets are not public yet, many neighborhood schools are gaining multiple new staff positions and additional resources.

Under the proposed budget, Jamieson Elementary, a neighborhood school in West Ridge, would add a second school counselor, a restorative justice coordinator, another art teacher, and an additional core teacher that the LSC hopes to hire as an English as a Second Language teacher, according to Annette Stenner, a parent representative on the LSC.

Stenner said the additional positions will be helpful as the school’s needs have increased. Jamieson serves over 800 students and almost 60% of students come from low-income families, according to Chicago Public Schools enrollment data. Over the last couple of years, the school has seen an uptick in the number of migrant students, many migrating from Venezuela and other countries around the globe, Stenner noted.

Many migrant students have “a lot of trauma,” she said. “Teachers and our administrators, they’re seeing a lot more issues addressing that and dealing with that in the classroom.”

While the increase in staff would be helpful to the school, Stenner’s not sure if it will be enough since classroom sizes are large. But overall, she feels that the district is going in the right direction with budgeting to address some of the inequities in funding neighborhood schools across the city.

One principal said her school, which almost exclusively serves students from low-income families and more than half who are learning English as a new language, will see more teachers and some smaller class sizes next school year.

However, the school will not have the funding for their second office clerk – someone the school had for many years who helped with attendance and purchasing, said the principal, who asked to remain anonymous because she was not authorized to speak to the press. While she doesn’t believe student-based budgeting worked well, she said she had become accustomed to having a lot of power over her budget – and cutting the longtime school clerk is a “hard decision.”

But “in what world could I argue that I would rather have 33 first graders in a room together than not have this second clerk?” the principal asked.

Abigail Vences is on the Local School Council at Swift Elementary School in Edgewater and Mather High School in West Ridge. She said next year’s budgets at both schools will see more resources, including several more teacher positions.

“There are kids that want to excel academically and you should let them go for that challenge, but at the same time, you shouldn’t let your neighborhood schools fail,” Vences said.

New funding formula stabilizes shrinking schools

When Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration announced the new school funding formula in late March, they said it would be more equitable and boost neighborhood schools in disinvested communities where enrollment has been declining for years.

That’s been the case at Hirsch Metropolitan High School in Chatham for the past decade.

Maria Owens has served on the Local School Council since 2014. She said, in the past, Hirsch’s budget did not provide enough to staff all the courses required for graduation so the school had to get creative with online classes and partnerships with nearby schools. Now, they’ll have the basics covered, Owens said.

“We’re not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s really not sufficient to do what it is we really need to have done,” Owens said. “If you’re trying to give your child the best possible options, it’s not going to be sufficient for most parents who want to see their child excel.”

Like most schools, about 7% of Hirsch’s budget the past few years was covered by federal COVID relief money, which will run out in September. Owens thinks there’s a “shell game” going on where the district is taking from some schools and giving to others.

Really, Owens said, more money needs to be put into education from the federal and state government and equitably distributed.

“The best resource we have is our young people,” she said, “and if we continue to act as if they don’t matter, we’re going to reap what we sow and we’re not going to like it.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois high school juniors must take the ACT to fulfill graduation requirements starting next spring

2024-05-15T22:51:06+00:00

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Illinois high school juniors will take the ACT instead of the SAT to graduate starting next school year.

The Illinois State Board of Education was updated on the switch during its monthly meeting on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the school board says the ACT was awarded a $53 million contract over the course of six years. The state requires students to take a college entrance exam in order to graduate.

“At the end of the day, it came down to price,” said Stephen Isoye, chairman of the State Board of Education, noting that state law requires assessment vendors to go through a competitive procurement process.

State Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote in a weekly message to school administrators on Tuesday that the ACT “aligns with the Illinois Learning Standards, provides a secure online testing experience for students, reduces administrative burden on districts,” and will give “actionable reporting for educators and families.”

The procurement office evaluated bids from the College Board, which administers the SAT, and ACT Inc. on “technical specifications, commitment to diversity, and price.” Overall, the ACT received more points.

School districts in the state have given high school juniors the SAT for almost a decade. Illinois switched from ACT to the SAT in 2016 and has renewed the contract with the College Board several times.

However, Sanders said the state board will work with ACT to support schools through the transition.

“We will help you prepare teachers for the transition and help you communicate with students and families, so you can continue doing your best work in teaching and learning,” Sanders wrote in his weekly message.

Many colleges and universities stopped requiring entrance exams during the pandemic but are moving back to requiring the tests for admissions.

The state board’s contract with the College Board to administer the SAT for 11th graders and the PSAT for 9th and 10th grades will expire on June 30. Illinois, like all states, is required by federal law to administer accountability assessment to high school students. State law says the exam must be a nationally recognized college entrance exam, leaving the state with two choices: the ACT or SAT.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Organizers of Democratic National Convention in Chicago launch student art competition

2024-05-15T12:00:00+00:00

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Keiana Barrett still has the button she wore at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The event, held in Denver, ended with former President Barack Obama, then a U.S. Senator from Chicago, becoming the party’s nominee.

Barrett, now a senior advisor for the Chicago 2024 Host Committee, is helping launch an art competition for high school students to design buttons, posters, and other art to be displayed during the Democratic National Convention in late August.

“We want to make sure that throughout the convention experience, the delegates, the visitors, our allied groups will have an inescapable opportunity to see the beauty of Chicago through the eyes of our young people and to give them a platform to continue to sharpen their creative pencils,” Barrett said.

Earlier this year, Chicago Public Schools announced it would begin the 2024-25 school year on Aug. 26, slightly later than usual to accommodate traffic and an expected 75,000 additional visitors during the week of the convention, Aug. 19 - 22.

Students and graduating seniors from public and private high schools across the Chicago area have until June 10 at 5 p.m. to submit their designs. Original artwork can include drawings, paintings, photography or other two-dimensional media, but must be created by hand and without the help of artificial intelligence.

One winner will have their design featured on a commemorative button and poster, and will get a $200 Visa gift card and two one-day passes to the convention. Other finalists will be selected to have their art displayed at the convention, which is taking place primarily at the United Center on Chicago’s West Side.

More information about the competition and how to submit is available here.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board candidates gather virtually for first debate

2024-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

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Thirteen people running in Chicago’s first school board elections participated in a virtual debate late Sunday night and answered questions about equity, community voice, and bus transportation for students.

The Zoom session — organized by the group CPS Parents for Buses — marked the first time candidates fielded questions as a group in a public forum for the city’s historic upcoming school board elections.

Chicago voters will elect 10 school board members for the first time this November to govern Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s fourth largest school district, alongside 11 members appointed by the mayor. In 2026, all 21 members will be elected, ending 30 years of mayoral control.

Chicago has been divided into 10 districts for the 2024 election (You can find what district you live in here.) In order to get on the ballot, candidates have until June 24 to collect 1,000 signatures from voters in their districts.

While the ballot is not yet set, those who attended the forum Sunday night were:

Jennifer Custer and Michelle Pierre, who are both running in District 1 covering the city’s northwest side out to O’Hare.
Kate Doyle, Daniel Steven Kleinman, and Maggie Cullerton Hooper, all running in District 2, which covers the far north lakefront, including Rogers Park, Edgewater, and Lincoln Square.
Jason Dones, who is running in District 3, which spans across Humboldt Park, Irving Park, and Belmont Cragin.
Kimberly Brown and Thomas Day, both running in District 4, which covers Lakeview and Lincoln Park, as well as Angel Alvarez, who said he is considering a run in District 4.
Jesus Ayala Jr., running in District 7 which stretches from the University of Illinois Chicago campus to Gage Park.
Lanetta Thomas, who is running in District 9 to represent the far south side from Englewood to Beverly.
Adam Parrott-Sheffer and Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who are both running in District 10 to represent the south lakefront to the Indiana border.

The group that organized the candidate forum has been advocating since the start of the school year around restoring busing for roughly 5,500 general education students who lost transportation service at the start of this school year. Most of those students travel to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

CPS stopped busing general education students as it worked to ensure students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs require transportation were getting it and that their ride times were not longer than an hour.

All 13 candidates answered yes when asked if CPS should be responsible for busing general education students to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

Most of the questions candidates fielded went beyond bus transportation and covered the topics of equity, transparency, budgeting, and parent voice. Unlike many political debates, candidates often agreed with each other’s answers and ideas and traded compliments.

J.B. Mantz, with CPS Parents for Buses, said the group invited the current seven appointed school board members and the board’s chief of staff, but did not hear back.

Five possible Chicago school board candidates did not attend, but filed paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections to raise campaign cash to run for Chicago school board. They include: Ebony DeBerry, District 2; Carlos Rivas, District 3; Andy Davis, District 4; Danielle Wallace, District 6; and Katie Marciniak, District 7.

Another candidate from District 7 — Yesenia López — did not attend the virtual forum and has not filed campaign finance paperwork, but got an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia earlier this year.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how to vote in Chicago’s Local School Council elections

2024-04-24T15:57:00+00:00

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There’s a uniquely Chicago election happening this week: Local School Councils.

Every resident of the city is able to vote — either as a community member or at the school where they work, attend, or have a child enrolled. (More on that below.)

The elections take place at all Chicago Public Schools from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Voting at elementary schools takes place Wednesday, April 10 and at high schools on Thursday, April 11.

Elementary schools also have parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday and kindergarten through eighth grade students are off. High school parent-teacher conferences are Thursday, and there’s no school for high school students.

Originally established in 1988, each district-run school in Chicago Public Schools has a Local School Council, or LSC, traditionally made up of six parents, two teachers, two community members, a student, and the school’s principal.

LSCs can be an important vehicle for parent and community voice and power. Their primary duties are approving school budgets, crafting school improvement plans, and selecting and evaluating the principal. In recent years, they’ve also had the power to decide whether or not to staff police officers at schools — a decision that the school board is now planning to make unilaterally.

More than 17,000 candidates ran in the first LSC elections in 1989, but those numbers have declined to just over 6,000 applicants in 2022. Turnout in 2022 rebounded, reaching its highest level since 2010 and after a slump in 2020 amid the COVID pandemic.

But in many cases, LSCs suffer from persistent vacancies. For several years, LSCs at low-performing schools lost much of their decision-making power.

The looming shift to an elected Chicago Board of Education with 21 members has the potential to overshadow LSCs or reinvigorate them.

Here’s more on how to participate in these hyperlocal elections:

Who can vote?

Anyone in Chicago can vote for up to five candidates at their local schools. In order to vote, you just need to live within a school’s attendance boundary or voting district. Schools without a neighborhood boundary – such as magnet and selective enrollment schools — do have a boundary drawn for the purposes of LSC voting.

There may be multiple schools where you can cast a vote, and you can search your address using this tool to find out where you are eligible to vote. A CPS spokesperson said to double check with the school if you’re unsure.

All students, parents, and guardians of students enrolled at a school may vote at that school, even if it’s outside their neighborhood.

All staff who work more than part time at a school can also vote at the campus where they work. Teachers and staff can vote for up to two candidates for teacher or staff representative.

Students are eligible to vote for their school’s student representative.

How do I vote?

Voting takes place at school buildings all day on Wednesday at elementary schools and Thursday at high schools. If you’re a parent or school staff member, you can cast a ballot while you’re at the school for parent-teacher conferences, which are also taking place on those respective days. Many schools do offer virtual conferences, but LSC elections could serve as an incentive to go in person.

If you’re a community member interested in voting, you can look up where you’re eligible to vote and cast a ballot at any of the schools that show up.

Erykah Nava is running for parent representative at Lloyd Elementary in Belmont-Cragin where her daughter is in third grade. She’s been reminding people to make sure they mark an X on the ballot by the names of the candidates they want to elect. District officials say any other mark will not be counted as a vote and will result in your entire ballot being thrown out.

Two forms of identification are needed. For parents, one must establish you are the parent or legal guardian of a student enrolled.

Why vote for the Local School Council?

Local School Councils were created to empower communities and parents to improve their schools. They “represent bottom up democracy, participatory grassroots democracy,” said Michael Brunson, a community representative at Harlan High School, member of the district’s LSC Advisory Board, and former recording secretary for the teachers union.

“I can’t think of a better introduction to politics than the Local School Council,” Brunson said, adding that a handful of the city’s current aldermen once served on an LSC.

Chicago will soon begin electing people to the Chicago Board of Education, which will expand to 21 members in 2025. But Brunson said “an elected school board is not the answer to all problems.”

Nava said she sees LSCs as complementary to the soon-to-be elected school board.

“I think having the super hyper local accountability and then having more wider citywide accountability, I think those can work very well hand in hand,” Nava said.

Even though some LSCs struggle to fill all their seats, there are competitive races at many schools.

Josh Levin is running for re-election as a community representative at Brentano Elementary, which has more candidates than seats this year. Levin attended Brentano as a child and his dad served on the LSC at Whitney Young Magnet High School in the 1990s.

“It’s always been a funny little governing body,” Levin said. “The ones that work, I think, help contribute to their schools and make a difference.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when Levin’s father served on the LSC at Whitney Young Magnet High School. It was during the early 1990s, not the inaugural LSC in 1989.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Seis cosas que hay que saber sobre las elecciones a la junta de educación de Chicago

2024-04-19T20:44:05+00:00

Read in English.

Algunas de las cuestiones sobre las que se preguntan los habitantes de Chicago en cuanto a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar tienen que ver con el tema del dinero en las campañas, los distritos electorales, y la compensación de los miembros de la junta escolar.

A partir del 15 de enero de 2025, la Junta de Educación de Chicago cambiará de siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde a una junta de 21 miembros con 10 miembros elegidos por votación y 11 nombrados por el alcalde Brandon Johnson. La temporada de campaña está oficialmente en marcha y los candidatos están surgiendo.

El martes fue el primer día en que se pudieron recoger firmas para participar en las elecciones del 5 de noviembre. Hasta el miércoles, seis candidatos han presentado documentos de financiación de campaña ante la Junta Estatal de Elecciones de Illinois.

El mes pasado, Chalkbeat preguntó a sus lectores qué preguntas tenían sobre el cambio de Chicago a una junta escolar elegida por votación. Las contestaremos en los próximos meses, empezando con estas seis que se centran en el proceso electoral.

¿En el pasado, cómo se elegían los miembros de la Junta de Educación de Chicago?

La Junta escolar de Chicago está formada actualmente por siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde, que tiene poder para elegir a quien desee. En el pasado, estos nombramientos eran secretos hasta que el alcalde los anunciaba, a menudo en una rueda o comunicado de prensa. Tanto la ex alcaldesa Lori Lightfoot como el ex alcalde Rahm Emanuel reemplazaron a toda la junta escolar tras ser elegidos.

El estado otorgó al alcalde de Chicago el poder de nombrar a los miembros del consejo escolar en 1995, cuando el entonces alcalde Richard M. Daley estaba en el cargo. Antes de eso, el alcalde seleccionaba a los miembros del consejo escolar a través de un proceso de nominación comunitario.

En las elecciones de noviembre, ¿habrá elecciones en todos los distritos? ¿Por cuánto tiempo serán miembros de la junta?

Sí. Los legisladores de Illinois dividieron a Chicago en 10 distritos para las elecciones de 2024. El 5 de noviembre habitantes de cada distrito elegirán un miembro para representarlos por dos años. Antes del 16 de diciembre de 2024, el alcalde Brandon Johnson nombrará a 10 miembros - uno de cada distrito - y un presidente para servir en términos de dos años.

Así es como funcionará.

Cada distrito también se subdivide en dos regiones. Por ejemplo, el Distrito 1 se compone de dos partes: 1A y una 1B. Si el candidato ganador en el Distrito 1 vive en la zona 1A, el alcalde tiene que nombrar a alguien que viva en la 1B. Si el ganador en el Distrito 2 vive en 2B, el alcalde debe nombrar a alguien que viva en 2A, y así por el estilo.

En 2026, los habitantes de Chicago votarán por candidatos para un mandato de dos o cuatro años. El presidente de la junta escolar será elegido ese mismo año para un mandato de cuatro años, que comenzará el 15 de enero de 2027.

¿Qué cualificaciones se necesitan para ser miembro del consejo escolar de Chicago?

La ley estatal dice que para servir en la junta escolar de CPS, usted debe ser:

ciudadano estadounidense.
votante registrado.
tener al menos 18 años.
ser residente de la ciudad, distrito o subdistrito durante al menos un año inmediatamente antes de la elección o nombramiento.

Además, los miembros de la junta no deben ser delincuentes sexuales registrados ni contratistas o proveedores que trabajen con el distrito. Los candidatos también deben conseguir al menos 1,000 firmas en una petición electoral, entre otras normas.

¿Habrá algún tipo de supervisión con respecto a las finanzas de campaña de los miembros de la junta escolar? ¿Cómo se puede comprobar quién hace donaciones a las campañas?

La Junta de Educación de Chicago exige a sus miembros que presenten una declaración de intereses económicos y recomienda a los miembros de la junta que lleven una lista de los donantes de la campaña. Los interesados pueden comprobar quién financia la campaña de un candidato consultando el sitio web de la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois o la base de datos Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine.

¿Serán compensados los miembros de la junta escolar?

La respuesta corta es no. Los miembros de juntas escolares en Chicago y el resto de Illinois sólo pueden ser reembolsados por gastos relacionados con sus deberes.

Sin embargo, el otoño pasado, los legisladores estatales propusieron un proyecto de ley con el fin de eliminar la prohibición de compensar a los miembros de las juntas escolares. Este proyecto de ley no obligaría al distrito escolar a proporcionar un salario ni establecería unos mínimos sobre cuánto se pagaría a los miembros de la junta escolar. Simplemente permitiría a los consejos locales decidir. Este proyecto de ley está estancado en la comisión de Asignaciones del Senado desde octubre.

¿Recibirá la nueva junta escolar formación de la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois?

No necesariamente. Según el código escolar del estado y una norma de la Junta de Educación de Chicago, todos los miembros de la junta escolar, nombrados o elegidos, deben recibir entrenamiento. Sin embargo, los miembros de la junta escolar no tienen que ser entrenados por la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois.

El estado exige que los miembros de la junta reciban entrenamiento en leyes educativas, leyes laborales, supervisión financiera, y rendición de cuentas, responsabilidad financiera de los miembros de la junta escolar y entrenamientos sobre la importancia de los traumas en los estudiantes y el personal. La Junta de Educación de Chicago dice que los miembros deben ser entrenados en la Ley de Reuniones Abiertas, el Código de Ética, y la ley de Illinois Mandated Reporter, entre otros temas.

¿Aún tiene preguntas? Háganos saber en el siguiente formulario.

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Samantha Smylie es la reportera de educación estatal de Chalkbeat Chicago y cubre los distritos escolares de todo el estado, la legislación, la educación especial y la junta estatal de educación. Póngase en contacto con Samantha en ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea es la jefa de redacción de Chalkbeat Chicago. Póngase en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson visits West Side high school to advocate for more Sustainable Community Schools

2024-04-19T18:15:00+00:00

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Sitting in a circle with dozens of students at Collins Academy on Chicago’s west side, Mayor Brandon Johnson asked a straightforward question: “What do you need?”

Melvin Hines, a soft-spoken junior in purple track pants and a black zip-up jacket, chimed in: “More resources, better opportunities, and more exposure.”

Answers from other students ricocheted around the room like a pinball: a law program, more connections to businesses, a grocery store in their neighborhood.

“Sometimes it feels like the only thing that’s available for us are leftovers, right?” Johnson said, nodding.

The roundtable discussion — organized with the local, state, and national teachers union, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, as well as district leaders — gave the mayor and his allies a moment to advocate for expanding Sustainable Community Schools. The concept provides up to $500,000 a year to a school to partner with a local nonprofit on before- and after-school programming, community outreach, parent engagement, and other wraparound services.

Johnson has promised to grow the number of Sustainable Community Schools from 20 to as many as 200, possibly including Collins. It’s one of the ways he wants to invest more in neighborhood schools.

“This is about making sure that every single child has a library or librarian, wraparound services, class sizes that are manageable,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but unfortunately, because of a long history of systemic racism, disinvestment has left our communities in despair.”

But Chicago Public Schools faces a $391 million shortfall in its $9 billion-plus budget next school year. The district is about to begin contract negotiations with the teachers union and officials recently sent principals individual school budgets using a new formula that provides set staffing levels and extra money based on need. Officials say the total amount distributed to schools is not decreasing, but individual campuses could see cuts.

Stephen Mitchell, the local school council chair at Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, a selective enrollment school that opened in 2018, said their budget is seeing reductions. He said it’s possible the school has to either let staff go or cut other resources.

“I think this is kind of pitting one against the other, which I don’t think is right,” Mitchell said. “I think we need to adequately fund our neighborhood schools and continue to fund selective enrollment schools.”

State lawmakers are moving legislation to block Johnson and his hand-picked school board from making “disproportionate” budget cuts at selective enrollment schools and also extend a moratorium on any school closures until 2027, when a fully elected school board is in place.

The bill passed out of the House late Thursday and is headed to the Senate.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates characterized the bill with a handful of strong words — racist, disengaged, silly, an abomination — because it targets an issue “that does not exist.”

“There was a resolution that said that the Chicago Board of Education was going to finally prioritize Collins High School … and then you get a bill that says you can’t do that,” she said. “Everyone who votes for that bill needs to go into that room and engage with the same group of students that we just engaged with and explain to them why they cannot have more.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson poses with students at Collins Academy after a roundtable discussion about school funding and expanding the number of Sustainable Community Schools in the city.

Johnson, Davis Gates, and Mitchell, the Bronzeville parent, said Springfield should be focused on fully funding all public schools through the evidence-based funding formula approved in 2017.

That formula promised to get all Illinois school districts, including CPS, to “adequate” funding by 2027 by adding $350 million in new money for K-12 education every year. Since that time, the amount of state money allocated to Chicago schools annually has grown by more than a billion dollars. But the formula says CPS is still another $1 billion short of “adequacy.”

During the roundtable discussion with the students at Collins, Johnson and others, including the local alderwoman Monique Scott, whose dad and brother both served on Chicago’s school board, told the students they were advocating for more money from the state.

As the conversation wound to a close, Collins senior Marshall Douthard Jr. raised his hand.

Everyone has been talking about “the resources and the money problems,” Douthard Jr. said. “I would like to know when they come through: How do you plan to fulfill these requests?”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers propose extending Chicago’s moratorium on school closures to 2027

2024-04-17T16:22:44+00:00

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Illinois lawmakers want to extend a moratorium on school closures in Chicago and prevent changes at selective enrollment and magnet schools until 2027, when a fully elected school board is sworn in.

The proposal moving through the legislature first emerged in response to a resolution passed by the Chicago school board in December to develop a new strategic plan that would move away from school choice and invest more in neighborhood schools. That sparked concerns Chicago Public Schools could close or change admissions at dozens of sought-after selective and magnet schools, though board members continue to reiterate they do not intend to close those schools.

The initial bill sought to prevent the district from closing or changing admissions policies at any selective or magnet schools. Now, lawmakers are now also proposing to extend an existing moratorium on any school closures to Feb. 1, 2027. Currently, state law prevents Chicago from closing schools until January 15, 2025, when a partially elected school board is set to be sworn in.

State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Democrat serving neighborhoods on the city’s northern lakefront and sponsor of the bill, said in a committee hearing Tuesday the legislation is meant to delay any big changes until an elected school board is in place.

“These huge decisions, I believe, should be made by an elected school board because we, as a general assembly, voted for an elected school board,” Croke said.

However, Croke said district officials approached her about not extending the moratorium.

“They do have concerns about what their budget is going to look like and whether or not they’re going to start having conversations about some of the schools that they need to have consolidated,” Croke said.

CPS last closed schools in 2018, when it consolidated four high schools in Englewood and built a new state-of-the-art neighborhood high school. Prior to that, the district closed 50 schools all at once in 2013, sparking months of protests and propelled political organizing within the Chicago Teachers Union that eventually helped elect current Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The school district has lost roughly 80,000 students in the past decade, and many schools once again struggle with low enrollment. For example, one high school on the West Side has just 33 students enrolled. Still, enrollment stabilized this school year and is climbing as new immigrant students enroll.

During a committee hearing Tuesday, State Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., who represents neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side, said the district does need to provide more support to neighborhood schools to make them more attractive to families.

“Parents are crying because they can’t get their kid into a selective enrollment school,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of schools where people don’t want to send their kids. That means we got to fix those schools. The focus has to be on neighborhood schools.”

Evans added that CPS has “serious issues” with race and class that need to be addressed, noting that he hears from well-resourced Black and white constituents who won’t send their children to neighborhood public high schools in his ward.

Many of Chicago’s most sought-after selective schools are more diverse than the rest of the school district, but also are disproportionately less low-income and more white and Asian American than the rest of CPS.

“I think the new leadership – under the mayor, the new board – they want to do something different and I think it’s making people uncomfortable,” Evans said.

Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi said there is no plan or intent to close or change selective schools, but rather an attempt to fix inequities across the district.

“I am committed to working with everyone here on whether it’s budget, whether it’s selective enrollment and all the ways we can strengthen our school types,” Shi said.

Selective enrollment and magnet schools used to admit students based on race when Chicago was under a federal desegregation consent decree. That changed after a 2006 Supreme Court ruling curtailed the use of race as a factor in high school admissions. Now students are admitted based on the socioeconomic status of their home neighborhood.

Shi noted that since then, some of the district’s top high schools, such as Walter Payton, have become less Black and Latino and less low-income.

“Our Latine student population in CPS is 47%. That is no nowhere close to where our selective enrollments are and it’s even worse for our low-income students,” Shi said.

In 2022, there were discussions about changing selective enrollment admissions, but those mostly did not materialize. CPS did shorten the length of the High School Admissions Test from more than three hours to one hour and now tests all eighth graders during the school day in order to make it accessible to all students.

Croke did adjust some language in the bill since she introduced it, including that selective schools can’t see their budgets “disproportionately” decreased compared to other schools.

CPS schools got their preliminary budgets last week. District officials said the total amount of funding dedicated to all schools won’t be cut, but individual campuses could see fluctuations up or down.

Next school year, the district is doing away with student-based budgeting and switching to a formula that allocates set staffing levels and provides additional money based on need.

CPS has not publicly shared all schools’ preliminary budgets and a spokesperson did not provide information about how many selective schools are seeing changes to their budgets next year.

Shi said during a committee hearing in Springfield that 22 of 36 selective schools will maintain funding or see an increase next school year.

Stephen Mitchell, the Local School Council chair at Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, said their budget appears to be reduced, even though it’s difficult to compare year to year numbers.

“You hear CPS say‚ ’Oh, nothing’s gonna change,”' Mitchell said. “But then when we look, we see something different. So it’s definitely making us you know, raise an eyebrow and say, hey, you know what’s going on here? You’re telling us one thing, but it looks like you’re doing something else.”

Chicago school board vice president Elizabeth Todd-Breland said Wednesday morning that the bill looks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

“The small number of selective enrollment schools in the district are well enrolled. They are well resourced and Chicago Public Schools and this board of education will continue to support these schools,” she said.

Todd-Breland said the district is facing a “serious structural deficit” and the board is required to pass a balanced budget annually.

“We are worried about the very real possibility that as an unintended consequence of this bill, we in the out years will be forced to balance our budget on the backs of neighborhood schools that disproportionately serve students with disabilities, black students, Latinx students, students in temporary living situations, and low income students,” she said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools shares student-to-teacher ratios used in new budgeting formula

2024-04-05T15:00:00+00:00

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Elementary schools will get one teacher for every 26 students next year and high schools will get one teacher for every 21 students, according to details about the new budget formula replacing student-based budgeting shared by Chicago Public Schools officials.

Those ratios will decline for higher-needs schools — potentially providing them with additional teachers — and all schools will be staffed with at least 10 classroom teachers for the 2024-25 school year, officials told Local School Council members Thursday night.

The numbers discussed by CPS officials shed additional light on how the switch to a new position-based budget formula that’s partially based on needs will affect schools, teachers, and students. However, the student-to-teacher ratios outlined by officials are not necessarily equivalent to class sizes.

Principals are slated to get detailed school budgets with actual positions and dollar amounts on Monday.

Officials said the total amount of funding that is allocated to schools “will not be cut,” but “individual schools’ funding levels may change.”

The $9.4 billion budget for the current 2023-24 school year categorized $4.8 billion as school-level funding.

CPS plans to use a recently updated Opportunity Index, which was created during the pandemic, to measure a school’s need and distribute resources more equitably. It’s based on how many students with disabilities, English learners, and students from low-income households are enrolled, and the socioeconomics of the surrounding neighborhood, among other factors. Schools with higher scores are considered to have higher needs.

Every CPS school will get a principal, an assistant principal, a clerk, at least one counselor, and at least one part-time school assistant. The number of counselors and assistants will increase at schools with more students or more needs; elementary schools will get an additional counselor for every 600 students, while high schools will get an additional counselor for every 500 students. High schools with more than 300 students will also get an athletic director.

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals will continue to be funded centrally.

Elementary schools will be allocated at least three “holistic” teachers for specialty classes, such as art, physical education, or foreign language. The formula will provide one specialty position for every five core classroom teachers at schools with more students.

“We believe that the daily experience for our students will be joyful, affirming and meet students’ social and emotional needs, and prioritizes historically underserved students,” said CPS Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski.

Principals will still get flexible or discretionary money in addition to the base number of positions, officials said. Elementary schools will get at least $365 per student and high schools will get at least $1,095 per student. More money per student is added based on a school’s Opportunity Index score.

The switch away from budgeting money to schools based on student enrollment to a system that promises minimum staffing based on need and enrollment isn’t the only big fiscal transition coming up for CPS.

Next year’s budget will be the last to benefit from federal COVID money, and officials have said there’s about $300 million remaining for the coming school year. Those relief dollars will be used to help plug the district’s projected budget deficit and will help reduce the shortfall to $391 million, officials have said.

In order to further reduce the budget gap, the district is looking for cuts at the central office level, instead of making cuts to schools to balance the budget, officials said. CPS is also seeking a larger funding increase from the state.

Sitkowski said principals will receive their school budgets next week. Local School Councils will need to vote on them so principals can submit them back to the district’s budget office in early May.

Reema Amin contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar electo y empiezan a surgir candidatos

2024-04-01T17:50:58+00:00

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Las personas interesadas en postularse a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar de Chicago pueden empezar a recolectar firmas para poder estar en la boleta el 26 de marzo.

Los votantes de Chicago acudirán a las urnas el 5 de noviembre para elegir a 10 de los 21 miembros que formarán parte del Consejo de Educación a partir del 15 de enero de 2025. Tras esas elecciones, el alcalde nombrará también a 11 miembros.

La ciudad está distribuida en 10 distritos para estas primeras elecciones y cada uno de ellos estará representado por un miembro elegido y otro designado por el alcalde. El alcalde nombrará también a un presidente del consejo escolar.

Los candidatos deben vivir en Chicago, en el distrito al que piensan postularse, durante al menos un año. Deben ser ciudadanos estadounidenses, estar registrados para votar y no pueden ser delincuentes sexuales de menores. Para figurar en la papeleta, los candidatos tienen que recoger al menos 1,000 y no más de 3,000 firmas válidas de votantes del distrito al que representarán.

Las firmas deben presentarse ante la Junta Electoral de Chicago entre el 17 y el 24 de junio.

Además de las firmas, los candidatos recaudarán fondos para apoyar sus campañas. Una vez que un candidato recauda más de 5,000 dólares, la ley estatal le obliga a presentar documentos de divulgación a la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois. Hasta ahora, cuatro candidatos han hecho eso bajo comités que incluyen sus nombres, mientras otros comités de acción política han sido formados.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer, padre de CPS y ex maestro y director de CPS, sometió documentos de divulgación de su campaña a principios de este mes y lanzó un sitio web para anunciar que él está compitiendo para representar el Distrito 10, que incluye su vecindario de Hyde Park y extiende la mayor parte de la orilla del lago del sur de la ciudad desde I-55 hasta la frontera de Indiana.

Parrott-Sheffer le dijo a Chalkbeat que se lanzó después de no ver a otros lanzarse. Dijo que debido a que los miembros del consejo escolar no serán compensados más allá de los gastos relacionados con el desempeño de su trabajo, los padres y las personas no relacionadas con intereses especiales tendrán más dificultades.

“No creo que los cargos deban ser como lo son en [Los Ángeles], donde es una lucha entre empresas y sindicatos”, dijo Parrott-Sheffer. “Creo que hay mucho que todas esas perspectivas pueden aprender unas de otras, y son realmente valiosas cuando pensamos en todas ellas juntas”.

Parrott-Sheffer, ahora consultor de educación y profesor adjunto, dijo que ser director le dio las habilidades para ser un miembro firme que puede equilibrar las necesidades de los padres, el distrito, los organizadores, los maestros, las organizaciones comunitarias y las empresas, manteniendo a los niños “al frente y en el centro”.

“La política no es lo mío”, dice Parrott-Sheffer. “Me gustan las escuelas, me gusta mejorarlas. Me gusta hacer que funcionen para los niños. Y ésa fue la decisión final”.

Kimberly Brown, madre de CPS, planea postularse en el Distrito 4, que abarca los vecindarios de Lincoln Park, Lakeview y Uptown. Brown es la directora de marketing en una empresa de manufactura global y tiene dos hijos pequeños - uno que asiste a una escuela en Lakeview.

“La realidad es que la mayor parte de los cambios que nos afectan suceden en nuestro propio vecindario, con la política local y, más concretamente, en nuestra escuela local”, dijo a Chalkbeat. “Y si no tienes hijos, las escuelas locales afectan a la seguridad pública. Afectan a las infraestructuras públicas. Afectan a los negocios y a la economía que hace que tus calles sean bonitas. Las escuelas locales construyen economías locales”.

Si es elegida, Brown dijo que espera promover una mayor transparencia y comunicación por parte del distrito. Ese deseo viene después de pasar los últimos ocho meses hablando con los padres de CPS para entender lo que quieren del distrito, que no saben “si la Junta [de Educación] realmente lo está intentando o no”, dijo Brown.

Michelle Pierre también ha presentado la documentación de su campaña el viernes y planea postularse en el Distrito 1, que abarca Portage Park y Jefferson Park, en el noroeste de Chicago, cerca del aeropuerto O’Hare. Pierre comenzó su carrera como profesora en Nueva York, se convirtió en directora en D.C., y pasó a desempeñar funciones de liderazgo de distrito en D.C. y Cleveland. Fue directora de la red de escuelas chárter LEARN de Chicago y ahora trabaja para New Leaders, una organización nacional sin fines de lucro dedicada a la formación de directores y administradores escolares.

“Sólo pienso salir a llamar a las puertas, ir a actos en nuestra comunidad -en Chicago está empezando a hacer calor, lo cual es estupendo- e ir a los sitios donde están los padres”, dijo Pierre.

Pierre ha servido en el Consejo Escolar Local en la escuela de su hija en edad de escuela secundaria y dijo que cree en los padres que tienen una voz fuerte y también apoya la elección de escuela.

Carlos Rivas también presentó la documentación de su campaña el lunes y tiene previsto postularse en el Distrito 3, que representa a los vecindarios del lado noroeste de Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa y parte de Belmont Cragin. Ha sido consejero universitario y gestor de apoyo a ex-alumnos en la Red Noble de escuelas charter y ahora es jefe de asuntos públicos de la Oficina Civil de Rendición de Cuentas de la Policía de Chicago.

Los comités políticos centrados en la educación podrían desempeñar un papel importante

Tanto el Sindicato de Maestros de Chicago como la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois tienen comités políticos activos que han apoyado a candidatos locales para el Concejo Municipal de Chicago y la legislatura de Illinois en la última década.

A partir del 31 de diciembre de 2023, los fondos políticos del grupo charter tenían un colectivo de 1.8 millones de dólares y los dos PAC del sindicato de maestros tenían poco más de 200,000 dólares en sus cuentas.

Andrew Broy, presidente de la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois, dijo que su organización planea reunirse con los candidatos a la junta escolar y determinar a quién apoyar durante el verano después de que los candidatos hayan presentado firmas para entrar en la boleta electoral. Expresó su preocupación por el hecho de que los legisladores estatales hayan aumentado el requisito de firmas de 250 a 1,000 en la legislación anterior. En comparación, los concejales de Chicago deben obtener 473 firmas válidas para poder presentarse a las elecciones.

“Dado que los desafíos en las peticiones son una característica de la política de Chicago, se necesita tener más de 1.000 para ser realmente competitivos”, dijo Broy. “Creo que probablemente se trata de una especie de barrera de acceso a las urnas puesta a última hora en Springfield”.

Dos nombres conocidos en el panorama de la educación de Chicago - el ex candidato a la alcaldía y ex CEO de CPS Paul Vallas y el ex líder de las escuelas charter Juan Rangel - recientemente presentaron documentos para formar un comité de acción política llamado Urban Center PAC.

Rangel dijo que el PAC podría apoyar a los candidatos a la junta escolar de Chicago, pero no es el único objetivo del grupo. Recientemente lanzó una organización sin fines de lucro del mismo nombre, The Urban Center, que se centra más ampliamente en la organización comunitaria en torno a puntos de vista políticos más centristas. “Acceso a escuelas de alta calidad” figura en el sitio web de la organización como algo que el grupo defiende, lo que incluye que “los padres puedan elegir la escuela -pública o privada- que mejor se adapte a las necesidades de sus hijos”. Rangel trabajó recientemente para Empower Illinois, una de las principales organizaciones estatales de concesión de becas dentro del programa de becas con desgravación fiscal Invest in Kids, que está llegando a su fin.

“Queremos ser un recurso para los candidatos que quieran presentarse a cargos públicos y eso incluiría para el consejo escolar”, dijo Vallas. Añadió que no tiene previsto presentarse al consejo escolar de Chicago y que espera que los futuros miembros del consejo se centren en “capacitar a la comunidad para que participe en la transformación de sus escuelas locales.”

Reema Amin colaboró en la redacción.

Becky Vevea es jefa de la oficina de Chalkbeat Chicago. Puede ponerse en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Should Chicago school board members be paid? Some advocates hope state lawmakers say yes.

2024-04-01T10:00:00+00:00

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Education advocates are renewing a push to change Illinois law to allow Chicago school board members to be paid — with the hope that would encourage teachers and parents from low-income households to represent Chicago Public Schools’ diverse student body.

State law currently does not allow school board members to be paid, though they can be reimbursed for expenses related to the job. But a bill filed in the state senate last fall would allow Chicago Board of Education members to be paid.

Chicago’s first school board elections take place this November, with a new half-elected, half-appointed 21-member board taking office January 2025. Candidates are already emerging now that they can collect signatures to get on the ballot.

Educators for Excellence, a nonprofit that advocates for teacher voice in policy and decision making, held an event earlier this month to rally support for paying Chicago school board members.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence, noted that because state law prohibits employees of Chicago Public Schools from sitting on the elected school board, teachers could run for a seat, but would have to quit their job in order to serve. Educators for Excellence has penned an open letter asking the Chicago Teachers Union to publicly support paying Chicago school board members.

The Chicago Teachers Union has yet to comment on whether it will support a measure for compensation.

Corinne Lydon, a middle school teacher in the city’s Austin neighborhood and a CPS parent who switched careers later in life, spoke at the Educators for Excellence event and said there’s no way she could have served on the school board when her children were younger and she worked in the restaurant and bar industry.

“As a low-income single mother who was struggling to make ends meet, I was always working three, four jobs,” Lydon said. “You desperately want to do something, but you can’t afford to represent your own child.”

Being a CPS board member requires between 25-30 hours of work per month, according to the board’s website, and involves attending public meetings, briefings with district officials, visiting schools, and reading hundreds of pages of documents every month.

“The elected school board role is not a small job,” Demma said. “You’re managing a $9.8 billion budget. That’s a huge amount of money.”

State Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored legislation creating an elected school board in Chicago, said negotiations are underway for compensating board members, but he’s not hopeful that legislation will be passed this year.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a $391 million deficit next school year as federal COVID recovery money runs out. Those who argue against paying Chicago’s 21 future school board members say it’s not the time to add additional costs.

In Colorado, which experienced a similar debate a few years ago over whether serving on a school board is a job or a civic duty, opponents argued the state’s underfunded schools should not be spending even small amounts on paying school board members. Ultimately, Colorado lawmakers voted to allow — but not require — school board members to be compensated and last year, Denver’s elected school board voted to pay newly-elected, incoming members up to $33,000 annually.

School boards under mayoral control in New York City and Philadelphia do not pay their members. In Los Angeles, elected school board members make up to $125,000.

In Indiana, school board members can receive a stipend of up to $2,000 per year, in addition to meeting stipends that max out at $112. In some states, such as Florida and Nevada, board members are paid a salary.

In 2021, when lawmakers first approved an elected school board for Chicago, Martwick pushed to allow school board members to be paid. But he said he ultimately took out the provision to get support for the legislation from some suburban and rural legislators.

Kara Kienzler, a spokesperson for the Illinois Association of Schools Boards — an organization that trains school board members across the state — said its members have not adopted a stance on compensation for board members.

There’s not much research on whether paying school board members impacts how schools operate. But a study out of Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill looked at whether state legislatures with higher salaries attracted more economically diverse representatives. The researchers found states with higher salaries actually had fewer working-class people serving.

Still, some research does show when politicians are paid more, they are more efficient and pay closer attention to the concerns of the people they represent. Research also shows that having diverse school boards does matter for how schools operate.

Lorena Lopez, a CPS parent, local school council member, and advocate with Kids First Chicago, said compensating board members could help ensure diversity on the CPS board, which would ultimately mean a “more equitable, innovative, and progressive school district.”

A recent Kids First Chicago poll found that more than 70% of Chicago voters believe elected school board members should receive a stipend or salary for serving on the board.

Illinois Families For Public Schools has expressed support for paying board members because it would give parents and community members a “meaningful, realistic ability to run and serve,” which was the intent of “a generation of community organizing” that made the looming school board elections a reality.

Samantha Smylie contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Six things to know about Chicago’s board of education election

2024-03-27T23:10:38+00:00

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Campaign money, voting districts, and school board member compensation are some of the issues Chicagoans have questions about as the city’s first school board elections loom.

Starting Jan. 15, 2025, Chicago’s Board of Education will go from seven members appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board with 10 elected members and 11 appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Campaign season is officially underway and candidates are surfacing.

Tuesday was the first day people could collect signatures to get on the ballot for the Nov. 5 election. As of Wednesday, six candidates have filed campaign finance paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Last month, Chalkbeat asked readers what questions they had about Chicago’s shift to an elected school board. We got dozens of responses. We’ll be answering them over the coming months, starting with these six focused on the electoral process.

How were Chicago Board of Education members chosen in the past?

Chicago’s school board is currently made up of seven members appointed by the mayor, who has unilateral power to pick anyone to serve. In the past, those appointments have been secret until the mayor announced them, often in a press conference or press release. Both former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel replaced the entire school board after being elected.

The state gave Chicago’s mayor the power to appoint school board members in 1995, when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was in office. Prior to that, the mayor would select school board members through a community nominating process.

During November’s elections, will all districts be up for election? How long will board members serve?

Yes. Illinois lawmakers divided Chicago into 10 districts for the 2024 election. On Nov. 5, residents of each district will elect a school board member to represent them for two years. On or before Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson will appoint 10 school board members — one from each district — and a board president to serve two-year terms.

Here’s how it will work.

Each district is also subdivided into two regions. For example, District 1 is made up of two parts: 1A and a 1B. If the winning candidate in District 1 lives in 1A, the mayor has to appoint someone who lives in 1B. If the winner in District 2 lives in 2B, the mayor must appoint someone who lives in 2A, and so on.

In 2026, Chicagoans will vote for candidates in all 20 subdistricts to serve either a two-year or four-year term. The school board president will be elected that same year citywide to a four-year term, which will start on Jan. 15, 2027.

What qualifications does someone need to be a Chicago school board member?

State law says that to serve on the CPS school board, you must be:

a U.S. citizen.
a registered voter.
at least 18 years old.
a resident of the city, district, or subdistrict for at least one year immediately before election or appointment.

In addition, board members must not be registered sex offenders or contractors or vendors working with the district. Candidates must also get at least 1,000 signatures on an election petition, among other rules.

Will there be any oversight into school board members’ campaign finances? How can citizens check who is donating to campaigns?

The Chicago Board of Education requires its members to file a statement of economic interests and recommends that board members keep a list of campaign donors. Citizens can check who is financing a candidate’s campaign by searching the Illinois State Board of Elections website or Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine Database.

Will school board members be compensated?

The short answer is no. Currently, school board members in Chicago and the rest of Illinois can be reimbursed for expenses related to their duties.

However, last fall, state lawmakers proposed a bill to lift a ban on compensation for school board members from being compensated. This bill would not mandate the school district to provide a salary or set minimums for how much school board members would be paid. It would simply allow local boards to decide. This bill has been stuck in the Senate’s Assignments committee since October.

Will Chicago’s elected school board be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards?

Not necessarily. According to the state’s school code and a Chicago Board of Education rule, all school board members, appointed or elected, must be trained. However, school board members do not have to be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards.

The state requires board members to be trained in education law, labor law, financial oversight and accountability, financial responsibility of school board members, and trauma-informed practices for students and staff. Chicago’s Board of Education says that members must be trained in the Opening Meetings Act, the Code of Ethics, and the Illinois Mandated Reporter law, among other topics.

Still have questions? Let us know in the form below.

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Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago is getting an elected school board and candidates are starting to emerge

2024-03-26T10:00:00+00:00

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Today is the first day people can collect signatures to get on the ballot for Chicago’s first school board elections.

Chicago voters will head to the polls on Nov. 5 to choose 10 of 21 members to serve on the Board of Education beginning Jan. 15, 2025. After those elections, the mayor will also appoint 11 members.

The city is divided into 10 districts for these first elections and each will be represented by one elected member and one member appointed by the mayor. The mayor will also appoint a school board president.

Candidates must live in Chicago in the district they plan to run for at least one year. They must be a U.S. citizen, registered to vote, and cannot be a child sex offender. In order to get on the ballot, candidates have to collect at least 1,000 and no more than 3,000 valid signatures from voters in the district they’ll represent.

Signatures must be filed with the Chicago Board of Elections between June 17 and June 24.

In addition to signatures, candidates will be fundraising to support their campaigns. Once a candidate fundraises more than $5,000, state law requires them to file disclosure paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections. So far, four candidates have done that under committees that include their names, while other political action committees have been formed.

CPS parent and former CPS teacher and principal Adam Parrott-Sheffer filed campaign disclosure paperwork earlier this month and launched a website to announce he is running to represent District 10, which includes his Hyde Park neighborhood and stretches most of the city’s south lakefront from I-55 to the Indiana border.

Parrott-Sheffer told Chalkbeat he jumped in the race after not seeing others throw their hat in the ring. He said because school board members will not be compensated beyond expenses related to doing the job, parents and people not connected to special interests will have a harder time.

“I don’t think that the seats should be like they are in [Los Angeles]LA, where it’s a fight between business and charter and unions,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I think that there’s a lot that all those perspectives can learn from each other, and are really valuable when we’re thinking about all of them together.”

Parrott-Sheffer, now an education consultant and adjunct professor, said being a principal gave him the skills to be a strong school board member who can balance the needs of parents, the district, organizers, teachers, community organizations, and businesses while keeping kids “front and center.”

“Politics is not my thing,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I like schools, I like making schools better. I like making them work for kids. And so that kind of was the ultimate decision.”

CPS parent Kimberly Brown is planning to run in District 4, which encompasses the north lakefront neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and Uptown. Brown is the chief marketing officer at a global manufacturing company and has two small children – one who attends a neighborhood school in Lakeview.

“The reality is the most change that affects you happens in your backyard with your local politics and most specifically your local school,” she told Chalkbeat. “And if you don’t have kids, local schools affect your public safety. They affect your public infrastructure. They affect the businesses and the economy that makes your streets wonderful. Local schools build local economies.”

If elected, Brown said she’s hoping to promote more transparency and communication from the district. That desire comes after spending the past eight months talking to CPS parents to understand what they want from the district, who don’t know “if the Board [of Education] is really trying or not,” Brown said.

Michelle Pierre also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Friday and plans to run in District 1, which covers neighborhoods, including Portage Park and Jefferson Park, on the northwest edge of Chicago near O’Hare airport. Pierre started her career as a teacher in New York, became a principal in D.C., and moved into district leadership roles in D.C. and Cleveland. She’s the former chief of schools for the LEARN Charter School Network in Chicago and now works for New Leaders, a national nonprofit focused on training principals and school administrators.

“I just plan to be out knocking on doors, going to events in our community — It’s starting to warm up in Chicago, which is great — and going to places where parents are,” Pierre said.

Pierre has served on the Local School Council at her high-school aged daughter’s school and said she believes in parents having a strong voice and also supports school choice.

Carlos Rivas also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Monday and is planning to run in District 3, representing the north west side neighborhoods of Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and part of Belmont Cragin. He’s a former college counselor and alumni support manager at the Noble Network of Charter Schools and now serves a public affairs chief for Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Education-focused political committees could play a role

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools have active political committees that have supported local candidates for Chicago City Council and the Illinois legislature in the past decade. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the charter group’s political funds had a collective $1.8 million and the teachers union’s two PACs had just over $200,000 in their accounts.

Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said his organization plans to meet with school board candidates and determine who to support over the summer after candidates have filed signatures to get on the ballot. He raised concerns about state lawmakers increasing the signature requirement to 1,000 from 250 under previous legislation. For comparison, Chicago aldermen must get 473 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

“Given that petition challenges are a feature of Chicago politics, you need to have more than 1,000 to actually be competitive,” Broy said. “I think that was probably a ballot access barrier of sorts put in place at the 11th hour in Springfield.”

Two familiar names in Chicago’s education landscape — former mayoral candidate and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas and former charter school leader Juan Rangel — recently filed paperwork to form a political action committee called Urban Center PAC.

Rangel said the PAC could possibly support Chicago school board candidates, but it’s not the group’s sole focus. He recently launched a nonprofit of the same name, The Urban Center, that more broadly focused on community organizing around more centrist political views. “Access to High-Quality Schools” is listed on the organization’s website as something the group stands for, which includes “parents to choose a school — public or private — that best fits the needs of their children.” Rangel recently worked for Empower Illinois, one of the state’s top scholarship-granting organizations under the tax-credit scholarship program Invest in Kids, which is sunsetting.

“We want to be a resource for candidates who want to run for public office and that would include for school board,” Vallas said. He added that he is not planning to run for Chicago school board and hopes future board members will focus on “empowering the community to have input into the transformation of their local schools.”

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Election results show Chicago voters reject ballot measure aimed at helping homeless

2024-03-22T15:15:21+00:00

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A city ballot measure aimed at reducing homelessness and increasing affordable housing failed Tuesday, a setback for efforts to serve the growing number of Chicago Public Schools students facing housing instability.

The “Bring Chicago Home” initiative was voted down 54 percent to 46 percent, according to unofficial results released Thursday.

The measure backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former school teacher and union organizer, would have raised a one-time tax on real estate transfers for purchases over $1 million.

Chalkbeat reported last week that 21,855 students currently enrolled at CPS were considered Students in Temporary Living Situations, or STLS. That’s up from 14,317 such students last February. The district’s homeless student population has been around 5% for the past decade, which is twice the national average.

While the vast majority of those students are classified as “doubled up,” living with another family temporarily, the number of students living in shelters or out of a car, park, or other public place more than tripled in the last year — from about 2,000 last February to nearly 8,000 this February.

Backers of the ballot initiative estimated the increase could have generated roughly $100 million annually for the city to fight homelessness.

Chicago Public Schools would not have directly received any of the increased revenue, but advocates and the mayor said the money could fund homelessness prevention, affordable housing, and other city-run housing assistance programs that would benefit students and their families.

Supporters of the initiative called the results disappointing and vowed to “keep fighting for housing justice.” Opponents said they also want to make Chicago a better place to live and support solutions that boost the “supply of naturally occurring affordable housing.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago student homelessness is rising. Could a tax change backed by the mayor help fix that?

2024-03-14T19:55:36+00:00

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Derrianna Ford lived with her grandmother on Chicago’s north side growing up, but when the older woman lost her home, Ford and her siblings had to relocate to the south side for about a year.

They moved from the city’s West Ridge neighborhood to the South Side during her freshman year at Mather High School. Ford said she had to wake up at 4 a.m., take a bus to the southernmost stop on Chicago’s Red Line, ride almost the entire 26-mile route north, and then get on another bus in order to get to school by 8 a.m.

During the week, she would occasionally stay with a friend closer to school to avoid the long commute.

“This is so normal to us,” Ford said. “You don’t see yourself as struggling because you’re used to it. You don’t see it as homelessness.”

These days, Ford, now 20, is searching for a place of her own. But she has another goal. She’s knocking on doors to help pass a ballot referendum in Chicago on March 19 that advocates say could put a real dent in reducing homelessness.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer and middle school teacher, promised in his education platform and transition plan to house the city’s homeless, with a focus on more than 20,000 students in Chicago Public Schools currently facing housing instability. In the last year, the number of CPS students in unstable housing situations — which can disrupt or derail students’ academic progress — has risen by roughly 50%.

To address that, Johnson and his allies are pushing to increase a real estate transfer tax on sales of property sales worth more than $1 million to generate an estimated $100 million annually to fund services for the homeless and affordable housing.

Some progressive groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union which helped propel Johnson to office, have been advocating to increase the city’s real estate transfer tax to help the homeless since Rahm Emanuel was mayor. The effort — dubbed Bring Chicago Home — is something Johnson emphasized often on the campaign trail last year.

“The people of Chicago voted for me because I said that I’m going to address homelessness,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Bring Chicago Home is an opportunity to address homelessness.”

A document obtained by Chalkbeat outlining Johnson’s first-term goals suggested his administration hopes to help house 10,000 students and their families.

But opponents of the initiative challenged the ballot question’s legality in the courts, even asking the Illinois Supreme Court to block the measure, which the court declined to do Wednesday. Still, some groups, including the nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation, are concerned the mayor and City Council have not been specific enough about how the money would be used.

“This is the mayor’s signature item,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly, who represents much of downtown and opposes the referendum because it lacks specifics and could have unintended consequences on rental property and commercial real estate. “He’s put a lot of political capital into it and right now the Chicago electorate gets to give him a report card. I think this is as much about the policy as it is about a commentary on his agenda.”

Chicago Public Schools would not directly get any of the estimated $100 million in revenue that a change to the real estate transfer tax would generate. CPS officials did not comment on the ballot initiative, but said the district will continue to support homeless students and protect their rights under federal law.

More Chicago Public Schools students identified as homeless

The number of students in temporary living situations enrolled at Chicago Public Schools has hovered around 5% for at least the last decade — twice the national average. Recent data indicates the problem is getting more acute as the numbers climb.

District data shared with Chalkbeat from the end of February indicated 21,855 students currently enrolled at CPS were considered Students in Temporary Living Situations, or STLS. That’s up from more than 14,317 such students last February. CPS data includes any student categorized this way at any time during the school year, and once a student is marked as such, they keep that status for the remainder of the year.

The vast majority — around 16,000 students — are classified as “doubled up,” meaning they are living with another family temporarily, like Ford was while a freshman in high school.

But the number of CPS students listed as living in a shelter, hotel or motel, or living out of a car, park, or other public place more than tripled in the last year — from about 2,000 last February to nearly 8,000 as of Feb. 29. The jump has coincided with the ongoing influx of migrants arriving from the southern border.

Chicago grappled with students facing homelessness or housing instability long before the COVID pandemic and recent wave of migrants. A 2021 study from the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab analyzed nine years of district data between 2009 and 2018 and found that, over the course of their K-12 experience, about 13% of CPS students experienced housing instability.

The report noted that research shows homeless students come to school less often, have lower academic achievement, and are more likely to drop out. At the same time, school districts like CPS “have limited capacity to connect students to housing supports.”

Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, the daughter of a longtime housing activist, saw this “heartbreaking” reality up close during the more than two decades she spent as a classroom teacher, including working alongside Johnson at a school serving the Cabrini Green public housing complex.

One time, she said, a single mom of one of her students had no place to stay, so Stamps and the school’s security guard “called and called and called around” to help them find housing.

Stamps, who now also works for the Chicago Teachers Union, said past administrations have emphasized academic achievement and improving test scores without prioritizing the conditions students faced that affected those scores: “There is no [academic] progress … if a baby doesn’t know where they’re going to sleep at night, if they don’t know where they’re going to eat.”.

Federal law requires school districts to support students facing housing insecurity. Some districts also get money through competitive grants to support homeless students. Students identified as such are entitled to transportation, the right to enroll without a permanent address, and the right to continue attending the same school through the end of the academic year even if they move.

But few districts have been directly involved in finding families housing.

With the help of federal COVID money, some schools across the country have added staff to help families with housing, others have provided emergency hotel stays and even propped up shelters inside schools.

Alyssa Phillips, an education attorney with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which has been advocating for Bring Chicago Home for several years, said the city needs a consistent revenue stream to tackle homelessness, along with input about what works from people experiencing homelessness and service providers.

“I think the most important thing is having that continuous funding,” Phillips said.

Federal COVID money for homeless set to expire

During the COVID pandemic, housing instability rose across the country. Homeless students were disconnected from schools and districts struggled to identify how many students were entitled to additional support and resources.

Chicago Public Schools received about $10.1 million in federal pandemic aid to serve homeless students, as part of roughly $800 million distributed nationally to states and school districts.

The city and school district created a program to give $500 stipends to families in Students in Temporary Living Situations, using money from the initial 2020 wave of federal COVID relief dollars. It’s not clear how many families received the money, and district officials deferred to the city, which administered the program.

Ald. Maria Hadden, who represents Chicago’s north lakefront and is a supporter of the Bring Chicago Home initiative, said the city also used some of its share of federal COVID dollars to provide rental assistance to thousands of people. She recounted helping one family in her ward with a CPS student with epilepsy avoid an eviction because they were able to get six months of rental assistance.

But soon, federal COVID money is drying up. Expenditure data obtained by Chalkbeat shows most of the school district’s share of federal COVID money has been spent, primarily for school staff.

If the ballot initiative to raise the real estate transfer tax on property over a $1 million is approved, Hadden said, the city could revive, continue, or expand pandemic-era programs, like rental and mortgage assistance and rapid rehousing efforts for people living in tent encampments.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is greeted by supporters after he spoke while dozens rally for the Bring Chicago Home resolution outside the Thompson Center before a City Council meeting on Nov. 7, 2023.

Political ‘slush fund’ or nimble revenue stream?

Ford and others continue to knock on doors to garner support from voters who will ultimately decide whether Chicago should have a graduated real estate transfer tax.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Teachers Union is gearing up for another round of contract negotiations with a mayor more amenable to their views than his two predecessors. During contract negotiations in 2019, the union pushed to include provisions around affordable housing. But then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the union contract was “not the appropriate place for the City to legislate its affordable housing policy.”

Leaked contract proposals for upcoming contract talks include two focused on affordable housing: mortgage and rental assistance for teachers, and a vocational program that would have students build affordable housing.

Whatever happens with the teachers union contract, Johnson is forging ahead with a plan to borrow $1.25 billion dollars to fund affordable housing and other development. On Wednesday, the mayor said he’ll soon name a new chief homelessness officer. And he directed the city’s Department of Family Support Services to work with CPS to match the district’s most vulnerable students with housing. The two agencies meet weekly, a spokesperson confirmed.

If voters approve the ballot initiative, the City Council would still need to pass an ordinance spelling out how to appropriate the revenue.

Reilly, the downtown alderman, said that “anyone who has a soul” cares about the homeless and wants to find solutions. But he worries that if the tax is approved, the revenue could quickly turn into a “slush fund” for political allies of whomever is mayor.

“There’s no guarantee that any of this money lands with helping the homeless people,” Reilly said. “It’s just going to be a big stack of money that a whole lot of people are gonna wanna fight over.”

Emma Tai, campaign director for the Bring Chicago Home Ballot Initiative, said the revenue would be legally dedicated to fund affordable housing and services for the homeless. A draft ordinance for implementing the change to the transfer tax would create a 15-member panel appointed by the mayor and approved by City Council to make recommendations annually based on the “most pressing needs.”

“The idea is for the funds to be nimble,” Tai said, noting that during the height of the pandemic, there was a critical need to provide housing to domestic violence victims, whereas now that pandemic-era eviction moratoriums have ended, there’s a need for emergency rental assistance. The idea is that the panel’s recommendations would take such shifts into account.

For young people like Derrianna Ford, who experienced housing insecurity as a student and is searching for an affordable apartment now, the issue boils down to one thing: “stability.”

This story has been updated to more accurately characterize Tai’s comments about how housing needs have shifted in Chicago.

Chalkbeat reporter Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois Senate approves plan for how Chicago would elect 10 of 21 school board members in 2024

2024-03-06T00:12:50+00:00

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Chicago voters would elect – for the first time – 10 school board members this November and all 21 members in 2026, according to a plan approved by Illinois senators Tuesday.

The vote on Senate Bill 15 firms up the districts that elected school board members would represent ahead of a looming April 1 deadline to draw a map lawmakers pushed back last spring. It also comes ahead of March 26, when candidates can begin circulating petitions to get on the Nov. 5 ballot. They would need to collect at least 1,000 but not more than 3,000 signatures by June 24 in order to run.

The bill now goes to the House, which must approve the measure before it can head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.

The Senate vote appears to resolve a disagreement between lawmakers that emerged last year over whether Chicago should go straight to electing all 21 school board members and skip having a hybrid school board. The original law passed in 2021 laid out a process to have 10 elected members and 11 appointed by the mayor.

Senate President Don Harmon said during the hearing that he filed an amendment to the bill that passed Tuesday because Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote a letter to him at the end of January requesting to stick with a hybrid school board.

“There has been much passion and frustration surrounding this effort, not for days or weeks or months, but for years and decades,” said Harmon during the Senate’s floor debate on Tuesday afternoon. “What we’re about to do today is one of the most consequential things we will do in our legislative careers. We are making a new democratic form of government from whole cloth and getting it across the finish line.”

Chicago’s Board of Education has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. In 2021, the state legislature passed a law paving the way for a 21-member elected school board. The school board votes on the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determines how schools are measured, authorizes contracts with vendors to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

Senate majority leader Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and western suburbs, said it is time to stop “playing politics” and represent the children who are attending Chicago Public Schools.

“We are here now, punting the ball back and forth from chamber to chamber – if the mayor wants it, if [Chicago Teachers Union] wants it — who cares?” Lightford said. “When are we willing to put politics aside and educate our children? I would love to see that happen before I retire.”

The district map approved by the Senate on Tuesday mirrors a third draft released during the veto session in November, but groups the 20 districts into pairs to create 10 districts for this year’s elections. That aligns with what the House passed last fall which was put forward by Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats who worked on drawing school board districts.

There are three majority Black districts, three majority Latino districts, two majority white districts, and two districts with no majority, but a white plurality.

By creating 10 districts for 2024 and dividing them into 20 subdistricts in 2026, Senate Bill 15 would allow everyone in the city to vote for a school board member this November.

During the 2024 elections, if the winning candidate in District 1 lives in subdistrict 1a, the mayor would appoint someone who lives in 1b. In 2026, all 20 school board members would be elected from subdistricts to either a two-year or four-year term and the school board president would be elected citywide to a four-year term beginning Jan. 15, 2027.

Chicagoans who testified at multiple hearings last year raised concerns about the school board representing the students it will eventually serve. The district is 46% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. However, electoral districts must represent all voters. Chicago’s overall population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the demographics of the schools within the boundaries of each of the 10 districts indicates that in four districts, the racial majority of the population does not match the student demographics of the schools in that district.

There is also an imbalance of the number of CPS schools within each district. One district, which stretches from West Town to Austin, has 101 public schools in it, while the north lakefront district that includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Uptown, has 34 CPS schools.

Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, said in a statement it hopes Mayor Johnson will “leverage his appointments to ensure the elected school board reflects our student body’s diversity in 2025.”

Under the bill now headed to the House, the 10 districts would be divided for the 2026 elections, creating 20 districts, seven majority Black, six majority Latino, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

During the Senate’s executive committee hearing earlier on Tuesday, a large number of people were critical of Senate Bill 15. Some want to see a fully elected school board now, while others found the language in the bill confusing.

“Back in November, everybody could vote for the candidate of their choice. Anybody who wanted to run could run and it didn’t matter where they lived or who their neighbor was,” said Valerie Leonard, with Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which also pushed for a committee that focuses on Black student achievement at Chicago Public Schools.

Leonard said the move to an elected school board under this plan is confusing. “If you ask 30 people what this bill is today, I guarantee you’re gonna get 30 different answers,” Leonard said. “That’s not good public policy.”

Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board law that passed in 2021, said on the Senate floor Wednesday that bill also required compromise.

“That’s what the Senate passed. That’s what the House passed. That’s what the governor signed,” said Martwick. “Is it perfect? No. But when you figure out what the perfect form of democracy is, would you let me know?”

Martwick worked with some grassroots organizers and the CTU for several years to make an elected school board a reality in Chicago.

“People volunteered and worked for years and years before I got there,” he said. “We get the privilege of making their dreams of democracy become a reality.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.