Chalkbeat

Chicago school board delays proposal to steer more dollars to Chicago Arts High School

2026-08-27T22:12:40+00:00

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The Chicago school board for the second time postponed a controversial proposal to steer an estimated $5.5 million to Chicago Arts High School, formerly known as ChiArts, a once privately run school the board voted last year to absorb to avert its closure.

The extra money would come on top of $5.7 million already earmarked in the budget passed in July for its transition to a district-run school. School board members who back the proposal say the added money would allow the campus to more fully preserve its conservatory model, in which students receive hours of training from professional artists alongside each day’s academics. But district officials cautioned they would have to dip into funding for some of CPS’s 72 other, generally less intensive arts schools — a move that critics said would be unfair and damaging to other schools.

Supporters on the board said the extra dollars would tide the school over for a year until it cultivates philanthropic backing for its conservatory — a push that curtailing its arts offerings could undermine. Under the proposal, the school would keep more of roughly 70 teaching artists involved with its conservatory last school year.

The push comes after months of vocal lobbying of the board by students, parents, educators, the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents them, and other backers — and at a time of intense fiscal stress for the deficit-plagued district.

“I know this is not the same school people signed up for,” said board member Michilla Blaise. “We need to step up and make sure an extremely successful school continues to be extremely successful.”

Blaise authored the resolution to provide more funding and moved to table it until the board’s Sept. 10 meeting, saying conversations with district officials are ongoing. Blaise’s resolution includes no dollar amount, but the district estimates it would take $5.5 million to provide the additional staff it calls for.

District officials have balked at the proposal. In an internal memo obtained by Chalkbeat, Superintendent Macquline King told board members that CPS had already delivered on its promise to preserve the conservatory model “to the greatest extent practicable.” She noted that other arts high schools received $53,000 on average for their arts programming this year. And even with the backing of a now-dissolved foundation that actively fundraised for the school, its previous model had ultimately proved unsustainable, King wrote.

Chicago Arts High School’s total 2026-27 budget is $14.4 million. With an additional $5.5 million, per-pupil spending at the school would increase to almost $40,000, compared with a district average of about $20,000 — a cost supporters say makes sense for an intensive, specialized program preparing students for arts careers.

Under the district’s existing plan, the school’s nine-hour day was shortened by 50 minutes, to what CPS said was still longer than many comparable schools nationally. The district said it created 20 positions for resident artists, whom the school could eventually share with other area campuses.

At Thursday’s meeting, King said transitioning the school to district management had been a “herculean effort.” The school will now offer eight Advanced Placement classes as well as online courses for about 200 students who are not on track to graduate. Officials said preliminary enrollment this week is down almost 40 students, to about 500, in line with districtwide decreases.

“We needed to create a new school and adjust the model to ensure long-term sustainability and academic rigor,” King said.

In her memo, King had urged board members to weigh their decision in the context of already substantial resources that CPS devoted to absorbing five campuses of the Acero charter network — more than $13 million so far — as well as millions more to deal with fiscal trouble at the now defunct EPIC Academy High School and the ASPIRA charter school network, which closed its campuses in recent years.

In an open letter to the board, Joe Ferguson, the head of the Civic Federation, had urged the board to reject the additional money, arguing that siphoning the funding away from other schools would set a “dangerous” precedent.

“This is the worst kind of Chicago parochialism — favoring one small but vocal group over the needs of the many,” he wrote.

At Thursday’s meeting, board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who is an advocate for more robust arts education across CPS, once again voiced opposition to granting Chicago Arts High School more resources, saying many schools in his South Side district had not received any additional funding for arts programs. He said pushing for more resources for one favored program to the possible detriment of others “borders on corruption,” a comment for which board President Sean Harden censured him.

Blaise said she believes the idea that steering more dollars to Chicago Arts High School would siphon off resources from other campuses is “preposterous.” She noted the school’s students are predominantly Latino and Black and come from across the city.

“The narrative that this is some kind of specialty program for rich white kids is completely false,” she said.

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

Chicago’s first day of school brings excitement and concerns about possible budget cuts

2026-08-24T20:57:10+00:00

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Eleven-year-old Carter Darling was so excited Monday morning that he was awake before his mom and the sun.

By 6:45 a.m., Carter was wearing his backpack and the school uniform he typically hates: a black cardigan with the school’s name embroidered on the upper left corner, a white collared dress shirt, a plaid tie, gray slacks, and black sneakers.

“I feel good,” he said, smiling, before embarking on the two-block walk to his first day of sixth grade at Robert A. Black Magnet Elementary School in the Calumet Heights neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

Carter is one of more than 300,000 Chicago Public Schools students who returned to the classroom Monday. It’s a big year for the nation’s fourth largest school district. Mayoral control is set to formally end in January and be replaced by a fully elected school board that will manage a $10 billion budget, oversee district leadership, and set the vision for the city’s more than 600 public schools.

The school board’s decisions directly affect schools like Carter’s. Last month, the current board approved a budget that assumes CPS will get $150 million more in state funding than Illinois lawmakers allocated in May. The additional money would help reverse summer layoffs, but schools could face midyear cuts if it doesn’t come.

Before Mayor Brandon Johnson rang the first bell Monday at George Leland Elementary School in the Austin neighborhood where he lives, he repeated his push for Illinois to implement a state millionaires tax to fund public education.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson walks Chicago Public School students to their first day of school at George Leland Elementary School on Aug. 24, 2026.

“We’re going into a season where we have to demand more from those who have the ability to give more to actually do more,” Johnson said. “You have politicians that have greater expectations of third graders than they do of themselves.”

Back on the South Side, Carter’s mom, Jaciel Cathey, recounted taking a photo of Carter shaking hands with Johnson last year when he visited his school alongside then-interim CPS CEO Macquline King.

Cathey learned more about the district’s budget situation during one of the district’s family webinars last week but said she still doesn’t know what it will mean for her child’s school.

“Why are we including money in the budget that is not set in stone?” she said. “You’re depending on money that is not there.”

Cathey hopes to use her new role on the school’s Local School Council to help address funding and resource gaps, including securing money to fund a crossing guard for the small but sometimes busy streets around the school.

She and Carter are also trying to remain focused on what they can control.

Carter will probably take an admissions test this fall for sixth graders interested in attending the district’s selective middle school programs, known as Academic Centers.

The family is no stranger to navigating CPS through periods of instability. Cathey grew up in the Woodlawn neighborhood and graduated from CPS schools before becoming a CPS teacher and later changing careers.

When Carter turned 3, Cathey enrolled him in a full-day preschool program at Holy Angels, a Catholic school near her Bronzeville home, with hours that allowed her to work.

Before Carter entered kindergarten, CPS schools saw midyear cuts, then received a historic funding commitment from the state. In 2019, the Chicago Teachers Union went on an 11-day strike. Cathey said this unpredictability made her want to keep him at Holy Angels through eighth grade.

“You knew they would have the staff, you knew they would have the resources,” Cathey said of the private school, which costs about $7,000 annually.

Jaciel Cathey walks her son, Carter, to school on Mon., Aug. 24, 2026 in Chicago, Il.

But Cathey felt Holy Angels focused too heavily on the arts and disciplining students and not enough on reading and math. When it was time for kindergarten, Carter applied and was admitted to Walt Disney Magnet School, a coveted public magnet school on the North Side.

They liked the school. But at the end of first grade, a white child called Carter a racial slur on the playground, Cathey said. According to an incident report reviewed by Chalkbeat, staff planned to hold a “restorative conversation” with the other child. She didn’t feel the school was being responsive enough to her or handling the situation well, so Carter returned to Holy Angels for second grade.

“Let’s put him in CPS, see what happens — well, he gets called the n-word,” Cathey said during an interview last week. “OK, let’s go back to what we know.”

CPS now has a Black Student Success Plan, meant to improve outcomes and the school experience for the city’s Black students. But the Trump administration is investigating CPS in part over the plan, claiming that it discriminates against students who aren’t Black.

By the end of second grade, the Cathey family had moved further south to Pill Hill. Black Magnet was just a five-minute walk from their new home. The state has labeled the close-knit, small school “commendable,” and students last year outpaced their peers across the district and state in math and reading proficiency.

Carter enrolled at Black Magnet in fourth grade and in the two years since, hasn’t looked back. He likes the staff, has made friends, and enjoys learning — especially the “pretty fun” projects in science, he said.

Cathey said Carter will stay at Black Magnet through eighth grade if he doesn’t get into an Academic Center. But she wants him to have “consistency” as he prepares for college, and that means leaving CPS for high school, she said.

“We need for him to get the most support that he can get and the most rigorous education that he can get without, you know, Mr. Johnson teaching math on Monday, then Mr. Johnson is laid off because Springfield didn’t send the money,” Cathey said.

As the mother and son walked up to Black on Monday morning, Cathey reminded Carter about their annual tradition of getting ice cream after school on the first day. She gave him a hug and sent him into the building with a tote filled with paper towels and tissues for his classroom.

Mila Koumpilova contributed.

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

A divided Chicago school board adds referendums on new revenue to November ballot

2026-08-13T19:24:26+00:00

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For the first time in its history, Chicago’s school board voted Thursday to put two questions on the November ballot gauging voter opinions on proposals to bring in more money for the deficit-plagued district.

One referendum would ask voters if they support a statewide millionaires tax to raise money for public education. The other would ask if they would favor a new financial penalty on the owners of vacant city land to steer additional dollars to Chicago Public Schools. The school board needed to decide on these questions before a Monday deadline to add them to the ballot.

Because both are non-binding, neither would compel the state or the city to enact the new taxes and turn the revenue over to the district. But supporters of the referendums hoped they could put pressure on state and city decision-makers. Last spring, state lawmakers considered a binding referendum to enact a millionaires tax to fund education and provide property tax relief on the ballot. But the measure failed.

In response to board members arguing the referendums do little to ease CPS’s immediate fiscal pressures, board President Sean Harden argued the board should pursue more urgent fixes but also let the public weigh in on possible longer-term solutions.

“What we have before us is a window of opportunity — pretty short in nature — to activate and use a new muscle,” he said.

The special meeting initially lacked a quorum. Some board members who showed up — largely those appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson or elected with backing from his former employer, the Chicago Teachers Union — accused their colleagues of boycotting to derail the referendums. Some of the missing board members decried the hastily called special meeting to vote on what they described as half-baked proposals and said it conflicted with prior commitments or work. The meeting was eventually reconvened, with two board members supportive of the referendums joining virtually.

The debate about the referendums comes a couple of weeks after a majority on the board rallied around a high-stakes budget gamble: They rejected educator and staff layoffs under CEO Macquline King’s budget proposals. King had argued the layoffs were a responsible way to address the district’s deficits after years of shrinking enrollments and a growing workforce. Instead, the board opted to balance the budget by assuming an influx of additional state revenue. If state lawmakers do not approve that revenue during a November veto session, the district would likely face disruptive midyear cuts and other fallout.

Angel Velez, the board vice president, invoked a growing gap between what Illinois’ formula considers “adequate” district funding and the amount CPS receives. The tax on high earners is a favored proposal of Johnson, who appointed Velez.

“This is fundamentally about how we build the public support needed to move our schools from scarcity to adequacy,” Velez said during Wednesday’s board meeting to review this month’s agenda.

Cydney Wallace, another Johnson school board appointee who introduced the vacant lot question, said the thousands lots across the city are eyesores that impact public safety and cause other issues. She cited research suggesting that developing vacant urban land leads to improvement in residents’ mental health.

“Safe passage to school should also include healthy, cared-for blocks,” she said Wednesday.

Some board members voiced concerns about how the city would target vacant land for the new financial penalty without inadvertently punishing owners who plan to develop it. Supporters of the proposals argued that it will be up to the city to work out the details.

Jennifer Custer, the sole no vote on both ballot questions, said the board must focus on finding immediate solutions to the district’s budget crisis rather than soliciting voter opinions about proposals other agencies would have to enact.

“I don’t see these as being actionable items,” she said. “I see them as window dressing to a larger problem.”

Like Custer, the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Chicago, noted in a statement that referendums make little headway in addressing CPS’ pressing financial challenges and urged the board to stay focused on fixes that it can directly control.

Jessica Biggs, a board member who like Custer is currently running for school board president, said the last-minute special meeting showed a board term “rife with chaos and disorganization.” But she said she would have backed the millionaires tax referendum if she had been able to attend.

“I have been clear that I believe it is long past time to require the very wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share so we can fully fund our schools,” she said in a statement.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the board also appointed a new chief lobbyist to lead efforts to secure the additional $150 million from the state that the board baked into its amended budget. Iris Millán, now the associate vice chancellor of government affairs and civic engagement at City Colleges of Chicago, will become CPS’s new chief of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs — a position vacant for more than a year.

Some board members, such as Michilla Blaise, ripped into colleagues who missed the Thursday meeting, accusing them of “lack of leadership.” On social media, Blaise referred to them as “the recipients of Billionaire Mike Sacks donations” — a Chicago hedge fund executive and donor to Democratic causes — invoking a line of attack against non-CTU-aligned school board members that the union has embraced ahead of the November school board races.

Several school board members criticized the hastily called meeting to take a vote, saying they couldn’t miss work or other commitments, especially after a marathon board meeting the previous day. One member, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, said the last-minute meeting to vote on proposals he said lacked detail or teeth showed “really poor planning on someone’s part.”

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

The Chicago Board of Education voted to reverse layoffs, but CPS says not all positions can be restored

2026-08-12T21:06:13+00:00

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Despite a directive from the Chicago Board of Education to reverse hundreds of layoffs across Chicago Public Schools, district officials said they can’t afford to reinstate every position cut earlier this summer.

The board’s 11-7 vote revised CPS’ proposed budget, assuming the district will get an extra $150 million in state funding, with $100 million of that going to help reverse hundreds of layoffs, including teachers and support staff. Even if that money comes through, it won’t be enough to bring back everyone who was cut, district officials said Tuesday night.

While students will see many reinstated teachers and other staff on Aug. 24, the first day of school for most students, not all laid-off educators will be able to return. CPS has not said how many employees will get their jobs back.

CPS sent out surveys Tuesday night to principals asking about their most pressing staffing needs related to students and academics and separately asked laid-off teachers if they’re interested in returning to their schools. The surveys, which Chalkbeat obtained, provide the clearest information educators have received on next steps since the board adopted its revised budget roughly two weeks ago. Teachers will be notified of possible reassignments between this weekend and the first day of school, according to the teacher survey.

Principals, whose budgets were finalized in June and likely have scheduled classes, will not have to reopen their budgets, district officials said. Instead, the district will use the survey results to hire back “selected positions” centrally and assign them to schools, the district’s acting Chief Talent Officer Jerry Taylor wrote in the survey.

The rehiring process excludes positions meant to reduce class sizes or those associated with special education, CPS said, which has a separate appeals process, Taylor wrote to principals.

During a Tuesday night webinar for families, Chief Education Officer Karime Asaf said officials are working to implement the adopted budget, but it will take time.

Asaf added that “every decision we make will always put students first, and we will always be honest with you about what is happening.”

One CPS principal addressed the school board Wednesday to decry the uncertainty and disruption that attempting to reverse layoffs is creating. Jeff Finelli, the principal at Edison Park Elementary, said restoring some positions, particularly those of assistant principals in small schools, is worthwhile. But he said kicking off the year takes months of “meticulous, relentless planning,” and rethinking staffing at this late stage is a “massive, unnecessary distraction.”

“Instead of focusing on our students and staff, principals will be forced to navigate logistical nightmares with no current answers,” he said. “This breeds confusion and takes our focus away from what’s most important.”

CPS had warned the board against revising the budget to include more money than expected, because a funding shortfall could result in midyear cuts. Securing more state funding this fiscal year would require a three-fifths majority approval from state legislators in both the House and Senate during the November veto session.

Hundreds of employees received layoff notices last month before the budget vote, including Andrew Feigenbaum, who taught third grade math and science and led an after-school club at Oscar DePriest Elementary School in the West Side’s Austin neighborhood.

CPS says 65 to 85% of laid-off teachers typically get rehired into vacant positions at other district schools. Feigenbaum said he’s applied to about 30 schools since learning of his layoff in mid-July but hasn’t heard back from any.

Feigenbaum, who has taught in CPS for two years, said he had received almost no clarity about next steps between the board vote and the district’s survey Tuesday night. He hopes to be rehired at DePriest.

Feigenbaum said he was frustrated that teachers were laid off before the board’s vote — which is typical at CPS — and wished the district would decide on a budget earlier in the spring. After teaching for more than a dozen years in other districts, Feigenbaum said the layoff experience at CPS has “kind of soured me to the district.”

“This is, like, all you see on the news — ‘the board voted to rescind the cuts’ — (but) what does it actually mean?” Feigenbaum said. “Now we fill out some survey so that maybe we’ll get our old job back, and maybe we won’t.”

Two of the major unions representing CPS workers are split on the board’s decision.

The Chicago Teachers Union pushed board members to revise the budget to pressure the state to boost dollars for CPS, which the state considers to be 70% adequately funded, and pointed to supportive statements from some key state lawmakers. On Wednesday, the union held a press conference to continue pressuring state officials for more money.

But SEIU Local 73, which represents thousands of support staffers, is skeptical more funding will come and warned that midyear cuts would devastate its members and students. Earlier this week, the union formally requested a detailed plan from CPS leadership and the board by Aug. 27 outlining what cuts would take effect without state funding and what protections it would provide to workers and families.

The union also asked state legislators, including House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who previously said he would push for more school funding, to make concrete commitments and provide detailed plans for approving additional CPS funding during the fall veto session.

Mila Koumpilova contributed.

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

Chicago school board to weigh adding ballot questions about new revenue sources

2026-08-10T20:51:15+00:00

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The Chicago school board might try to place two questions on the November ballot asking the city’s voters if they would be in favor of new revenue for the cash-strapped district.

One would ask residents whether Illinois should impose a millionaires tax to boost K-12 education funding statewide, and the other would gauge their support for new financial penalties on owners of undeveloped city land to increase Chicago Public Schools funding. Both are nonbinding, which means neither would legally require the state or the city to enact the proposals.

In an email to school board members sent Monday and obtained by Chalkbeat, a school board staffer invoked a 2011 law she said gave the board the ability to place advisory questions on the ballot following a simple majority vote.

“The Board has a unique opportunity to utilize this authority now and make inroads for new revenue for the district,” wrote Fae Rabin, the board’s chief of staff.

The city’s Board of Elections would have to approve the referendums by next Monday to place them on the ballot, so the school board plans to discuss them at Wednesday’s agenda review meeting and vote at a special Thursday meeting.

Last month, a divided board approved a budget that reversed layoffs in the district administration’s own spending plan and addressed a funding gap by assuming an influx in additional revenue from the state. District leaders have vowed to press the state to come through on the extra dollars, arguing that despite significant funding increases in recent years, CPS remains well short of what Illinois considers “adequate” funding. But the prospects of lawmakers approving such an increase during a November veto session in the fall are murky, placing the district at risk of highly disruptive midyear budget cuts.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has argued in favor of a new tax on the state’s high earners. But efforts to pass legislation that would have placed a millionaires tax on the November ballot fizzled out in the state legislature this past spring. A majority of school board members were appointed by Johnson or elected with backing from his allies at the Chicago Teachers Union, so they might be eager to extend the push to the fall election, even though the referendums wouldn’t be legally binding.

Board President Sean Harden could not be reached for comment.

One independently elected school board member, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, said he is checking on the board’s legal authority to add the questions to the ballot and voiced concern about the rushed bid to vote on them this week, rather than during the board’s regular monthly meeting. He noted that the questions include no specifics about how the district would use the additional money to help students.

“If we’re asking the state to amend our funding formula, we have to show we can govern responsibly and connect funding to student improvement,” he said.

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

Despite state funding increase, gap to adequately fund schools widens in most Illinois districts

2026-08-08T00:07:47+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is further away from having enough money to meet its students’ needs as defined by the state, according to new data released by the Illinois State Board of Education.

Under ISBE’s calculations released Friday, CPS is now considered a little over 70% adequately funded, compared with 73% last year. CPS isn’t alone in that shift. More than 700 school districts regressed from hitting the state’s target of 90% funding adequacy, a metric reached by assessing a district’s student population and ability to pay for a variety of common cost factors.

The backslide is due, in part, to the state changing how it counted low-income students. Officials said they decided to count students “who were eligible for federal social programs as of July 1,” including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The widening gap in funding adequacy for hundreds of districts, including Chicago, adds fuel to the Chicago Teachers Union’s argument that the city’s schools need lawmakers to commit more money. The Board of Education echoed this sentiment when they recently passed a budget assuming the state will increase funding during the fall veto session in November.

Illinois Federation of Teachers and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates called the funding distribution a “wake-up call” to the state. However, amending the state’s budget now would be hard and require a three-fifths majority vote.

Illinois’ way of funding schools assumes students with higher-needs cost more to educate. Adequacy targets for each district fluctuate annually based on the students being served, which is why an increase in low-income students raises the cost the formula says is necessary to reach adequacy.

Identifying low-income students for the formula is likely to change further next year. Illinois lawmakers put $200,000 in this year’s budget for the state education department to come up with a new way to count low-income students in response to the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut funding for many social programs.

There was a 43% rise in low-income students this year, according to ISBE. That coupled with lower property tax revenues and increases in teacher salaries and instructional material costs are what is driving districts away from being adequately funded, state Superintendent Tony Sanders told reporters in a webinar Friday.

Schools get at least the same amount of money they received the year prior. Districts furthest from achieving adequate funding are first in line to receive more money. Lawmakers added $350 million — the typical annual funding commitment — this year as part of the state budget.

Despite more districts faltering in their march toward adequate funding, total state spending on K-12 schools totals over $9 billion. That’s up by more than $2 billion since evidence-based funding was introduced in 2017.

Notably, that money is unrestricted. So districts do not have to use the money exactly in line with where the state identified heightened needs.

Zooming in on Chicago’s state funding this year

Chicago Public Schools remains one of the neediest districts in Illinois.

Overall, CPS will get about $1.9 billion from the state for the 2026-27 school year. That’s nearly $66 million – or about one-fifth — of the $350 million increase in state education funding. But it falls just short of the $2 billion the Chicago Board of Education hopes to get.

Last week, the school board passed an amended budget that increased the amount it expected to get from the state through the evidence-based formula, from $1.9 billion to $2 billion. Additionally, it assumes $50 million more from a separate pot of state funding that’s meant to reimburse CPS for other services, such as special education and student transportation costs.

The board also directed CPS CEO Macquline King to reverse hundreds of staff layoffs as part of its new budget.

If the funding doesn’t come through, schools may be forced to cut staff or programs in the middle of the school year. While King urged the board not to assume more funding than CPS was expecting, she and board members have said they will press the state to boost its support during the Illinois legislature’s November veto session, which would require three-fifths of lawmakers in the state House and Senate to approve.

“We will be working with our government partners at both the city and the state level to secure the additional funding that our schools need, and we really hope that you stay tuned so that we can inform you how you can help us with that advocacy for additional school funding,” King said Thursday evening during a webinar for the public.

If lawmakers agreed to give CPS more money, Sanders said ISBE would advocate that all districts get a funding increase.

Disbursements of funds to districts should start Monday, according to ISBE.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org. Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@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.

Seeking to reverse layoffs, Chicago school board approves budget, assuming more state money will come

2026-07-31T01:50:09+00:00

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Bucking warnings from Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King, the school board amended and narrowly passed a roughly $10 billion budget proposal Thursday that assumes the district will receive $150 million more in state funding than projected.

Eleven board members voted to reverse hundreds of school-based staff layoffs included in King’s proposal, heeding the demands of the Chicago Teachers Union and the principals union.

Appointed board members Anusha Thotakura, Debby Pope, Cydney Wallace, Angel Velez, Ed Bannon, Emma Lozano, Karen Zaccor, Michilla Blaise, and Norma Rios-Sierra, as well as elected board members Jitu Brown and Ebony DeBerry voted to increase the state funding projection of $2.78 billion by another $150 million.

Elected board members Angel Gutierrez, Carlos Rivas, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, Ellen Rosenfeld, Jennifer Custer, Jessica Biggs, and Therese Boyle voted no. Elected board member Yesenia Lopez abstained.

District officials pushed the school board to approve the budget this week so they could secure short-term borrowing by Sept. 2 — two days before paychecks go out — and avoid a “de-facto shutdown” of schools. In a statement after the vote, a spokesperson said the district “cannot guarantee that CPS will receive financing in time for the September 4 payroll” given the board’s changes.

“Failing to meet payroll is unacceptable,” the statement said. “This places the District at significant risk of being in violation of the law and collective bargaining agreements. It may also damage our credit rating and severely restrict our future borrowing capacity for capital projects and operational needs. Most critically, any disruption in pay directly threatens the stability of our schools, impacting our students, families, and dedicated staff.”

The vote came after hours of public testimony and an unusual two-hour recess. During that time, CPS lawyers provided legal advice about amending the budget, according to multiple sources.

Earlier this week, after a push from SEIU Local 73, CPS took furloughs out of its proposal by increasing the amount it expects to receive in special taxing district dollars, known as TIF surplus dollars, which are controlled by the mayor and City Council.

But board members and the Chicago Teachers Union want more pressure on state lawmakers, who have not yet fulfilled a goal to fund all schools to what it considers 90% adequacy. The state considers CPS funded at 73%.

“If we’re not including the state in this conversation, we are fooling ourselves and we are robbing our kids of opportunities,” said appointed board member Michilia Blaise, who introduced the plan to revise King’s budget. “Let’s make it clear to our students that cuts to school communities will not come lightly.”

With the state’s veto session scheduled for November, it’s not clear any new money would come in time for this school year.

Some key Democratic lawmakers have promised to help boost school funding, including House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. At the board meeting, State Senator Robert Martwick, who represents parts of the Northwest Side and some suburbs, told board members he will fight for more funding.

King warns of consequences to revising her budget proposal

Before the vote, King defended her budget plan, noting that CPS has lost 45,000 students in the last seven years but has hired 10,000 more staffers. Despite school-level cuts, she noted most laid off staffers are rehired in other vacant positions and highlighted an increase in special education and bilingual staff.

She also warned of the risks of assuming more state funds will come through. King recalled her time as a principal in 2017, when CPS had adopted a budget expecting more state funding than previous years that didn’t come through after then-Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed related legislation. CPS imposed big cuts, and King had to lay off staff at her school.

“This was severely disruptive to my students,” King said. “Those are the faces that I see. Those are the conversations that I recall, and that is why I put forth the recommended budget that I did.”

School board has a heated debate

Board members were starkly divided.

Several elected board members not aligned with the teachers union and Mayor Brandon Johnson underscored the risks of assuming there will be more state money.

Elected member Jennifer Custer called the idea of expecting a $150 million increase in state money a “hallucination.” Elected board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith said he will help advocate for more funding from the state and the city.

Smith, a rapper and songwriter, recited a poem he crafted in response to one delivered during public comment by a CTU member: “They say the mayor owes a billy, give it again and again, and don’t make us look silly,” referencing the $1 billion in TIF dollars the mayor and City Council surplused last year, of which CPS got $577 million.

Board president Sean Harden warned TIF surplus is not a guarantee either.

At least a dozen school staffers, clad in bright red CTU shirts, urged the board to revise the budget and push the state to pay up. Several teachers said teacher layoffs mean bigger class sizes and breaking relationships with students.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged the difficult decisions King and her team faced and laid the blame on state lawmakers, including Gov. JB Pritzker. She said the union will help CPS pressure the state.

“Let’s assume that doing this together makes it impossible for people to keep telling us no,” said Davis Gates, who is also the president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Board member Jitu Brown also said he believes the “political will” to boost state education funding is there.

Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, which represents 16,000 support staffers, remained skeptical that a majority of state lawmakers will agree to increase CPS funding.

“Unsecured revenue cannot pay our (Special Education Classroom Assistants) rent in September,” Palmer said. “It cannot guarantee a bus aide on the bus when school opens. Our students do not get to wait for Springfield to make up its mind, and neither should this board.”

Kia Banks, head of the principals union, supported an amended budget. She said she was encouraged that Illinois House Speaker Welch is interested in boosting funding.

“If (funding) doesn’t come through, like in 2017, it’s devastating, and I don’t think they would want that on their record,” Banks said of state lawmakers.

But Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, said the state now has “far less” incentive to act. If the state can’t come up with the money, “CPS will have to own the consequences,” he said in an email.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema atramin@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 Public Schools budget conflict revolves around revenue assumptions, timing

2026-07-29T23:46:59+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education is expected to vote on a $9.96 billion budget plan Thursday that would cut hundreds of teachers but beef up special education staff and freeze some spending in 2027.

The board legally has until late August to approve a budget. But CPS officials are pushing for approval this week to avoid missing payroll in September.

Many board members don’t like the cuts in the current spending plan. Some say they’re a painful necessity to balance the budget. Others say the district should keep pushing for more state money, press the county over a tax-revenue issue, and pass a budget that assumes those dollars will come through.

Why does CPS have to pass a budget this week to make September payroll?

Two reasons: the late distribution of property taxes and the need to borrow money.

Local property taxes, which are collected by Cook County and distributed to government agencies such as CPS, make up roughly half of the district’s operating budget. Almost all property tax dollars that end up at CPS go toward running the district’s daily operations, including salaries.

CPS is expected to receive $4.5 billion in property taxes this fiscal year.

But when the money actually gets to CPS depends on when the county collects the tax. In recent years, technological glitches have delayed tax bills, resulting in CPS and other school districts not getting local revenue in time to cover their expenses.

The district used to have billions of extra federal COVID relief dollars to help cushion the delay, said Wally Stock, acting chief financial officer at CPS. It can no longer do that because the relief funding has ended.

Stock said CPS is missing roughly $250 million in spring tax money. The county treasurer’s office says the figure is closer to $70-80 million, and a “significant portion” of it will be distributed to CPS this week. CPS has said that money, which was owed last fiscal year, won’t impact the upcoming budget.

Why does CPS need to borrow money?

When the county is late giving property tax revenue to CPS, the district takes out Tax Anticipation Notes, or TANs, a form of short-term borrowing that’s paid off when tax dollars come in.

Stock said CPS needs a few weeks to secure a loan in order to cover payroll by September, which is why it needs a budget now. Lenders require an approved budget and tax levy, the district said.

But Justin Marlowe, the director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, said lenders typically want some kind of guarantee that revenue will come through and they’ll get paid back with interest, so it’s possible CPS could find a willing lender without an approved budget. But the district “would get much more favorable terms,” such as better interest rates, with an approved budget, he said.

CPS has a junk bond rating and therefore pays higher interest rates. District officials estimate it’s spent $80 million in interest since 2020 on short-term loans to make up for late property tax payments.

The county is considering extending a bridge loan to CPS. The county has about $300 million to offer in bridge loans, which isn’t enough to cover payroll, and TANs would still be necessary, Stock said.

Can CPS change the revenue assumptions to avoid cuts?

Earlier this week, CPS leaders nixed a plan for five-day furloughs by increasing how much it expects to receive from special taxing districts, known as TIFs. This amount will not be clear until the city passes its own budget in November or December.

On Tuesday, the district revised its TIF surplus estimate from $200 million to $285 million, compared to $576 million last year.

The Chicago Teachers Union and some allied board members have said that CPS should also anticipate getting more money from the state. That money makes up about one-third of CPS’ operating budget. The union and board members argue that despite an increase in school funding every year, lawmakers have not fulfilled a funding promise made a decade ago. The state formula estimates CPS is 79% of the way to being adequately funded.

But the district’s state money projections are more concrete. They’re based on the budget state lawmakers approved in May.

In a public letter in the Chicago Tribune Wednesday, school board vice president Angel Velez argued that the board can pass a budget that keeps central office and other cuts but “budgets for the revenue our students are owed,” including from the state and a county bridge loan, and “can be amended later if our partners in government fall short.”

“If the state ultimately forces us to truly consider reducing our workforce, let it be after every other option has been exhausted and our constituents have seen us try to prevent it,” he wrote.

In an interview, Velez said passing the current budget plan does not “pressure the state to commit” to what it promised.

If Velez’s suggestion works, CPS could avoid some level of its proposed cuts. If it doesn’t, CPS would have to amend its budget and risk midyear cuts or layoffs, something CPS CEO Macquline King said she had to do as a principal in 2017 when anticipated state revenue didn’t come through.

“We will continue to advocate with our partners at all levels of government to get the funding we know our students need,” King said in a statement Wednesday. “But trying to balance the budget on unrealized state revenue at the 11th hour would be a mistake with devastating short-and-long-term consequences.”

Passing a budget based on uncertain revenue, such as state aid, can result in higher interest costs when CPS tries to borrow money, said Lisa Washburn, managing director at Municipal Market Analytics. CPS carries one of the highest debt burdens among the nation’s school districts.

Even if the state approved more funding — which House Speaker Chris Welch said this week he’s interested in — it’s unclear if it would come this fiscal year, she said.

“Anybody can build a budget on hope [but] hope is not a strategy, and it may be that the state eventually does come through with additional cash, but there isn’t evidence that is going to happen anytime soon,” Washburn said.

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

Chicago Public Schools cuts staffing slightly but special education positions will rise at some campuses

2026-07-28T21:08:38+00:00

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Amid Chicago Public Schools’ budget challenges, the district’s campuses will start the upcoming school year with a less than 1% cut in overall staffing compared with last year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of school budgets posted last week.

But the cuts vary across the district’s 500-plus schools. More than 200 schools will have more staff positions, mostly driven by hundreds of new special education positions that CPS says are necessary to meet student needs.

At some schools, there are staff increases of as much as 22% compared to this time last year, while others are losing nearly 20% of their positions. The positions affected by the cuts are wide ranging, from counseling positions to teachers meant to reduce class size ratios.

The school-based staffing figures come as the district tries to close a $732.5 million deficit. The Chicago Board of Education is expected to vote on the district’s nearly $10 billion budget plan, which includes hundreds more special education teaching positions but many other layoffs. CPS on Tuesday nixed a plan for five-day furloughs next school year.

At individual schools, the changes in staffing ranges from a single part-time position to 16 positions.

The schools with staffing increases serve an average 70% of students who are from low-income households, on par with the districtwide average. Roughly 270 schools will have fewer staff compared with this time last year. At those schools, three-quarters of students on average are from low-income households, slightly higher than the district as a whole.

Forty-one schools won’t have a change in positions compared with last fall. At those schools, 68% of kids on average come from low-income families.

These budget figures also don’t tell the full story of decisions that principals must make, according to one principal, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. Her school — where students are overwhelmingly from low-income families — is gaining a couple of positions to open a special education cluster program. But the school also had to cut some non-teaching positions in order to keep a teacher, she said.

While she said her school is faring better than many others, she and her staff are “feeling the impact.”

“We had to make tough decisions,” she said.

Chalkbeat’s analysis excludes staffing for charter and contract schools, including a group of former charter and contract schools that will become district schools in the fall, because district data does not provide enough information about their staffing levels.

The district is slated to spend about $18 million less, or about 2% less, on charter schools, according to CPS budget information. However, it has budgeted $27.6 million for the upcoming school year to absorb and reopen five former Acero charter schools and Chicago High School for the Arts — a former contract school — as district-run schools.

The data shows how many positions schools got before the start of the school year compared with the same point in time last year. But the figures don’t capture whether schools gained or lost staff during last school year.

In a fact sheet about school budgets, the district said its goal “is to ensure staff are placed where most needed across the District in an effort to best serve all schools and decrease vacancies in high-need positions and schools.”

Officials said schools’ staffing changes are due to changes to enrollment, student needs, changes to programs, and how individual schools decided to spend their discretionary dollars.

The district also tightened its needs-based formula for funding schools and incorporated enrollment in more.

The formula is largely based on a school’s needs rather than the number of students enrolled, to decide how many positions schools get. It assigns each school an Opportunity Index number based on many factors, including how many low-income students a school serves and the life expectancy in the area.

This year — as overall CPS enrollment dipped again after a couple of years of small gains — the district tweaked its formula by slightly increasing student-to-teacher ratios and the Opportunity Index score needed to warrant some additional positions.

CPS has emphasized that class size limits won’t change and are enshrined in its contract with the Chicago Teachers Union.

The district said it limited cuts to positions. It decided that elementary schools wouldn’t lose more than four “foundational” — or core — teacher positions, and high schools wouldn’t lose more than six, regardless of their enrollment or Opportunity Index scores.

Foreman High School will gain special education positions but lose other teaching positions, and it will lose one position overall.

The school’s Opportunity Index rose, which warded off additional cuts, said Jessica Keirns, a member of Foreman’s Local School Council. Almost 90% of Foreman students come from low-income families, and many are English learners, she said.

The index is protecting “some of the most vulnerable students in our city,” Keirns said.

For Lizette Garcia, the mother of a rising first grader at Nightingale Elementary School on the Southwest Side, hearing of additional cuts is frustrating because the school already feels tight on resources, she said. The school, where 83% of kids come from low-income households, will lose five more positions, or nearly a 5% staff reduction.

The school enrolled 862 students last year. At the time, her son’s kindergarten class had 30 students. Her son was struggling with reading, and she wondered if the class size made it harder for the teacher and her assistant to support students.

The school opened a new kindergarten classroom midway through the year, and his class got smaller, she said.

“But by that time, he was already behind,” Garcia said.

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

Chicago Public Schools CEO King removes furloughs from the budget proposal ahead of vote

2026-07-28T19:03:58+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools removed its proposal for five furlough days next school year, the district announced Tuesday ahead of the Chicago Board of Education’s Thursday budget vote.

The furloughs would have started in January and applied to all staff districtwide on days when students are already scheduled to be off. The district revised its revenue assumptions to avoid having the unpaid days off.

CPS said the change is in response to feedback from the community but also comes after pushback from some board members, as well as the unions representing teachers and support staff. The latter, SEIU Local 73, demanded Monday that CPS revise its revenue projections for special city taxing dollars, known as TIF surplus, to prevent furloughs. CPS said it will do just that: The district will increase its TIF surplus dollars projection by $85 million — to $285 million.

In a statement Tuesday, Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, said the union applauds the decision.

The actual TIF amount won’t be clear until the City Council adopts its budget, which typically happens toward the end of the year. CPS’s new TIF surplus assumption is less than half of the record amount it received last year after months of conflict with the mayor’s office. In an interview last week, King said she has been discussing her budget plans with city leaders but hasn’t received concrete TIF figures.

The district’s nearly $10 billion budget proposal would cut hundreds of other staffers, increase special education staffing, and freeze some spending after January.

While the board can legally wait until late August to pass a budget, King is pushing them to vote Thursday so that CPS has enough time to issue short-term borrowing and make September payroll. Eleven board members, or a majority of the 21-member board, must vote yes for the budget to pass.

“It became clear that to alleviate any potential stressors or possible disruption to the start of the school year, we needed to update the proposed budget,” King said in a statement.

Last week, a dozen teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union blasted furloughs and layoffs during a budget hearing.

CTU has for months pressed state lawmakers for more funding but said in an online post last week that the district was “undercounting” how much TIF money the mayor would make available. The mayor has the power to declare a surplus on any money in TIF accounts that is not earmarked for a specific project. By doing so, all taxing bodies get a portion of the funds and by law, CPS is entitled to roughly half of any surplus.

Separately, the Illinois Federation of Teachers is suing Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas on behalf of the CTU and suburban union members to release tax revenue that hasn’t made it to the district.

In a statement, CTU and IFT president Stacy Davis Gates said that the revised proposal still doesn’t include enough staff and urged the board to keep revising or delay a vote “until the budget addresses our students’ needs,” she said.

“What is on the table is still a very rough draft that would cause permanent harm to Chicago’s students,” Davis Gates said.

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

Teachers and CTU tell Chicago Board of Education to reject proposed budget cuts, furloughs

2026-07-20T23:02:09+00:00

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More than a dozen teachers and their union pushed the Chicago Board of Education Monday to reject the district’s $9.88 billion budget proposal that includes all-staff furloughs and a spending freeze in the middle of this upcoming school year.

During one of two required budget hearings, teachers discussed how the district’s proposed budget — which also includes staff cuts to help close a $732.5 million deficit — would hurt them and their schools and would exacerbate problems that educators are already facing due to recent budget woes.

For example, a teacher in the Austin neighborhood said Monday that teachers across four grades at her school have already received layoff notices, meaning each of those grades would have just one teacher, and at least one class could have as many as 47 kids, based on current enrollment estimates, she said. That figure would violate the Chicago Teachers Union’s contract with the district.

Another teacher at Funston Elementary School in Logan Square said her school couldn’t get more custodial or pest control help as it dealt with a rodent infestation.

The comments during Monday’s hearing signal sharp tensions over a budget proposal that CPS revealed last week and wants its board to approve in ten days.

The Chicago Teachers Union estimates that the proposed furloughs, which would happen on staff professional development days, would mean a 2.3% pay cut for its members. The union has made two key demands: The state should hold a special legislative session and raise revenue for schools, and CPS should sue Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas for repeatedly late tax bills, which has meant late revenue that CPS and other school districts rely on.

In an interview with Chalkbeat Monday, CPS CEO Macquline King described her budget plan as “very painful.” Proposing furloughs was the hardest decision she and her team made, in part because they would happen on days meant for educators to improve their work with students, she said. King added that she hopes elected officials in a position to help CPS will consider the impact of furloughs when making decisions.

“What I do believe is really important is that there is a sense of urgency in order for Chicago Public Schools to make payroll in the fall,” King said to Chalkbeat. “We really need the budget to pass because ultimately we do not want to disrupt services to our students.”

Emila Zoko, acting CPS budget director, said furloughs and the mid-year spending freeze are “options of last resort” and avoidable if the district gets an additional $200 million in revenue, such as from special taxing district dollars from the city known as tax increment financing — or TIF — surplus. CPS is already assuming it will receive $200 million in TIF surplus in its budget proposal.

The district is already laying off more than 760 teachers and 800 paraprofessionals, most of whom the district expects to rehire at other schools with openings. Overall, the district, which employs about 37,000 people in schools, would cut a net total of 164 school-based employees. The district, where enrollment has declined, also laid off 162 central office and citywide employees earlier this month.

Still, the layoffs mean the neediest students may lose contact with an adult they have come to trust, staffers said during the hearing.

“Think about how this impacts our [unhoused] students — what happens when those people in their lives are not there to make sure they feel safe, secure, and thriving?” said Tiwanda Parker, a college and career coach who said she was laid off.

Board members legally have until the end of August to pass a budget, but district leaders want the board to adopt a plan by July 30. That’s because, in order to make up for late Cook County property tax revenue, CPS needs a few weeks to take out a short-term loan to pay for daily operations, including payroll, at the start of the school year, according to Wally Stock, acting chief financial officer. That process will require CPS to have an approved budget, Stock previously told the board.

CPS says it’s owed at least $250 million from the last round of late tax payments alone. Pappas’ office told the Chicago Tribune the figure is closer to $70 million or $80 million.

The district does not have cash to provide a cushion as it waits for the tax dollars, and in the last year, borrowing to fill the tax-revenue gap has cost CPS about $40 million in interest, Stock has said. On Monday, Stock said he is talking to the county on possibly getting access to an interest-free bridge loan that typically isn’t available to CPS, but even that wouldn’t be large enough to get the district through its bills from September to October.

Board of Education members focused on ways to raise more funding but diverged on how to get there.

For example, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, an elected board member, focused his questions during the hearing on how much more TIF dollars City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson could send to CPS to avoid furloughs and a midyear spending freeze. Elected member Jitu Brown, however, said it’s not realistic to expect more TIF after receiving a record amount last year, and said the district should instead build in the possibility for more state funding.

Budget officials said their numbers are rooted in historical projections. CPS has received at least $200 million in TIF surplus dollars every year since 2023.

The budget proposal wouldn’t implement a spending freeze and furloughs until January, providing CPS leaders “a window of time” to attempt securing more revenue, Stock said.

CPS held a second budget hearing Monday evening. People can view it on the district’s YouTube channel.

Mila Koumpilova contributed.

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

Chicago Public Schools releases $9.88 billion 2026-27 budget amid deepening financial strain

2026-07-15T22:01:12+00:00

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Facing intense financial pressures, Chicago Public Schools officials unveiled a proposed $9.88 billion district budget that includes five furlough days and a spending freeze that could start in January. But they said they hope to avoid those measures by persuading state lawmakers or the city council to steer more dollars to the school district.

District leaders said hundreds of staff layoffs, a push for more revenue, and other cost-saving measures took a $450 million bite out of the $732.5 million deficit the district faced this summer. To help close the remaining gap, CPS is bumping up the amount it expects the city would contribute in special tax dollars for development, known as TIF, from $100 million to $200 million. Last year, CPS received more than $500 million in TIF dollars, a record amount, but district officials said they wanted to be more conservative in projecting this year’s influx.

Unless even more city or state revenue materializes, the district will furlough all staff for five days when students are scheduled to be out of school and teachers are expected to get professional development — a move that would save $85 million. The district also would freeze some hiring and other spending in the second half of the school year.

“This process is painful for everyone all the way around,” said schools chief Macquline King on a call with reporters. “Ultimately, the budget we have presented is one that does its absolute best to meet the diverse needs of students.”

The district’s teachers and principals unions and some school board members decried the cuts, saying they will affect students.

The district is laying off about 760 teachers and 800 school-based support staff this week, though officials said that the majority will likely get rehired to fill vacancies on other campuses.

The district shared budgets with schools in May and finalized them in early June, but it has not disclosed campus budget allocations. More than 160 central office and citywide administrators were laid off on Friday — a move that CPS said will save $18 million. The blueprint presented Wednesday includes spending on pensions, debt service, and central and districtwide staff.

Last year, the district issued layoff notices to 1,450 teachers, support staff, security officers, and other employees. Officials said that in line with previous years, about 75% of them were rehired. District leaders said that while there will be fewer general education teachers after the district increased student-to-teacher ratios by one student, it is boosting the number of bilingual and special education teachers and classroom assistants. That will result in a net school-based position loss of about 160 in the district, which employs more than 37,000 people on its campuses. Factoring in contractual pay increases, CPS is sending $143 million more directly to schools compared with last year.

District officials again stressed the tough financial realities CPS faces: The costs of employee pay and pensions, the district’s massive debt, and upkeep for Chicago’s aging school buildings keep going up. The district added thousands of new positions using federal COVID aid during the pandemic even as enrollment shrank. District leaders have defended the staffing growth, saying it allowed schools to address longstanding staffing gaps and speed up its recovery. Despite significant state funding increases in recent years, CPS remains about $1.6 billion of what Illinois estimates would make for “adequate” funding.

CPS is asking the board to approve the budget by July 30, which officials say will give them enough time to borrow money against its future tax revenue to address cash flow issues amid a Cook County property tax delay.

Wednesday’s budget is the first fully shaped by King, who stepped in on an interim basis last summer when outgoing schools chief Pedro Martinez had already finalized school budgets. King crafted the final $10.2 billion budget, notably declining to take out a high-cost loan to pay into a city pension fund covering some CPS support staff despite pressure from the mayor’s office.

This week’s budget proposal also did not include a contribution toward the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund. District officials touted the fact that the new budget does not add to the district’s $9 billion debt, with interest and other costs diverting hundreds of millions of dollars that could go toward instruction and support services.

King described the budget as “thoughtful, responsible, and entirely student-centered.” But the proposal left some board members concerned about how cuts would impact schools in their districts.

Anusha Thotakura, an appointed board member who represents the Near North Side and West Town, said many schools have experienced cuts “year after year,” and she wants to see more investments that parents want, such as in early childhood education and dual language programs. At the same time, CPS is in a difficult spot, she said.

“When you start with a pie that is too small and are forced to figure out how to cut it and a way to feed people, you’re never going to win,” said Thotakura, who has advocated for more state funding.

She said she hopes CPS and board members will work extra hard over the next year to secure additional funding, including from the state and city.

In a statement, Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and Illinois Federation of Teachers, called the proposal “dead on arrival.” Furloughs, she said, are another blow to educators who are already working in schools that are stretched for resources.

The union, along with allied board members, have called on state lawmakers to raise money for schools through progressive taxes and more recently pressed CPS to sue the county treasurer’s office over late tax payments.

“Does anyone in this state other than CPS educators have power to help school children instead of hurt them?” Davis Gates said in the statement. “It’s time for them to use it.”

Kia Banks, the head of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, said in a statement the union understands district leaders are in a tough spot. Still, she’s unsure the proposal, which eliminated assistant principals in small schools, represents “the strongest path forward.”

“We are extremely disappointed by the possibility that students could lose resources, programs, and support they need and deserve,” Banks said.

But Danny Vesecky, senior research and policy associate at Civic Federation, said that while layoffs are painful structural changes, they will permanently reduce the district’s expenses. It’s also the “right direction” for the district to move in after federal COVID relief money went away but investments fueled by those dollars, such as more staff, still exist.

“There is unfortunately no way to address that other than unwinding some of the increase in spending that we engaged in in previous years,” Vesecky said.

Vesecky also described furloughs as a reasonable yet temporary solution, since those savings won’t reduce the district’s expenses or deficit in future years.

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.

CPS lays off 162 employees as it works to close budget deficit for 2026-27 school year

2026-07-13T20:26:41+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools notified 162 central and citywide employees Friday that they will be laid off, the district confirmed Monday.

Half of the employees work for central office departments that focus on districtwide policies and operations. The other half, known as “citywide” employees, help support individual schools.

The layoffs will save the district $18 million, CPS spokesperson Mary Fergus said in a statement.

The layoffs are part of the district’s attempt to close a more than $730 million deficit. Last June, while facing a similar deficit, the district laid off 161 employees who are staffed centrally, in addition to a slew of other cuts.

CPS is expected to publicly reveal a roughly $10 billion proposed budget later this week, which should provide a clearer picture of any additional cuts. Schools, which received their budgets in May, have also been grappling with budget-tightening decisions.

CPS did not specify the specific positions of the people losing their jobs. Many different offices were affected, including Career and College Success, Talent, Department of Principal Quality, Information and Technology Services, Students with Disabilities, Student Health and Wellness, Transportation, Facilities, and Safety and Security, School Counseling, Procurement, Real Estate, and the Office of Sports Administration, according to Fergus and a memo that chief talent officer Ben Felton sent Friday to school board members and district leaders.

Of the 162 people laid off, 38 people are represented by SEIU Local 73, the union that represents support staffers at CPS, such as custodians, and 25 were represented by the Chicago Teachers Union. The unions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In deciding what positions to cut, the district’s top leaders were “directed to prioritize maintaining critical functions that directly serve students, and protect school-based staffing to the greatest extent possible,” the memo said.

The district tried cutting other expenses first, such as renegotiating vendor contracts and reducing some unspecified central “non-essential” office services. Neither CPS nor the memo said how much money these measures saved.

“These actions reduced a substantial portion of the deficit,” Fergus said in her statement to Chalkbeat. “Even after these measures, targeted central office and citywide staffing reductions remained necessary to protect resources for students and schools.”

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

Johnson-aligned Chicago school board members continue push for more funding from Springfield

2026-07-08T22:17:58+00:00

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Chicago Board of Education members aligned with the mayor again pushed Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday to hold a special legislative session to allocate more funding to public schools.

Their calls come as Chicago Public Schools finalizes a roughly $10 billion budget proposal for the coming school year. Officials have been working to close a more than $700 million deficit projected earlier this spring.

Schools had to approve their proposed budgets in early June, but the district has yet to release full details around what might be cut. The Chicago Teachers Union joined Mayor Brandon Johnson-aligned board members at Wednesday’s press conference outside the Board of Education headquarters where they called for state lawmakers to again consider raising education funding through progressive tax policies that target wealthy individuals or corporations.

Khari Humphries, the city’s deputy mayor of education and youth, also joined elected board member Jitu Brown and appointed members Michilia Blaise, Karen Zaccor, Norma Rios-Sierra, Emma Lozano, Angel Velez, Cydney Wallace, and Debby Pope.

Illinois lawmakers attempted to begin the process to raise education funding through a millionaire’s tax, but that legislation ultimately stalled before they adjourned at the end of May.

“If the Hippocratic Oath in medicine says, first of all, do no harm, can the state of Illinois say they have not done harm to Illinois children?” Brown said to reporters.

CPS is expected to publicly reveal its budget plan by mid-July and wants the board to approve it by July 30, but some board members said that timeline feels rushed. A delay in Cook County property taxes has placed extra pressure on the budget, officials said.

The state budget increased education funding for school districts by $350 million this year for a total of $9.2 billion. But many districts, including CPS, are still short of what the state’s evidence-based formula considers as an adequate level of money. Even if lawmakers reconvene this summer, it’s not clear how quickly any extra money would make it to school districts like CPS.

“We are facing decisions that no city should ever have to make,” Humphries said during the press conference.

The district is expecting about $100 million from the city’s special taxing districts, known as TIF dollars, which the mayor and City Council control. That’s a fraction of the more than $500 million in TIF last year for CPS, a portion of which went back to the city for pension obligations.

Brown said board members are asking the city to release more TIF dollars. Humphries said he can’t say whether the city will do so. At a board meeting later Wednesday, acting chief financial officer Wally Stock also said CPS is “not trying to be aggressive” but is also having those discussions with the city.

During Wednesday’s meeting, however, CPS CEO Macquline King said the district is working through “different avenues” for help, including pressing the county for some relief.

“There is a sense of urgency,” King said.

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

Chicago cut funding for assistant principals in small schools. Most chose to keep them anyway.

2026-07-07T21:49:24+00:00

Data analysis by Sophie Hayssen

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Alex Dakessian, the assistant principal at McCutcheon Elementary on Chicago’s North Side, had a hectic year.

She scheduled classes, helped evaluate 78 teachers and support staff, oversaw the school’s five specialized classrooms for students with significant disabilities, and translated for some of its more than 130 English learners. With two campuses several blocks apart, she sometimes became a “track star running between buildings” when emergencies arose.

But with McCutcheon’s kindergarten through eighth grade enrollment a few students shy of 250, Dakessian’s position landed on the chopping block this spring when the district cut school budgets.

More than 130 small schools were poised to lose funding for their assistant principals next school year. Most, including McCutcheon, used discretionary dollars to keep them or convinced CPS to make an exception, leaving about 40 campuses without that position, Chalkbeat has learned. The move comes as district officials are trying to close a $732.5 million deficit to balance a more than $10 billion budget.

In 2024, Chicago Public Schools vowed to staff an assistant principal on each of its campuses — no matter how small — as part of a new budget formula meant to steer more resources to high-needs schools, many hit hard by enrollment losses. But this spring, the district announced it would cut funding for assistant principals, or APs for short, in schools with fewer than 250 students, among other educator and support staff positions.

The move incensed leaders at the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, which is bargaining with the district to finalize the first fully fleshed-out contract for school leaders. The union has argued that regardless of school size, APs such as Dakessian ensure campuses run smoothly and serve as sanity-saving partners and confidants for principals.

According to numbers provided by school board members, 72 of 138 campuses chose to use discretionary dollars to keep those positions. In the cases of another 23 schools, the district made an exception and funded an AP position, for example because of an upcoming program change.

Nelson Gerew of the Chicago Public Education notes the nonprofit has been a major proponent for staffing an assistant principal in each school. They help ease the intense pressure and loneliness of the principal role and represent a crucial school leader pipeline, with about a third eventually taking over the top job at their CPS school.

But this spring, Gerew says, school budget cuts were inevitable to balance the district’s budget. Because CPS guarantees a minimum level of staffing under its 2024 formula, many small schools were protected from other cuts the district made, Gerew notes. Cutting their APs meant they would share in the budget pain with larger schools, he said. There, principals have occasionally noted that both some schools serving hundreds of students and campuses serving fewer than 100 receive funding for one assistant principal.

“It’s encouraging that the vast majority of principals were able to keep their APs,” Gerew said.

As of its most recent staffing data at the end of June, CPS had a total of 644 assistant principal positions, up from about 600 before the 2023 budget formula changes and from a recent low of 540 in 2017, during another tough budget stretch. In 2026, APs made an average salary of $135,650, based on a Chalkbeat analysis of public CPS staffing data.

In a statement, CPS, which lost 45,000 students since the start of the pandemic, pointed to the intense fiscal pressures it faces. It said school budgets — including the number of eliminated assistant principal positions — remain preliminary until the school board approves an overall district budget this summer. But it said most appeals for additional staffing from schools were approved, and the district would make an effort to reassign employees whose positions were cut.

An ‘arbitrary’ enrollment cutoff with a catch

The principals union has pointed to Dakessian’s case to argue that the district’s 250-student cutoff is arbitrary and to contest a decision not to include pre-K enrollment.

Last year’s official enrollment at McCutcheon was 246 students. But that number does not include about 70 preschool students, who are part of a separate funding stream, but still demand the time and attention of school leaders.

School leaders and their advocates say assistant principals tend to have full plates, pitching in with a wide range of duties, from handing school discipline to communicating with families to filling in when other staff is absent or positions go vacant.

At last month’s school board meeting, Cy Hendrickson, the vice president of the principals union and an assistant principal at Hernández Middle School, said because they work throughout the summer, many assistant principals make less per hour than they would if they had continued teaching. Many regularly work on their own time on evenings and weekends, from completing teaching evaluations to answering parent emails, he said.

“The responsibility of leading and loving a CPS school is too immense and too profound for any one person to bear alone,” Hendrickson said.

The standoff over the AP cuts has cast a shadow over ongoing contract talks between the district and Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, which formally unionized school leaders for the first time after state lawmakers allowed it in 2023. Last fall, the two sides reached a preliminary agreement that included more protections against harassment and more due process rights for principals facing discipline, as well as 4% cost of living increases for 2025-26. But the union and district have been bargaining over a more fully fleshed-out contract.

Kia Banks, the union’s president, said it was “blindsided” by the district’s assistant principal decision — and has continued to push for a way to preserve these positions at the bargaining table. She said at the more than 40 schools losing their APs — campuses serving predominantly high-needs, Black and Latino students — only two principals told the union they feel they can make do without a second-in-command next year.

School board members express concern about AP cuts

Some school board members have voiced concern about the assistant principal cuts, even as they say they understand the district was forced to make difficult decisions to balance its budget.

Board member Karen Zaccor, a former CPS educator, said three schools in her North Side district lost their AP funding, including McCutcheon and Uplift High School, which has bucked district trends by growing its enrollment in recent years. All three chose to keep those positions with discretionary dollars. But she said she worries about what programs and other budget items might not be funded as a result.

“You can’t say, ‘We solved the problem. All of these schools are getting their APs back,’” Zaccor said. “We don’t know what else might be going away.”

School board member Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal, said she felt the district had made the right call when it committed to staff an assistant principal in each school. She had spent most of her first year as a principal without a second-in-command, at Burke Elementary, which served fewer than 250 students at the time. She struggled.

In her second year, she hired assistant principal Tenesha Hatter, whom Biggs credits with the school’s enrollment and academic growth. Hatter led the school’s efforts to improve its climate and culture and fostered relationships with students to improve attendance, allowing Biggs to focus on boosting academics. Hatter went on to become a CPS principal herself.

“I don’t know if I would have stayed in the role if it wasn’t for her,” Biggs said. At the same time, she added, “There is nothing that’s good to cut right now.”

One small school principal, who spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously to discuss the issue without district authorization, recalls finding out the campus would lose its assistant principal funding this spring.

“I remember putting my head in my hands and just sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my god,’” that principal said. “It was devastating.”

The school got just enough discretionary dollars to keep the assistant principal. But it eliminated a teaching position to free up more discretionary dollars it still needs for learning materials, supplies, and more. For the first time, it will start charging student fees, and will lean on parent leaders to do “a hella lot of fundraising,” the principal said.

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

Chicago school board adopts legislative agenda calling for more funding — after state lawmakers adjourn

2026-06-25T21:30:38+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education unanimously passed a legislative agenda Thursday that calls for more state funding and a millionaire’s tax — even though Illinois state lawmakers passed a state budget last month and have adjourned for the summer.

While some board members were happy with the items in the new agenda, they were also frustrated that it would be adopted after lawmakers had left Springfield.

“This would have been fantastic for us to have in January or even February,” said Anusha Thotakura, an appointed board member who has previously pressed CPS for a legislative plan. “There is absolutely no opportunity for this legislative agenda to result in increased state funds for the upcoming school year — zero.”

Several board members called for the agenda to be a “living document” that CPS could add ideas to. And others wanted more demands of local officials. Elected board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith said he was disappointed the agenda didn’t include anything about pressing the city to send more special taxing district dollars to the district – an amount that can vary year to year.

The agenda is a list of issues that Chicago Public Schools wants to advocate for with lawmakers, typically on the state level. But in recent years the board has not always had an agenda: It last adopted one in early 2024 under former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who then didn’t present one in 2025.

The district CEO is charged with creating a legislative agenda and presenting it to the board for approval in January of each year, but the board waived that requirement in January 2024 and January 2026, though not in 2025, according to board records. Those waivers say that the CEO would still be expected to present something early in the year.

Neither CPS nor the school board office explained why this legislative agenda came later in the year and after the state legislative session ended. CPS CEO Macquline King and board members have visited Springfield over the past year to meet with lawmakers, which state Rep. Ann Williams, who represents North Side neighborhoods, described as “very visible and engaging” during public comment on Thursday.

This is King’s first legislative agenda, which asks for more state funding as the district faces a $732.5 million deficit in its budget for next fiscal year, which the district is aiming to finalize by July 30. It also makes several new asks that weren’t in the 2024 list, such as a millionaire’s tax to raise more revenue for education funding and more charter school regulations.

The Chicago Teachers Union is pushing lawmakers to hold a special session this summer to address funding issues.

During a union press conference Thursday morning, CTU vice president Jackson Potter said schools are slated, for now, to lose lots of staff and claimed district officials are considering cutting up to two weeks of instructional time next school year if it doesn’t get more funding to close its deficit. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates relayed a similar message to the union’s executive board in a letter earlier this week.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Sylvia Barragan disputed that, saying “at no point has the district considered shortening the school year to alleviate financial challenges” and doing so “is not a viable option.” School districts are required to have 176 instructional days, which is the exact number of days for student attendance on CPS’s approved calendar for next school year. Cutting from that now could put the district out of compliance with the state.

The new legislative agenda includes a mix of old asks and new demands. Similar to the 2024 agenda, CPS is asking for more funding through the state’s main education funding formula in order to reach the state’s definition of “adequate funding.” It also wants heftier reimbursements for certain required services it provides, such as transportation for students with disabilities. And, it again calls for the state to help pay for Chicago teacher pensions in the way it does for other Illinois school districts, something one bill aimed, but failed, to do this year. (CPS has a special tax levy to help cover most teacher pension costs, and state money covers about a third of the costs.)

Some of the newer items include language about supporting more regulations around charter schools, in line with a resolution the board passed last year.

It also includes multiple proposals for raising progressive revenue. In its language supporting a millionaire’s tax, the district states that “by capturing a portion of ultra-high incomes, this dedicated revenue source would directly help address structural budget gaps, support classroom investments, and reduce reliance on volatile or one time revenue streams.”

Thotakura said the millionaire’s tax is a “notable” addition and could help the board avoid raising the property tax levy to the legally allowed limit, which it typically does annually.

Ed Bannon, an appointed board member, said it’s possible the agenda “just kind of didn’t get prioritized” early this year as King was still the interim CEO at the time and was navigating a host of issues. Despite the late timing, he said he’s happy a document now exists as the board gets ready to fill a long-vacant position on its intergovernmental team, which helps establish CPS’ advocacy presence in Springfield.

“The state needs to fulfill its obligation to fully fund education, and having an official legislative agenda is a step in the right direction,” Bannon said.

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

Why more Chicago schools lean on dollars they raise independently amid budget crunch

2026-06-22T10:00:00+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

This story was created in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune. Editor’s note: Please do not republish.

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Karen Calloway is always hunting for more ways to bring in dollars for Kenwood Academy.

In recent years, the principal has rented out the South Side high school’s campus to churches, nonprofits, and sports leagues, and leaned on a new parent group to drum up donations. The effort to supplement what the school receives directly from Chicago Public Schools has paid off.

Kenwood spent $418,983 in outside money in fiscal year 2025, compared to a low of about $90,000 in 2021, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat and the Tribune.

At Kenwood, a predominantly Black high school where about half of the students are low-income, that funding has paid for athletic equipment and uniforms, student clubs and college tours.

“Regardless of the budget, as a principal, you should want to create other arms of revenue for your school,” Calloway said. “It’s being flexible and being nimble about how you use the funding that you have.”

Private fundraising has long been seen as a way to pad school budgets in wealthier communities, usually to pay for nice-to-haves, such as field trips and student clubs. But as the district grapples with growing financial woes, more Chicago schools have leaned on parent fundraising, rental income, cell tower revenue, and more to pay for essentials, including staffing.

In fiscal year 2025, district-run campuses spent a total of $48 million in independently raised revenue, the Chalkbeat and Chicago Tribune analysis found. That’s up 78% since 2021, when the district was newly flush with federal pandemic relief.

In an email, a district spokesperson said the total spent in fiscal year 2025 was $51.8 million, but could not explain the discrepancy.

North Side schools have remained dominant in bringing in this outside funding, but some higher-poverty South and West Side campuses such as Kenwood increasingly held their own. Across the city, principals say they appreciate the boost, even as they note playing landlord and overseeing fundraisers can siphon time away from efforts to improve instruction.

The district made some cuts to school budgets this spring to chip at a $732.5 million deficit, under pressure from billions in long-term debt and pension liabilities, aging infrastructure and state funding that remains short of what Illinois deems “adequate.”

“The district’s budget is getting close to the breaking point, so principals are hustling around for additional revenue, the district’s hustling around to buy additional savings and the long-term revenue sources are kind of tapped out,” said Nelson Gerew of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Students walk outside Amundsen High School in 2017.

Larger schools say this funding is a lifeline

Until recently, Amundsen High School spent fundraised dollars on computer carts, classroom materials, and other nonessentials.

A decade ago, about 90% of Amundsen’s students were from low-income families and almost 60% were Latino. Then came an all-out effort to attract more families from the school’s well-to-do Lincoln Square neighborhood. The successful push has been a boon for Amundsen’s reputation and enrollment. It has also meant tighter budgets.

In 2024, the school — where roughly a third of students are now low-income and nearly half are white — lost federal dollars it used to receive for serving a high concentration of disadvantaged students. That year, CPS also adopted a new funding formula that, among other things, guaranteed minimum staffing for a growing number of campuses with smaller student bodies — the culmination of yearslong efforts to steer more resources to needier schools.

Facing a growing budget shortfall, Amundsen spent $894,000 in outside money in 2025, including fundraising, cell tower income, and grant revenue, for operational expenses such as partial staff salaries. That’s roughly 5% of its budget.

“We aren’t using [fundraising] because our kids need iPad 10s instead of iPad 9s,” said Bob Farster, a longtime Local School Council representative. “This isn’t frivolous. We’re not using it for things that aren’t 100% necessary.”

Historically in Chicago, parent fundraising has been a story of have versus have-not schools, a dynamic threatening to drive deeper inequity in a segregated district. Indeed, “Friends of” groups at the city’s premier selective enrollment schools, which tend to serve whiter and wealthier student bodies than the district as a whole, can pull in hefty amounts. Take Friends of Payton, which raised $786,000 for Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in 2023-24, according to the organization’s most recent tax filings, more than any other school in the district.

But the picture has become more nuanced.

Amid the funding shifts, school leaders, LSC members and parent groups at larger high schools like Amundsen — often in wealthier areas but drawing diverse student bodies — say outside revenue is helping to bridge budget gaps, paying for staff positions, pressing building repairs or other essentials.

Without independent revenue, one North Side principal who requested anonymity to speak candidly said, “I can’t make the numbers work.”

At about 1% of total campus budgets in 2024-25, this type of income that schools raise independently of what the district provides is still a small fraction of school spending overall. But it’s growing, and it accounts for a larger portion on some campuses, including 6% at Lincoln Park High School, the highest among CPS schools. This school year, 77 teacher and staff positions districtwide were funded through independent revenue, up from 67 in 2024-25.

Securing independent revenue can be time-consuming and uncertain, school leaders say. Renting out parking lots, auditoriums, and other school facilities often involves coming in on weekends and troubleshooting issues with vendors throughout the week, the North Side principal said.

Meanwhile, high-needs campuses on the South and West sides are stepping up their own fundraising.

Schools serving more low-income families hope to boost outside dollars

At Kenwood’s eighth grade graduation in the school’s courtyard earlier this month, graduates, parents and family members flocked to a booth piled high with “spiritwear”: $45 sweatshirts, $20 baseball hats, $10 tote bags, all with the school’s insignia rendered in ornate lettering. A winding line formed by the booth, manned by members of Friends of Kenwood.

RyAnn Nelson-Jaiyesimi, a 1998 graduate, held up a blue T-shirt with “alumni” scripted across the chest. She walked away with two for $20 each, adding that supporting the fundraiser was an easy decision: “We have kiddos from all different backgrounds, so I definitely think it’s important to give back.”

Volunteers bring out a rack of spiritwear to stock in the Friends of Kenwood Academy booth before the start of eighth grade graduation at Kenwood Academy on June 1, 2026, in Chicago.

Ramona Burress, a parent and former head of Kenwood’s Local School Council, helped revive the school’s parent fundraising group at the height of COVID, as many families struggled with access to food, housing, and technology needed for remote learning. Families kept it going after the pandemic’s fallout eased — and after Burress’ three children all graduated from Kenwood.

More recently, Burress joined an informal network of CPS “Friends of” group leaders, dominated by wealthier North Side schools where fundraising is “a well-oiled engine.” In a group chat and in-person meetings, she has gotten tips and ideas for how Kenwood could step up its fundraising efforts, such as a mini-grant competition to support student clubs and sports teams. Burress said the push has also spurred parent engagement at the school and sent a message to students that families and staff care about improving their experience.

At $55,000 last year, the group’s haul is still a fraction of what wealthier schools can raise. It’s also only about 13% of what Kenwood spent in outside revenue last year, income dominated by rental dollars. But the group wants to do more, tapping a network of loyal alumni and local businesses.

“The district is navigating real financial pressures,” Burress said. “Organizations like ours can help to close the gap. Ideally, we shouldn’t have to be here, but we recognize the need.”

The Chalkbeat/Chicago Tribune analysis showed Kenwood and other South and West Side schools serving higher-poverty student bodies have significantly increased the amounts of independently raised revenue in their budgets in recent years, often pulling a mix of rental, cell tower, student fee, and some fundraising income. Dyett High School for the Arts in Washington Park, Corliss High School in Pullman and Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen are among the 80 campuses on the South and West Sides that have tripled their outside spending dollars since 2021.

Overall, this type of spending went up by 40% at South and West Side schools since 2021 and accounted for almost a third of the total amount of independently raised revenue schools across the city spent.

In some cases, outside revenue has allowed such campuses to offer extras that have long been staples at wealthier schools. But increasingly, even as the district has shifted its funding model to prioritize higher-need campuses, some school leaders on the South and West Side say outside revenue has also helped shore up their budgets.

Gunsaulus, a Southwest Side magnet school serving largely low-income Latino families, spent a growing amount of cell tower revenue in recent years. Meanwhile, the school’s parent fundraising arm, Amigos de Gunsaulus, held an annual raffle to pay for field trips in the United States and South Korea all students take. But the group has also recently stepped up its efforts to raise more for campus needs, such as school supplies and arts programs.

Amigos has worked to adapt to its more limited fundraising prowess. Amigos used to host “dressdown” days, when parents could chip in $1 so their student wouldn’t have to wear the school uniform. But, says Vanessa Espinosa, the group’s president, Amigos did away with the practice because it felt unfair to low-income families.

The group has instead tried to emulate the annual fundraising galas and walkathons wealthier schools host, except its members target the school’s teachers and local businesses instead of their families — an approach that helped Amigos raise $166,000 in 2024-25, according to tax filings.

“We are conscious that our community has many limitations,” Espinosa said.

Increasingly, district leaders are noticing these schools’ fundraising efforts.

District officials push schools to get creative in raising revenue

In a district presentation the week school budgets were released this spring, principals were urged to tap any available dollars in the special funds containing parent fundraising, rental, and other revenue before appealing their staffing allocations.

The district has also more recently encouraged schools to rent out their facilities when possible and started taking a cut. Officials say this new “facility fee” helps offset some of CPS’ growing building maintenance expenses. The district said it will raise the fee for some schools this summer “to more accurately reflect actual building operating costs.” Schools hosting cell towers keep a third of that revenue; CPS redistributes the rest to all campuses, the district said.

LaToya Gray stands in front of the Friends of Kenwood Academy booth and straightens the graduation cap of her son, Jachin McGee, 13, who is graduating from eighth grade at Kenwood Academy on June 1, 2026, in Chicago.

A CPS spokeswoman told Chalkbeat and the Tribune that it takes a hands-off approach to school efforts to generate revenue independently and has a “neutral stance” on parent fundraising.

“While fundraising can play a role in finances at the local school level, it will not compensate for the nearly $3 billion in COVID-related funding allocated to CPS,” the district said in a statement.

Still, district officials have shown some interest in helping higher-poverty schools step up their game when it comes to securing outside revenue.

At Kenwood, Burress says she has met twice with the head of the regional office overseeing Kenwood and other high schools about replicating the school’s fundraising efforts on other South Side campuses. School board members have voiced interest as well. Gunsaulus’ Espinosa has also gotten inquiries from a network administrator and principals at nearby schools to present on launching a fundraising nonprofit without a pricey attorney.

Lauren Sartain, one of the authors of a 2023 Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago study of CPS fundraising, cautions against relying too much on independently raised revenue.

“To think you can tap these dollars to support all students who have needs is simply not realistic,” Sartain said.

Still, school leaders and advocates said that they are grateful for these dollars — even more so amid this spring’s budget cuts. At Whitney Young, a coveted selective school on the Near West Side, Friends of Whitney Young money once supported building improvements and student groups. But this year, for the first time, the nonprofit will fund two teaching positions.

Friends of Whitney Young president Patricia Herrera put it simply: “We’re basically a lifeline now.”

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

Kate Armanini is the education reporter at the Chicago Tribune.

Editing by Becky Vevea, Corilyn Shropshire, and Mónica Rhor; data analysis by Thomas Wilburn; visual presentation by Steve Rosenberg, Todd Panagopoulos and Susan Gonzales; engagement design by Ellen Przepasniak and Caroline Bauman; copy editing by Mónica Rhor and Robert Loerzel.

Editor’s note: This story was created in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune. Please do not republish.

Here’s how much education funding is in Illinois’ FY27 state budget

2026-06-04T22:38:35+00:00

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Illinois schools have a slightly larger windfall of new money coming their way compared to last year after lawmakers passed a $56 billion state budget late Sunday. An array of early childhood programs also will get more money, while other education initiatives maintained their funding levels or saw financial reductions from the year prior.

Within that multibillion dollar budget, K-12 schools are in line for $9.2 billion through the evidence-based funding formula, which is a $350 million increase over last year. The Illinois General Assembly’s budget is for the 2027 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027.

The increase is in line with a promise lawmakers made a decade ago to fully fund all districts through the evidence-based formula by adding $350 million each year for 10 years. But local education advocates continue to demand more funds for schools, pointing out that Illinois is not on track to meet its original goal of full funding by 2027.

The formula has led to a roughly $2 billion increase in state funding since 2017. Each year schools are guaranteed to receive at least the same amount of money they received the year before and higher-need districts are prioritized to get a larger share of the annual increase.

Top state officials highlighted the finalized budget allocations as a responsible choice in the face of an uncertain federal funding landscape, especially for public schools.

“The state of Illinois cannot undo every reckless decision being made in Washington, but we can choose what kind of state we’re going to be at this moment,” Senate President Don Harmon said in a Monday news conference.

With the exception of one year of flat funding in the past decade, lawmakers have stayed firm in their commitment to increase education funding annually, said Robin Steans, president of education advocacy group Advance Illinois. That’s not something to take for granted, she said, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more work to be done. At the current funding pace, it could take another decade to fully fund Illinois schools, Steans said.

The Illinois State Board of Education has not yet calculated how much of an increase each school district will get under the evidence-based formula.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a $732 million deficit and the district has already tightened staffing and further cuts are likely to ensue, which only intensified demands for lawmakers to put more money into CPS in the weeks leading up to the end of the session.

What the state budget means for Chicago schools

For the first time in her 12 years of working as an English teacher at George Westinghouse College Prep in Humboldt Park, Melina Lesus experienced budget cuts at her school. In the past year, Lesus said students lost their choir and French classes.

The strained CPS budget is “slashing” her students’ choices, which is why she joined a large cohort of CTU members and other community advocates last week on a bus trip to Springfield to make their case for more education funding.

Diane Castro the financial secretary of the CTU speaks during the “Wheels Up” event on Wed., May 27, 2026 in Chicago., Illinois.

“Cuts to the arts, to sports, or to critical support staff tell our students, my children, that they are not worth the investment,” CTU financial secretary Diane Castro told reporters at the union’s news conference.

That sentiment didn’t change much after the budget was released. Stacy Davis Gates, president of both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that there is still “progress to be made” on providing adequate funding.

“Without further action from the General Assembly, our students will be hungrier. Our families will have less access to healthcare. Schools will be saddled with more unfunded mandates in a Blue state,” Gates said. “Leaving Springfield with those results would be as backwards as anything can be.”

Nationally, CPS’ debt stands out. The school system carries more than three times the average debt per capita compared to the other largest school districts in the country, according to a June report from the independent fiscal research group The Civic Federation.

This year’s budget does include money to update school buildings in Chicago. Millions of dollars were reappropriated for more than 160 schools to make improvements such as installing new windows, updating HVAC systems, and upgrading playgrounds.

Lawmakers also included a small increase in funding for the City Colleges of Chicago.

How money for statewide education programs stacked up compared to previous years

When it came to funding education-related programs, some fared better or worse than last year — and some made off just OK.

One new initiative receiving a $200,000 boost is the Illinois State Board of Education’s development of a new criteria for low-income population counts due to narrowed federal eligibility rules for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Illinois relies on children’s participation in federal social services to identify them in a school’s low-income population — a major factor in EBF funding. The new criteria seeks to avoid under-counting students from low-income families as more become unenrolled from federal programs.

The state budget delivered for the new Department of Early Childhood — which will oversee several programs serving Illinois’ youngest children starting July 1 — by allotting nearly $86 million toward its operations. Early intervention also got a financial bump of $15 million.

Other early childhood programs stayed at the same funding levels as the year before. That includes $212 million for the Smart Start Child Care Workforce Compensation Program, which supplies wages for early childhood educators.

Funding for public higher education institutions — known as the Monetary Award Program — was kept at a flat 1% increase. By not distributing more money to colleges and universities, Steans said costs will trickle down to students, forcing them to go out-of-state or not pursue higher education at all.

“I think historically we’ve treated higher education as discretionary: nice, but not necessary, a luxury,” she said. “Increasingly, it’s just not. We need students to earn those associate’s degrees and those bachelor’s degrees.”

Other notable state budget items passed this year include:

The Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan and the Illinois Comprehensive Numeracy Plan, which kept the same funding level of $1.5 million as last fiscal year.
A $15 million reduction in the Teacher Vacancy Grant Pilot Program, which helps school districts create incentives to hire and retain teachers.
The Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Program, which was maintained at about $2 million in funding
A new $1 million allocation to fund ISBE’s implementation of mental health screeners in schools

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the CPS deficit is $732 million.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board members voice concern about school budget cuts and debate state funding resolution

2026-05-13T21:38:11+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools’ newly released, leaner campus budgets cast a shadow over a Wednesday meeting of the school board when members debated a resolution calling on state lawmakers to steer more money to schools.

Several board members invoked the proposed budgets in arguing for the resolution, which would push legislators to explore progressive sources of new revenue that could buttress school district budgets. But other members questioned whether passing a resolution would be an effective way to make the district’s case in Springfield, where lawmakers have signalled skepticism that the state can help more amid its own intense budget pressures.

Earlier in the day, a half dozen board members aligned with Mayor Brandon Johnson also held a press conference calling on state lawmakers to send more dollars to schools and taking aim at a “megaprojects” economic development bill Johnson has vocally opposed. They argued that the proposal, which would back a new Arlington Heights stadium for the Chicago Bears football team, would siphon resources away from schools. A statement from these members called the district’s planned cuts “severe.”

During the meeting’s public comments section, district officials got an earful from labor leaders on the proposed school budgets. Kia Banks, who leads the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said the union will fight assistant principal cuts and other reductions. She said many school leaders were taken aback by their budgets after delays in their release.

“What we saw was disappointing, frustrating, and sad, and it’s actually self-defeating,” she said, arguing leaner budgets could spur more families to leave the district.

District leaders sent school budgets to principals Tuesday that district officials said would increase special education funding but reduce some teacher, administrative, and support staff positions. Officials would not say by how much funding they are steering directly to school is shrinking compared with last year or how many positions overall might be cut.

But in a memo to school board members, district officials estimated that the school budget shifts would make a $96 million dent in a CPS deficit leaders have pegged at $732 million.

The district is eliminating assistant principals at schools with fewer than 250 students and slightly increasing the student-teacher ratios it uses to allocate teachers to school. Some schools will also likely see reductions in academic interventionists, instructional coaches, and other roles.

CPS leaders presented the changes as a responsible response to the moment: The district added almost 10,000 educators, support staff, and other positions since 2019 as enrollment plunged by 45,000 students. The budget swelled by some $2.6 billion, to more than $10 billion, in the same period. The federal COVID aid that in part powered that increase is now gone, and the $1 billion in additional state revenue CPS received in recent years still leaves the district well short of the state’s calculation for “adequate” funding.

Board members debate funding resolution

At the Wednesday meeting to review the agenda for the board’s regular meeting later this month, some board members argued that the state funding resolution introduced by member Anusha Thotakura was an answer to the district’s precarious fiscal moment. Thotakura said she had worked on bringing it in front of the board for months — and this month’s timing could not be more apt.

She said facing a gaping deficit and “drastic cuts” felt like a “recurring nightmare,” with no progress in securing additional state funding. She cited proposals to raise taxes on wealthy Illinoisans or large corporations as examples of progressive solutions to the state — and district’s — fiscal woes.

“The purpose of this resolution is to bring attention to the needs of our students and, while there are only a few weeks of the legislative session in Springfield, to show a united front and a force among us as leaders in Chicago that we want progressive revenue to support our students and their families,” Thotakura said. She added, “In this final stretch, we have to do more.”

Said board member Jitu Brown: “United, we can shake what we need from Springfield.”

But other board members said that although they might agree with the spirit of the resolution, it would do little to further the district’s Springfield agenda. One board member, Jenni Custer, voiced disappointment that the board had never voted on a clear, unified legislative agenda for this spring’s session. She decried governing by resolution instead.

Board member Ellen Rosenfeld agreed, calling board resolutions “performative governance.” She said everything has to be on the table to solve the district’s structural deficit, from lobbying the state to possible furloughs for CPS staff, which she said would save millions of dollars per day.

“Resolutions really have little to no long-term implications,” she said. She added, “Going down to Springfield and yelling at them and telling them what we’ve told them already doesn’t seem to be that effective.”

Labor leaders bash school budgets

At the same time, labor leaders who addressed the board signalled their members are keeping track of how board members navigate the fiscal challenges ahead of historic school board races this fall.

Banks of the principals union noted that all 21 seats on the school board will be up for grabs in November, and pointed to a recent survey, in which the union’s members said a key criteria to support board candidates would be their ability to line up additional revenue for the district.

Stacy Davis Gates, the head of the Chicago Teachers Union, also called on district leaders and board members to step up efforts to bring in more city and state revenue. She questioned the district’s decision to assume just $100 million in revenue from a special property tax program to spur development, just a fifth of what CPS received last year — and said CPS should be actively working to ensure more robust support.

“The budget as announced yesterday is unsatisfactory and dead on arrival,” she said.

She also questioned why all school board members did not join the Wednesday press conference to advocate for more progressive revenue from the state. And she said the district cancelled a group of teachers’ lobbying trip to Springfield previously scheduled for this week.

Under a May Day agreement CPS and the union struck last month, the district had committed to give the day off with pay to as many as 65 CTU members to lobby lawmakers. But the district said Wednesday that CTU provided a list of seven educators but did not meet the five-day advance notice spelled out in the agreement.

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

Chicago Public Schools tightens staffing in school budgets amid massive deficit

2026-05-12T22:00:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools will likely steer less money overall to its campuses for the 2026-27 school year, though it will cap educator layoffs at each school and significantly boost special education funding, district leaders said Tuesday.

At an embargoed press briefing, officials declined to spell out the amount by which school budgets might shrink overall or the number of teachers and staff positions on the chopping block. They said these numbers are in flux as principals who received their budgets today have roughly a month to appeal their allocations — and as CPS leaders press state lawmakers and the city for more funding. But in a memo to school board members, Emila Zoko, the acting chief budget officer, estimated school budget shifts would result in about $96 million in savings.

The district crafted school budgets during its most financially uncertain spring since before the pandemic, when it is facing a deficit officials now estimate at more than $730 million. For years, CPS poured federal COVID relief dollars and additional state funding into its schools, opening almost 10,000 new positions since 2019 even as enrollment dropped by 45,000 students. But with almost $3 billion in pandemic aid now expired and only a modest state funding boost for the coming school year, the district must grapple with intractable realities, leaders said.

All schools will still staff a minimum of 10 teachers, but the district is increasing by one student the student-teacher ratios it uses to allocate additional educators. For some campuses, that would mean fewer teachers, though no elementary school will lose more than four educators and no high school more than six. The district will also no longer staff assistant principals at schools with fewer than 250 students — a move the CPS principals union estimated will result in about 120 lost positions and vowed to fight in a letter to members.

The district had committed to staffing an assistant principal in every school when it shifted to a new school budgeting approach in 2023 meant to deemphasize enrollment and better support high-needs schools — goals district leaders stressed they continue to uphold. But that formula’s minimum staffing requirements are becoming more challenging in a cash-strapped district with both enormous schools and a growing number of tiny ones.

But district officials said the district will hire more special education teachers and support staff as the number of students with disabilities continues to increase. It will also add 60 new cluster classrooms — for students with more significant disabilities — across the city.

“Despite all the challenges, we’ve created a budget that successfully meets the moment we are in,” said CPS CEO Macquline King.

Illinois has increased the amount of funding it steers to CPS by roughly $1 billion in recent years. But according to the state’s own calculation of “adequate” funding, CPS remains about $1.6 billion short.

The district budgeted with a deficit estimate of $732 million, which assumes CPS will not chip in to a city pension fund covering its support staff as Mayor Brandon Johnson has insisted in recent years. It also assumes an influx of $100 million from a special tax fund for development, or just a fifth of a record amount CPS received last year — a decrease some local experts consider unlikely.

District leaders stressed CPS is also contending with a major rise in expenditures, driven by upkeep for aging school buildings, labor contract costs, and servicing CPS’s massive debt.

Last year, the district mostly held school funding steady in its $10.2 billion budget, even as it made $272 million in reductions to its central administration and departments. It also shrunk the number of custodians, crossing guards, and cafeteria workers in a bid to keep the impact of its cost-cutting away from the classroom.

Officials said Tuesday that they are planning to trim centralized expenses and support positions once again. But they clearly signaled there will also likely be cuts to teaching and student support staff, including possible reductions to the number of academic interventionists and instructional coaches — two types of positions CPS embraced to speed up post-pandemic recovery.

“Very much like last year, everything is on the table,” King said.

Some principals told Chalkbeat they braced for some staffing cuts because of enrollment dips at their schools and the large deficit, so they were not caught off guard. Others said the losses were much worse than they anticipated, though in some cases the teacher layoff caps helped preserve some educator positions that would have been cut otherwise. One principal said an enrollment bump of just a few students yielded an extra teacher for the school.

“These formulas are not nuanced,” the principal said. “They are large stepping stones without much fine-tuning.”

Principals have until June 9 to appeal their staffing allocations and finalize their budgets. Then later in the summer, the district will unveil its overall budget, which includes centralized expenses, pension, and debt service costs in addition to the campus budgets. The school board must vote on that districtwide budget by Aug. 29 at the latest. Officials said CPS will also hold community engagement sessions on the school budget in the coming weeks.

District and Chicago Teachers Union leaders are lobbying state lawmakers for more state funding. The demise earlier this spring of a millionaire’s tax proposal in Springfield that would have brought $400 million more for CPS dimmed some hopes for additional dollars.

But the union and others argue all is not lost. In fact, the school board is slated to vote on a resolution this month calling on the state Legislature and the governor to give the district more resources. Lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker have signaled that amid major pressures on the state’s own budget, they’re unlikely to send more help to CPS.

“We continue our conversations with lawmakers to make sure they understand what our students need and what’s at stake,” King said.

She said that the additional educators and support staff CPS hired since 2019 were a wise investment, noting the district has bounced back academically post-COVID faster than others: “The progress of our students is evidence that our additional staff did a tremendous job.”

In a statement, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter blamed the district’s budget predicament squarely on state legislators and Pritzker.

“There is wealth in Illinois,” Potter said in the statement, “and there are solutions on the table in Springfield to fully fund our schools, make the ultra-rich and large corporations pay their fair share.”

Chalkbeat Chicago reporter Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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

Chicago Public Schools campus budget could bring cuts amid massive deficit

2026-05-06T16:59:30+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

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Edgardo Ramirez, the father of two students at Chicago’s Saucedo STEAM Magnet Academy, is bracing for the release of the school’s budget in the shadow of a massive districtwide budget gap.

The school, which has largely bucked the enrollment declines plaguing the district, serves about 920 mostly low-income Latino students in the Little Village neighborhood. After years of relative budget and staffing stability, Ramirez, the head of Saucedo’s Local School Council, worries the campus could take a painful hit.

He dwells on what the school might lose: One of the two bilingual coordinators who have guided his English learner children? Or one of the two counselors who helped his older daughter earn a seat at the competitive Jones College Prep High School?

Chicago Public Schools is gearing up to unveil school budgets as early as next week amid deep financial uncertainty. After roughly a decade of largely holding the line or even boosting school budgets with now-expired federal COVID aid, the district could be forced to send less directly to its roughly 500 campuses.

In recent weeks, CEO Macquline King has floated a worst case budget deficit of up to $1 billion. A source with knowledge of the situation told Chalkbeat the district is planning with a gap of about $700 million in mind. Unlike the worst case scenario, that number assumes an influx of some revenue from a special city taxing program meant to spur development — and no CPS contribution to a city pension fund that covers CPS support staff and city employees. Even so, school level cuts, that source said, are “inevitable.”

CPS and teachers union leaders are still lobbying state lawmakers for more funding, noting the district remains about $1.6 billion shy of what Illinois considers “adequate” funding and, unlike other Illinois districts, shoulders the bulk of its teacher pension costs. But extra help might not be on the way from Springfield. There, some lawmakers have questioned thousands of new hires CPS made as enrollment continued to dip in recent years — positions district leaders have argued helped propel academic recovery post-COVID and fill longstanding staffing gaps.

“It’s a really anxious time,” said Kia Banks, the head of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. “We are bracing ourselves this time for impact that might hit closer to the classroom.”

The moment is putting to the test a school budgeting approach the district introduced a couple of years ago while it was still relatively flush with federal pandemic relief. It was meant to deemphasize student counts and help higher-need schools by guaranteeing minimum staffing numbers regardless of school size and allocating additional dollars based on an Opportunity Index that factors in student demographics and other metrics.

But in a district with both enormous schools and a growing number of tiny campuses, CPS is now forced to figure out how to make its need-based formula work in much leaner times. CPS high schools with 500 students or more — many of them in better-to-do communities though often serving diverse students from multiple ZIP codes — now get well less than half of the almost $35,000 per pupil that smaller high schools receive on average.

It’s a gap that has widened markedly since the new formula’s 2023 introduction, a Chalkbeat analysis showed. And with numerous small schools that already get the minimum staffing CPS set, some at larger schools such as Saucedo worry their campuses might absorb more of the pain.

CPS presents a districtwide budget after the school budget release, likely sometime in June, that its school board must approve. In a statement, the district said it has worked closely with city and state leaders to get a clearer picture of the CPS’ financial outlook.

“As we have in recent prior years, we will look to prioritize students and in-classroom learning experiences,” the district said.

School budget cuts loom in CPS

The district had aimed to get budget amounts to school leaders earlier this spring, and to some principals, the release in mid-May is cutting it too close to the end of the school year in early June.

“The anxiety doubles when you have to wait so long, especially when the school year ends so early,” said one elementary principal, who like other school leaders who spoke with Chalkbeat requested anonymity to discuss budgets candidly.

The delay stung in part because earlier this spring, CPS moved up the deadline for most end-of-year school spending by almost a month. That forced some school leaders to scramble to dedicate remaining dollars — or return them to the district. Principals at the time told Chalkbeat the district appeared bent on sweeping back more unspent school dollars to help with its budget woes. The district has since said that it’s on track to end this school year about $45 million in the red.

The district said the earlier deadline, which also applied to central office and departments, gave CPS more fiscal clarity and helped encourage school leaders to focus any remaining spending on “critical needs.” The message to schools and departments: “Every dollar counts.”

Banks said the earlier deadline was challenging, but at the same time, the district under King has collaborated with the union and sought more input on budgets than ever before.

Nelson Gerew of the Chicago Public Education Fund said additional cuts to central office and districtwide departments will be harder following the reductions of about $270 million that CPS made last summer. Even if the district cuts central costs aggressively, that still leaves more than $200 million in cuts that likely need to come from school budgets, he said.

He said some school-based positions the district created with COVID aid to power its post-pandemic academic recovery, such as interventionists and academic coaches, might be especially vulnerable.

Financial pressures test the district’s budget approach

At Saucedo, Ramirez, the LSC chair, says he is grateful that the school gets two counselors, two bilingual coordinators, and two security guards. But in a school with more than 900 students and high needs, these key staff members are already stretched thin. Still, he worries that as a larger school with more than one of each position, Saucedo could be a budget cut target.

“One of my big worries is that we could lose positions, which would affect the quality of education here,” he said.

He is also concerned the campus might have to cut its free after-school programs, including academic ones focused on reading and math recovery.

Over the years, school leaders have noted that large schools with opportunity indexes that suggest lower needs face special budget pressures: In a large school, low-income students might represent a smaller portion of all students but still be a sizable group. Under the formula, these schools tend to get relatively lean administrative and support staffing.

Now, some principals at larger schools, especially selective enrollment and magnet campuses, worry the cuts might affect them disproportionately.

“All of us are bracing for cuts,” said another elementary principal. “How could there not be? The money has to come from somewhere. Robbing Paul to pay Peter is what it feels like at this point.”

Gerew of the Chicago Public Education Fund noted that about a fifth of elementary schools are at the district’s minimal staffing floor, meaning there’s little or no room in their budgets for cuts.

“The district is almost certainly committed to retaining the foundational level of support for small schools,” he said. “Thus, if savings have to be made, they have to come from larger schools.”

Banks, of the district’s principals union, countered that small schools have their own struggles with lean staffing, and they usually can’t count on parent fundraising in the way larger schools in wealthier communities can.

The needs-based district budgeting approach was designed to buoy schools that have lost enrollment in part because they were underfunded in previous years.

At Manierre Elementary on Chicago’s North Side, Mykela Collins, a Local School Council member and mother of a third grader, said smaller schools don’t feel immune amid the budget uncertainty. The school serves about 260 mostly low-income Black students, a number that has remained stable in recent years. Collins worries about cuts to after-school programs and possible layoffs after years with no staff losses.

“It’s scary,” said Collins, who traveled to Springfield earlier this spring to lobby for more school funding with the advocacy group Kids First Chicago. “We really don’t know what to expect.”

Charter school officials are feeling the anxiety too, said Andrew Broy of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. The state is poised to increase its calculation for the per-pupil funding charters receive, based on CPS per student spending in district-run schools two years ago. But the district withholds money from charters to help cover pension and debt costs — contributions charter advocates have decried but that the district says are a part of sharing districtwide expenses.

“If these contributions are increased, it could be a net loss for charters,” Broy said.

Hal Woods of Kids First said an added wrinkle to the budget complexity is that all seats on the school board are up for grabs in November, and many current board members will run. He wonders if that might make them more averse to signing off on school budget cuts and perhaps even push them to revisit high-interest borrowing — an idea a majority on the board rejected last summer because it would swell the district’s already massive debt burden and drive up costs in the longer run.

“I wonder whether with CPS classroom cuts on the table, people start having a different take on borrowing,” Woods said. “But you have to give people the full picture. If you take out a loan to stave off classroom cuts, what does that mean for future fiscal years?”

Chalkbeat Chicago reporter Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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

A new bill would force Chicago Public Schools to pay into municipal retirement fund

2026-02-24T18:27:55+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools officials are voicing concern about a pair of bills targeting pension costs for employees, particularly one that would force the district to take on a controversial payment into a municipal retirement fund.

But the Chicago state lawmaker who introduced the proposals says the bills are simply “placeholders” meant to spur conversations between district, city, and state officials.

One of the bills authored by Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat, would compel the district to start paying into a city pension fund that covers Chicago Public Schools support staff as well as city employees. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has pressed CPS to foot these costs — an issue that contributed to the firing of the district’s former CEO and bitterly divided its partly elected school board.

Martwick’s other bill would shift all costs of paying into the district’s separate teacher pension fund from CPS to the state — a move he acknowledged is a long shot this year. District leaders have long decried that Illinois largely covers teacher pensions in all school districts except Chicago, where it pays for roughly a third of these costs.

In a statement, the district said the proposals could put CPS in a bind. Given its own deficit and significant federal funding cuts, it’s unlikely the state would take on CPS’s teacher pension costs during this election year. Meanwhile, the municipal fund proposal would saddle the district with “an unfunded mandate that CPS simply cannot afford” as it faces a deficit of more than half a billion dollars. Taking out a loan and adding to the district’s huge debt burden to make the recurring payment is not a solution, the statement said, as officials have insisted in the past.

“Without a corresponding increase in state or local funding, this shift would force a choice between pension payments and student education,” the district’s statement said.

In an interview, Martwick, a Chicago Teachers Union ally and an architect of the city’s transition from mayoral control to an elected school board, said the city and the district must disentangle their finances before that board is seated in January. His bill is meant to spur them to figure out how to do that, he said.

Bills are meant to start pension conversations, author says

Meanwhile, a larger role for the state in footing Chicago’s teacher pension costs is “the right thing to do,” he said, and his bill will keep that request in the foreground as some lawmakers press for an influx of new revenue for education.

“There are no easy answers here; there’s no way to make the pension debt magically go away,” he said. “These decisions are challenging, but for the good of the students and taxpayers, they must be made.”

Joe Ferguson of the Civic Federation, a Chicago-based nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, said he agrees that the city and district must have a conversation about handling the municipal pension fund costs going forward. But he said Martwick’s proposal gives the city an edge at a time the district is especially “fiscally fragile.”

“The larger problem is that there aren’t meaningful, collaborative discussions between the city and CPS,” he said. “Instead, we have a piece of legislation that says nothing about where the money would come from, which is how the city has been approaching this issue.”

If both bills were to become law, the district could come out ahead — but only if the state allows it to use dollars from a dedicated teacher pension property tax levy for other expenses. It’s somewhat unclear what the cost of the district’s annual payment into the city’s Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund would be. In its statement, the district suggested the payment would be $175 million to $200 million, but a recent budget presentation by the mayor’s office to local school council members estimated it at $346 million.

CPS’ costs for its teacher pension fund came to about $660 million in this year’s budget, most of it covered from a pension property tax levy but some coming from its operating revenues.

Chicago school board members in October unanimously backed a $175 million reimbursement to the city’s pension fund — but only after Johnson steered a record amount of special tax dollars to CPS to cover the payment and other costs. Earlier in the fall, a majority on the board had defied the mayor and voted for a district budget that didn’t include that payment, only committing to make it if an influx of new revenue materialized.

The mayor and board members aligned with him and with the teachers union, his former employer, have said taking on the pension payment permanently would help the district separate its finances from those of the city as CPS transitions to a fully elected school board. They have said the district must chip in for its own employees’ pension costs in a move that will ensure a collaborative relationship with the city.

But school board members who pushed back against including the payment in the budget last fall noted that under state law, the city is on the hook for those costs — and passing them on to the district would mean painful cuts that would affect the classroom. They balked at the idea of taking out a high-cost loan to make the reimbursement, noting the district already wrestles with staggering debt service costs.

The district said shifting the municipal pension fund costs onto CPS without new revenue would queue up an “immediate fiscal crisis” for the new fully elected school board in early 2027. It said the district needs a comprehensive solution to its pension issues in collaboration with the city and the state.

One idea from CPS? The state could take on more of the district’s teacher pension costs, and CPS could use some of the pension property tax dollars freed up as a result to pay into the municipal retirement fund.

The proposals have murky prospects in Springfield

Martwick said his bills are works in progress that “involved no input from anyone,” and he said the exact cost of the municipal pension payment CPS would have to take on under one of them is still being clarified. He had no intention of giving the city an advantage in such a conversation, Martwick said. As a resident and father of CPS students, he said it’s important the district tackle the task of separating their finances from those of the city with a sense of urgency.

“It almost sounds like they’re saying, ‘No, no, no, let’s stay entangled,’” he said. “CPS needs to grasp that this disentanglement is real.”

He said he introduced the bills against the backdrop of a larger push by Illinois progressives to pursue new revenue for the state, such as raising taxes on wealthy residents. If that push works, he said, he wants CPS teacher pensions to be on the list of things the state could start funding.

A couple of Chicagoland state lawmakers recently introduced a CTU-backed bill to fully fund the state’s “evidence-based” school funding formula and cover some mandated services, such as transportation for students with disabilities.

CPS officials have voiced an interest in consolidating the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund with that of the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, which covers educators outside of Chicago — a move that they say could save CPS big. But the teachers union has opposed the idea.

Hal Woods of the advocacy group Kids First Chicago said he sees both Martwick bills as “conversation starters” with murky prospects of passage this spring. The two proposals amount to “a grand bargain,” he said, in which the district can use money freed up by passing on teacher pension costs to the state to make the city payments covering support staff pensions. The catch? There’s nothing in it for the state.

Woods said he didn’t think Martwick would push for the city fund bill in isolation, noting it would swell the district’s deficit to almost $1 billion and almost certainly lead to disruptive classroom cuts without an unexpected influx in revenue.

“I don’t think he would stick CPS with a $346 million bill and no way to pay for it,” Woods said.

This story has been updated to clarify that the district would need state approval to redirect revenue from its pension property levy to other expenses.

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

Pritzker’s budget plan calls for education funding increases but fall short of requests

2026-02-19T22:41:50+00:00

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When Illinois’ main funding formula for K-12 schools was established a decade ago — meant to send more dollars to districts with higher needs — lawmakers at the time set a goal to fully fund it by 2027.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget proposal for next fiscal year wouldn’t do that.

Pritzker’s $56 billion budget proposal, which he released Wednesday, calls for a $305 million increase in the evidence-based funding formula, with a total investment of $9.2 billion. That’s $45 million less than what the Illinois State Board of Education, or ISBE, requested last month.

The proposal is the opening of budget negotiations. State lawmakers are expected to finalize a budget in May.

The governor’s plan angered the state’s biggest teachers unions, which are pushing lawmakers to fully fund the formula by next year, which would require an additional $3 billion. Another education advocacy organization described the budget proposal as responsible in the face of economic pressures and federal funding threats.

Pritzker’s proposed increase excludes property tax relief grants for school districts, which were paused last year, too. Lindsay Record, a spokesperson for ISBE, said a state panel is reviewing the effectiveness of those grants and is expected to release a report by March 1, which “will inform further conversations on the future of this grant program.”

The proposal also calls for a $51 million increase in funding that helps districts cover costs for special education, transportation, and some other expenses — about $100 million less than what ISBE requested.

In all, the governor is proposing about $10.7 billion for K-12 education. Pritzker proposed a social media fee that he estimates would raise about $200 million next fiscal year for education expenses. The fee would be imposed on companies that “collect consumer data and sell to third-party buyers,” according to the budget proposal.

Pritzker praised the state’s education investments, crediting them for eighth grade reading and math scores that surpassed national averages on the test known as the “nation’s report card.” Fourth grade reading and math scores were on par with the national average.

“We prioritize school funding, putting billions more into public education to improve the student teacher ratio and get better outcomes for our children,” Pritzker said during his State of the State speech Wednesday.

Pritzker’s plan — described as a maintenance budget in the face of federal funding threats — comes as some progressive Chicago-area lawmakers have introduced a new, union-backed bill that calls for the state to fully fund the formula by 2027 with more money for reimbursements to districts. If the bill passed as written, it would cost the state an additional $3.9 billion annually, Ralph Martire, the executive director of the think tank Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, previously told Chalkbeat. A 2024 report from the center found that at the current funding level, schools won’t be fully funded under the formula until at least 2034.

The bill’s backers have called for taxes on Illinois’ wealthiest residents and corporations to help cover the costs.

Since 2017, the state has increased funding through the new formula by about $2.5 billion. Today, roughly one-third of districts are considered at least 90% adequately funded.

Chicago Public Schools, the state’s largest district where about 70% of kids are from low-income families, has seen nearly $390 million in overall funding increases from the state over the past five years. Still, the district is $1.6 billion short of what the state considers adequate funding, an issue that district leaders often highlight as they plan their annual budget.

Pankaj Sharma, secretary and treasurer of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, blasted the governor’s proposal in part because it won’t fully fund the formula by next year as state lawmakers had originally promised.

“Each day that our Governor and members of the General Assembly fail to deliver valuable resources to students, educators, and their families, they are shortchanging our young people according to their own funding formula,” Sharma said in a statement. “It is another day where a student’s zip code — not state policy — determines whether they have what they need to succeed.”

But Advance Illinois, another education advocacy organization, described the proposal as responsible in a tough budget year. The group noted, however, that the state is still roughly $3 billion short of fully funding its formula.

“Governor Pritzker has consistently prioritized education, and past investments have served Illinois well,” Advance Illinois President Robin Steans said in a statement. “We hope the General Assembly can find ways to build on the Governor’s proposal to ensure that Illinois students do not lose ground.”

Separately, for the second year in a row, the governor called for banning cellphones from the classroom during his State of the State address Wednesday. Lawmakers failed to pass such legislation last year.

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

5 things to watch in 2026 in Chicago Public Schools and across Illinois

2026-01-16T12:00:01+00:00

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2026 is a big year for Chicago Public Schools.

The school board is looking for a new CEO as it stares down a possible half-billion-dollar budget deficit. And later this year, the city will hold school board elections — this time for every seat.

On the state level, there are questions about what education funding and child care will look like as the Trump administration threatens to withhold federal funding for Illinois child care services.

Here are five things we’re watching this year.

Who will be the next leader of Chicago Public Schools?

When Chalkbeat previewed 2025, we wondered who the next CEO would be. That question remains more than a year later.

The school board began searching last spring for CPS’ new CEO, who is charged with carrying out the board’s vision for the district’s schools and recommending policy changes for board approval.

The board was expected to choose one of two finalists by the end of 2025. But the process appeared to come to a halt in November after the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ, and Chalkbeat revealed finalist names. Later that month, one board member said they were “reconsidering the process,” while another said they were rescheduling finalist interviews. A November statement from the board said the process is “ongoing.”

Whoever is hired will face thorny issues like chronic absenteeism, budget problems, and declining enrollment. Notably, that person will be less than a year into the job before a new, fully elected school board takes over in January 2027.

Who will Chicago elect to be on the school board?

Chicago voters will elect a new school board on Nov. 3. But unlike the last election in 2024, voters will choose all 21 board members, including an at-large president.

Currently, the mayor appoints people to 11 of the seats, including board president.

Many board members have said they plan to run, but board President Sean Harden has said he won’t. Candidates who win seats currently held by mayoral appointees will have two-year terms; those who win seats held by elected members will have four-year terms.

It will also be key to watch who is donating to candidates’ campaigns. Last election, some of the biggest spenders were political action committees tied to the Chicago Teachers Union, Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and Urban Center.

Prospective candidates can begin Feb. 24 to collect petition signatures from registered Chicago voters – a requirement of getting on the ballot. The lists of signatures must be submitted to the Chicago Board of Elections between May 18-26.

By Aug. 27, the Board of Elections will have a final list of who will appear on the November ballot.

Are we in for another budget fight at CPS?

The short answer is, probably.

Chicago Public Schools and its school board navigated a bruising budget process last summer as it grappled with a $734 million deficit, or about 8% of the operating budget. Board members argued over whether to take out a short-term loan to cover expenses and whether to forgo a pension payment to the city. They ultimately avoided a loan and direct cuts to classrooms but slashed elsewhere, including vacant positions at central office, custodians, and hot meals.

For the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, CPS officials have so far projected a $520 million deficit, and it’s unclear if more federal cuts are coming. Board members may need to consider cuts right as many run for election. Some may try to find more revenue, such as lobbying the state for more money or changes to help alleviate the district’s structural deficit.

But the state is also facing a challenging financial picture.

What can we expect from the state budget?

The Illinois State Board of Education wants a $350 million increase to the main funding stream for school districts. The 4% increase, if ultimately approved by state lawmakers, is in line with past years, but some organizations say that increase is not enough, especially in the face of possible federal cuts. Roughly one-third of Illinois school districts are considered 90% or more adequately funded, according to state figures.

The state is facing a $2.2 billion deficit. Still, the legislature is unlikely to provide much less than the amount ISBE requested.

Illinois House Speaker Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, wants a new tax on millionaires. And some groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union, have been pushing since last year for state leaders to impose new taxes on Illinois’ wealthiest residents and corporations. If such proposals go through, it’s possible some of the additional revenue will flow to schools.

But the state has many other areas of government to focus on, including a possible loss of federal dollars for child care and social services assistance.

What will child care look like?

There are fresh concerns about child care after the Trump administration announced a plan to freeze about $1 billion in federal assistance for Illinois child care for low-income, working families and other social services programs.

Tens of thousands of Illinois children are in programs supported by those federal funds, including 152,000 kids who attend programs partially funded by the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant, according to Pritzker’s office. Thousands of other children go to licensed child care providers who receive federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, dollars, the governor’s office said.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from withholding that money. But if the Trump administration is successful, the loss of these funds could mean a drastic drop in the state’s child care providers and could leave many families without help, advocates and policy experts have said.

Some unions and state lawmakers are calling for Illinois to expand funding to keep those programs afloat through new taxes on corporations and billionaires. It’s unclear if there is broad appetite on the state level to do so.

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

Chicago Public Schools to borrow more as it faces property tax revenue delays

2026-01-15T19:53:49+00:00

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The Chicago school board is poised to increase the amount the district is borrowing to make payroll amid delays in receiving property tax revenue.

The board is expected to boost that amount by $400 million, to $1.65 billion — a change that district officials estimate will set the deficit-plagued Chicago Public Schools back about $6.6 million in added short-term borrowing costs.

District officials told the board this week they estimate that delays in receiving property tax revenue from Cook County have cost the district more than $70 million over the past eight years. This school year, they are costing CPS about $220,000 in interest costs a month — “a lot of money and definitely more than the cost of one teacher,” as school board member Carlos Rivas put it at a Wednesday meeting to review the board’s monthly agenda.

“All of these delays cumulatively have really been a pain point for us,” said Wally Stock, the district’s acting chief financial officer.

In recent years, the delays have been caused by massive issues with the county’s efforts to update its computer system. The board will vote on the midyear increase in its short-term borrowing, which allows the district to keep paying its staff and vendors, at its regular meeting in late January.

After the latest round of property tax delays, county tax bills went out in November, with a due date in mid-December. The district is in the process of receiving its revenue, almost eight months into the fiscal year, Stock told the board.

“I am optimistic and hopeful that with the new computer system, they will get back on the rails and get the bills out on time,” he said. But he added, “It’s hard to say.”

Cook County is helping some smaller suburban taxing districts weather the delays with a bridge loan program, but CPS does not qualify. Still, Rivas and other members suggested CPS officials should speak with county officials about the possibility of chipping in for the district’s swelling borrowing costs. Rivas said he worries the district will find itself once again navigating property tax revenue delays later this year.

“We need to keep putting pressure on our county folks to help us out,” he said.

Some fiscal experts have said that CPS should build up the kind of cash reserve that school districts with healthy finances set aside to weather unforeseen expenses or revenue delays without having to borrow in the short term. The district also has hefty long-term debt related to maintaining its portfolio of aging buildings, and the costs of servicing it are a significant drain on its budget.

At a special meeting during the district’s winter recess, the board approved a modest property tax levy increase by a 15-to-5 vote, with board members arguing that CPS should tap any possible influx of dollars at a time of increasingly tight finances and looming deficits. That increase, which will cost the owner of a $250,000 home an additional $8 a year, will bring in an extra $40 million for CPS this fiscal year. It bumped up the levy amount to the maximum the district can set, which officials had slightly underestimated when they determined it back in the summer.

A Cook County spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on the board members’ interest in redress for the added borrowing costs because that has not been communicated to the county. But she noted that as of earlier this week, nearly all taxing districts in the county have received 80% of their property tax distributions, and the remainder are being processed.

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

Illinois education officials ask for another $350 million increase in funding for school districts

2026-01-14T21:19:52+00:00

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The Illinois State Board of Education will ask state lawmakers to provide the same funding increase as past years for Illinois’ 800-plus school districts.

Board officials unanimously approved a budget recommendation Wednesday that, if ultimately approved by the Illinois state legislature, would boost the main stream of K-12 funding — known as the evidence-based funding formula — by $350 million, or a 4% increase.

Last year’s increase was $307 million, after state leaders paused property tax relief grants, which would return under this request.

The recommended increase to evidence-based funding reflects the minimum ask from members of the public, who submitted hundreds of budget requests to ISBE, state officials said in the fall.

The $350 million increase would be in line with most of the annual increases since 2017, when state lawmakers created the new funding formula that is supposed to send more dollars to schools with more needs. But a 2024 report found that at the current funding level, schools won’t be fully funded under the formula until at least 2034.

Still, in the face of financial pressures, “it’s a responsible budget,” said Robin Steans, president of advocacy organization Advance Illinois, which closely follows state education funding.

Overall, the board is asking the state for $10.9 billion to fund its main K-12 expenses — a roughly 2% drop compared to its current budget. Much of that cut is driven by the removal of early childhood education programming out of ISBE and into a standalone state department that is expected to launch by July 1.

ISBE is recommending other funding increases that fall outside of evidence-based funding, such as for student transportation, but is also recommending some cuts, including for organizations that provide after-school programming.

State education officials crafted their budget request, in part, based on the financial outlook for Illinois, which is expecting a $2.2 billion budget deficit for next fiscal year. ISBE’s request will go to Gov. JB Pritzker, who will reveal his full state budget proposal next month. The General Assembly will then work to approve a budget in late May, with the state’s fiscal year beginning July 1.

State lawmakers have increased evidence-based funding by $350 million annually in the decade since it was created with some exceptions, including no increase during the first year of the pandemic. However, to match the same value a $350 million increase had in 2017, state leaders would need to increase education funding by another roughly $100 million, according to the CPI inflation calculator.

In a statement, Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago and Illinois teachers unions, said the possible funding increase was insufficient as students “in various parts of the state are going without meals, without their special education needs being met, without counselors, extra-curriculars, sports, and even without heat and hazard-free facilities.”

Since 2017, the state has increased funding through the new formula by about $2.5 billion, and now just over one-third of districts are considered at least 90% adequately funded.

Illinois’ largest district, Chicago Public Schools, is considered 73% adequately funded by the state. Still, CPS is projecting a more than half-billion dollar deficit next fiscal year. Many school board members have pushed for more state funding. Others, however, have not expected additional money as the state faces its own financial problems.

Future federal funding threats may also force Illinois’ hand to raise more revenue or find cuts. The Trump administration announced last week that it would freeze $1 billion in child care and social services funding for Illinois and several other Democrat-led states, but a federal judge has temporarily blocked that move.

Some progressive organizations, including the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Revenue Alliance, are pushing the state to collect more revenue by imposing new taxes on corporations and Illinois’ wealthiest residents. Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat, is pushing for a new tax on millionaires, several news outlets reported.

More funding for transportation, cuts for after-school programming

ISBE is also asking the state to beef up funding for expenses it partially reimburses school districts for, including a nearly 15% increase for transportation for students with disabilities and an 11% increase in public and private school tuition for students with disabilities. ISBE officials have said the state’s reimbursements aren’t keeping up with rising costs for school districts, and they received many requests for more transportation funding.

But these increases would keep the state’s support at similar rates to last year, meaning districts may have to divert more evidence-based funding they could otherwise spend on classrooms, said Steans from Advance Illinois.

ISBE is calling for a 10% increase in grant funding to schools for career and technical education funding, another budget request from the public.

ISBE is also recommending cuts outside of direct school funding, including nearly $23 million in grants for a variety of programs, including after-school initiatives and money for individual organizations.

For example, Chicago-based Southwest Organizing Project, which distributes grants to organizations to train parent mentor volunteers, who provide additional support in low-income schools across the state, would get a $6 million cut, or a 30% reduction, to its current level of funding from the state. After School Matters, which provided paid enrichment opportunities to about 17,000 Chicago teenagers last fiscal year, would have a 50% cut to its ISBE funding. The organizations got funding boosts from the state for their current budgets; the recommended cuts would bring their funding levels back in line with past years.

It’s unclear how these cuts would impact these organizations. For example, ISBE funding made up roughly one-fifth of After School Matter’s government funding in fiscal year 2025, according to state records and the organization’s most recent annual report.

Southwest Organizing Project, which acts as the fiscal agent for the parent mentor program statewide, used the funding increase last year to bring parent mentors to 47 more schools, for a total of 292 schools, said Adriana Velazquez, who helps lead the organization’s parent mentor work. They also used the additional money to save programs at 32 existing schools that were losing expiring federal COVID stimulus dollars.

Velazquez said the organization will work with state lawmakers to preserve the funding. The organization focuses on schools with more than 80% low-income students, including many in Chicago neighborhoods that have been impacted by increased immigration enforcement.

“Just working in the most vulnerable communities, especially our communities that have been under attack, we are not going to take another cut,” Velazquez said.

Correction: This story previously misstated the number of schools that Southwest Organizing Project supported with additional state funds due to incorrect information. The organization added parent mentors to 47 new schools but also used the funds to sustain programs at 32 existing schools.

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

Wildlife safaris, hot air balloon, camel rides: Chicago Public Schools watchdog decries ‘lavish’ staff travel spending

2025-11-12T06:05:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools staffers took “questionable, excessive, and even exorbitant” trips to South Africa, Egypt, Finland, and elsewhere — complete with wildlife safaris, a hot air balloon ride, and camel rides at the district’s expense, a new report by the CPS watchdog found.

Lax oversight and an influx in federal COVID aid led to the increase in travel expenditures, which more than doubled since 2019 even as budget trouble loomed, according to the district’s Office of the Inspector General.

The watchdog also found hundreds of district and school staff traveled to a series of conferences in Las Vegas and other cities, in many cases racking up high hotel and airfare costs. When the organizer of these events put on similar professional development events in Chicago or virtually, few district employees attended.

Overall, the district spent $7.7 million on staff and student travel in fiscal year 2024, compared with $3.6 million in 2019. The watchdog’s report said many trips were likely worthwhile and enriching to employees and students, but some seemed of questionable value.

“Over and over, CPS employees booked trips using CPS funds without required pre-approvals, exceeded CPS spending limits on hotel rooms and airfare, and enjoyed out-of-town activities of dubious necessity or value to students — all as CPS drew closer and closer to a budget crisis,” the report said.

Over the summer, the district laid off hundreds of custodians, crossing guards, cafeteria workers, and others and made other budget cuts to close a $734 million deficit in its $10.2 billion budget. It faces more massive shortfalls in the coming years.

In response to the inspector general’s findings, the district imposed a freeze on nearly all staff travel unrelated to student activities this fall and formed a committee this month to come up with better travel approval procedures and controls. A new financial system the district is currently rolling out will better flag travel expenses that exceed district limits or mismatches between preapproved and actual spending, the district said in a statement.

Interim district CEO Macquline King and treasurer Walter Stock announced the travel freeze in a letter to staff in late October.

“This measure reflects our continued commitment to responsible financial stewardship and to prioritizing resources that directly support classrooms and students,” they wrote.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Philip Wagenknecht, the inspector general for CPS, noted that almost 200 of the district’s roughly 500 schools had no overnight travel spending. But otherwise, his office found questionable travel expenses across the city, driven in part by the greater budget flexibility that came with federal pandemic recovery dollars.

“This is a case of systemic issues in CPS,” he said. “These abuses were widespread.”

The watchdog started investigating after receiving a complaint that one elementary school had paid more than $20,000 to a travel agency for an upcoming staff trip to Egypt without district approval, in addition to other “lavish” outings. CPS canceled that and three other trips planned by the agency. The inspector general does not generally name employees, schools, or vendors in its reports.

Ultimately, the watchdog found that eight schools had spent more than $142,000 for 15 staff trips overseas, billed as school visits and professional development but packed with unscheduled time and optional activities. Thirteen had never been preapproved as required. District officials had explicitly rejected one trip, but staff went anyway.

The inspector general’s office also got a second complaint that a CPS principal traveled to multiple conferences in Las Vegas without district approval, at one point booking a $400 a night suite for him and his wife two nights before the event began.

The watchdog later found that 600 school and district employees had traveled to professional development events by the Vegas conference organizer at a cost of more than $1.5 million between 2022 and 2024. Almost 90% of these attendees exceeded the district’s hotel room spending limit, and at least two dozen took flights from Chicago to Las Vegas costing more than $1,000.

Among other examples of questionable travel, one teacher spent $4,700 for a seven-day stay at a luxury Hawaiian resort to attend a four-day professional development seminar. The inspector general also flagged some student trips, including a 2023 college tour for 80 students preapproved at $15,000 but actually costing $72,000. One trip to South Africa for 20 students cost more than $5,200 per person.

In some cases, travel agencies charged the district up to 20% of travel costs in hidden fees.

Among the watchdog’s recommendations was to convert a vacant CPS building or a portion of an underutilized school into a professional development center for both district employees and staff from other districts seeking training.

“CPS can use its bargaining power to bring more professional development to Chicago,” Wagenknecht said.

The report said the district is looking at disciplining two employees.

The inspector general found that the travel agency that organized the overseas staff development trips violated the district’s code of ethics by offering a CPS staffer free airfare and lodging to lead a future tour while it sought business with the staffer’s school. The agency, which did not have a contract with the district, isn’t working with CPS now. But the watchdog recommended that the agency’s staff undergo training and sign a contract if it were to work with the district in the future.

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

Chicago school board approves controversial $175 million pension payment to the city

2025-10-31T00:29:08+00:00

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The Chicago school board voted Thursday to make a pension reimbursement to the city after 18 months of controversy and leadership turmoil stemming from the payment. But there is one catch.

The board voted unanimously to authorize the $175 million payment to the city to support a municipal pension fund that covers city workers and some non-teaching district staff — but only if the entire $552.4 million tax surplus boost for Chicago Public Schools that Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed comes through.

Chicago’s City Council must approve that record level of funding from special economic development taxing districts, known as TIFs, as part of the 2026 budget the council must pass by the end of the calendar year. The proposed surplus would provide CPS with almost exactly the $379 million in TIF funding the district’s 2025-26 budget passed in August assumed — plus an amount equal to the pension payment.

The vote on the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund marks the end — for now — of an intensely divisive chapter for the district that ultimately contributed to the departure of the previous CPS superintendent. Some hope it will build trust between the district and the mayor. Yet others worry about the timing, due to fiscal uncertainty and budget cuts. And the one-year agreement doesn’t resolve pension responsibilities in the longer term.

Some City Council members have said they think the surplus tax amount in Johnson’s proposal is too large. Before Thursday’s special board meeting, some board members said they would prefer to wait until the district actually receives the TIF money before approving the reimbursement.

The CPS budget approved in August said the district would only make the pension reimbursement payment if additional revenue from the city or the state came through.

But district officials assured the board Thursday that the agreement protects the district in the event that it does not get the full TIF amount proposed by Johnson. And some board members argued that approving the agreement now would send an important message of good faith to the mayor’s office and aldermen.

“This is something that as a board we voted on, and it’s important to keep our word,” elected board member Yesenia Lopez said.

Still, a couple of board members said that despite voting for the payment, they are concerned it would siphon away funds that could instead reverse cuts to district custodians, crossing guards, and other positions the district made this summer.

“It absolutely takes dollars away from the classroom and our school communities who need support now more than ever,” said elected board member Ellen Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld and other board members also called for a longer-term plan to spell out responsibility for the pension payments and disentangle city and district finances.

The city is required by law to make annual payments to the municipal fund. But faced with ballooning payments in 2020, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot shifted a portion of it to CPS. That move angered the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson’s former employer and close ally. The union lambasted Lightfoot, accusing her of balancing the city’s budget on the backs of students.

With backing from an almost entirely Johnson-appointed school board, former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez refused to pay the reimbursement, citing looming budget deficits. The clash over the payment led to the resignation of the entire school board and to Martinez’s firing by a new board handpicked by Johnson.

But current board members aligned with the teachers union and mayor have argued that chipping in for the pension fund is part of being a reliable partner to the city.

The district has seen some added financial pressures this fall, including federal grant funding the Trump administration has withheld over the district’s Black Student Success Plan and transgender student policies.

Under the new pension payment agreement the board approved Thursday, the district can subtract the $8 million in federal magnet grant funding it stands to lose from the pension reimbursement if it cannot recoup that grant loss in another way. However, as Lopez noted, the agreement doesn’t account for other funding the Trump administration might cut or withhold.

CPS funding has been top of mind for board members this week. Some members joined the CTU on a trip to Springfield Wednesday to lobby for more funding for CPS. Some members also held a Thursday morning press conference to press Chicago City Council members to back Johnson’s TIF proposal.

“We’re trying to be good partners across the board,” said appointed board member Michilla Blaise during the meeting. “We’re trying to make friends. We’re trying to bring home the bacon for CPS.”

In other business, the board voted to table until its next meeting Tuesday a resolution to approve spending $1.4 million to ensure that the financially troubled EPIC Academy, a charter high school on the South Side, can finish out the school year. The school is then slated to close next summer.

The decision to postpone the vote came after elected board member Jitu Brown proposed an amendment to that resolution calling on the district to craft a transition plan with input from the EPIC school community that tries to keep students and staff together at a high-performing school or schools.

District officials noted that the amendment could conflict with the district’s principals contract, which gives school leaders authority over hiring on their campuses. Some board members raised concerns about the last-minute introduction of the amendment, which ultimately failed a board vote.

Brown explained that he had conceived the amendment the previous evening while speaking with the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents EPIC educators, and the advocacy group Advancement Project on the way back from Springfield.

During public comment earlier in the meeting, Andrew Escalante, a social studies teacher at EPIC, asked the board for more engagement with the school community and a plan that keeps students and staff together as much as possible.

“We are people and as people, we deserve honesty, stability and a voice in what happens to us,” he said.

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

Days before budget vote, CPS tells school board it can borrow in the future in a ‘true emergency’

2025-08-27T15:43:31+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools’ chief financial officer refuted several concerns raised by school board members in recent weeks about the district’s $10.2 billion budget proposal — and sought to reassure the board that it could borrow money in the future if there was a “true emergency.”

In a memo obtained by Chalkbeat, Chief Financial Officer Miroslava Mejia Krug said the district’s legal counsel advised that the school board can authorize emergency borrowing after the budget is passed through a simple majority vote, even though budget amendments typically require a two-thirds vote.

“This would ensure that any additional borrowing would be used to prevent cuts to schools and core district operations — in line with the request from many board members regarding a contingency plan in the case of a revenue shortfall,” Krug wrote in the memo sent Tuesday to board members.

Krug reiterated the district’s arguments that including a $200 million loan and a much-debated $175 million pension reimbursement to the city in CPS’s budget would result in cuts to schools. Currently, the budget proposal does not include either and only states that CPS would make the pension payment to the city if additional revenue comes through midyear.

She also repeated the district’s stance over the past year: That taking out a short-term loan without an immediate need would likely mean a downgrade in the district’s bond rating — which is similar to a credit rating — and result in high interest payments, potentially future cuts to schools, and impact the district’s ability to borrow in the future.

Krug said the district is concerned that a “market for additional debt may not exist” given that the district is already issuing $2.4 billion in new long-term debt. CPS has estimated that repaying additional loans could cost up to $194 million in interest, putting more pressure on future budgets already projected to have funding shortfalls.

The district’s debt-per-student ratio is among the highest in the nation among big school districts, Chalkbeat reported Monday.

Krug’s memo was sent to board members two days before the board is set to vote on the district’s budget proposal, which avoids beginning or midyear cuts to school funding but doesn’t include the pension payment to the city.

A majority of board members, made up of largely mayoral appointees and at least one elected official, have signaled their opposition to the district’s budget proposal because it excludes the pension reimbursement and has no plans for a short-term loan in addition to other borrowing the district does. Mayor Brandon Johnson, who advocated for CPS not to make the pension payment before he was elected, has said he expects CPS to make that payment as the city tries to balance its own budget for the new fiscal year.

Opposing board members have argued that not reimbursing the city is detrimental to its partnership with the city, and it’s the district’s obligation to fulfill that payment, which covers non-teaching staff, as it becomes its own elected body. The district began reimbursing the city under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but stopped last year because of budget challenges. The board members have also asked for the option of a loan in case cuts are necessary during the school year.

But several elected board members support the budget proposal because they’re worried that taking out a short-term, high-interest loan would negatively impact the district’s financial future and take away from classroom spending. They also say reimbursing the city for pension costs right now is not the school district’s legal responsibility and is untenable as they work to close a $734 million deficit.

Krug’s memo outlines the possibility to borrow later in the fiscal year through a simple majority vote if the district faced a funding gap midyear.

CPS must pass a budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 by Friday or it risks not being able to legally spend money and could be labeled as a district in “financial difficulty,” according to state law and the Illinois State Board of Education. The Chicago Board of Education needs a simple majority to approve the spending plan.

However, Illinois state law requires a two-thirds approval vote from Chicago’s school board when it wants to amend its budget midyear. That issue became a flashpoint in the spring, when seven board members refused to approve an amendment that would have, in part, reimbursed the city with the $175 million pension payment — meaning the board did not have the two-thirds majority it needed. Krug says amending the budget for additional expenses like the pension payment would still require a two-thirds approval.

However, CPS’s legal counsel has determined that the two-thirds vote requirement only applies to new expenses or liabilities, the memo said. But taking out an emergency loan to maintain spending outlined in the current budget would only require a simple majority vote, Krug wrote.

Krug also sought to refute claims from some board members — largely mayoral appointees — that the district has overestimated how much money it will receive from the city in Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, surplus dollars, a pool of taxpayer dollars meant to spur economic development. The city can declare a surplus of those funds annually and in the past decade, has done so every year. CPS gets 52% of whatever is declared as surplus and roughly one quarter goes to the city’s coffers.

Krug wrote that several aldermen testified during the district’s budget hearings that they expect TIF dollars to be surplused because the city will also need those dollars to help close its own budget deficit.

The district has assumed this year that it will receive $379 million in TIF surplus, or $79 million more than last year, when Johnson surplused a record amount of these city dollars. The exact amount of how much will be surplused won’t be made public until Johnson presents his budget plan later this fall.

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

Majority of Chicago Board of Education signals opposition to interim CEO’s budget proposal

2025-08-14T21:58:44+00:00

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Shortly after the Chicago Board of Education heard a budget proposal by Chicago schools interim CEO Macquline King that did not include a loan or pension reimbursement to the city, a majority of members sent her a letter with a demand: Include the loan and pension payment.

Eleven of the 20 current board members signed the letter sent to King Wednesday during a board meeting where Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski presented the district’s proposed $10.2 billion budget, said Norma Rios-Sierra, an appointed member of the school board who signed the letter obtained by Chalkbeat. The letter was sent after Sitkowski’s presentation, she said.

The proposal, which covers the 2025-26 school year, avoids beginning and midyear cuts to schools, but includes other cuts, including to custodians, hot meals, and central office. It does not commit to reimbursing the city with a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching CPS staff unless the district receives more money than expected from a city pool of taxpayer dollars meant to spur economic development — known as TIF — or from the state. The proposal also excludes any plans for a short-term, high-interest loan to cover costs.

District officials, who were charged with closing a $734 million deficit, said including the pension reimbursement would result in cuts to schools. They have argued that short-term borrowing could lead to a downgrade in the district’s already junk bond-rating status and lead to debt with high interest rates.

Board members were split on the proposal during the Wednesday board meeting, with some elected members expressing support while largely mayoral-appointed members said the city is foregoing its responsibilities by passing up the payment, which would help the city close its budget as it faces its own financial challenges. Earlier this week, Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was expecting CPS to fulfill the pension reimbursement.

In addition to Rios-Sierra, the letter was signed by appointed board members Olga Bautista — the board vice president — Michilla Blaise, Karen Zaccor, Debby Pope, Emma Lozano, Edward Bannon, Anusha Thotakura, and Cydney Sylvan Wallace. Elected board members Jitu Brown and Ebony DeBerry also signed. Johnson appointed 11 members, but former member Frank Thomas stepped down and has not been replaced.

The letter, first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, insisted on changes to the budget proposal before it had to be published online by Wednesday in order for the board to vote on the budget Aug. 28, one of the last days the board can legally adopt a budget for this fiscal year. The members’ requested changes don’t appear to be in the proposal posted online, but the letter signals that King’s proposal has for now lost a majority of support needed on the board to pass.

CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus confirmed King received the letter Wednesday evening but did not provide further comment on the board members’ request.

“There are other components we believe could potentially work as presented, but this loan provision, along with the [Municipal Employees’, Officers’ and Officials’ Annuity and Benefit Fund] disentanglement, is critical to keep in place today to preserve our ability to act on them,” the letter said. “It would be difficult for us to support a budget without these two changes.”

The letter does not specify a loan amount or interest rate to be included. The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that City Hall had pitched to CPS to take out a $200 million loan. Last year, City Hall asked CPS to take out a $300 million loan to cover the pension payment and labor contract costs. The letter says the loan “should be included as an option to be utilized only in the event it is necessary to avoid further cuts to the classroom.”

“Leaving it out at this stage would unnecessarily limit our flexibility as we continue discussions and refine the proposal,” the letter said.

Board members also wrote that they support the district “continuing the disentanglement” of a pension payment to the city for non-teaching CPS staff — a reference to reimbursing the city with the $175 million payment.

CPS is not legally required to reimburse the city for that payment, which contributes to a $1.3 billion municipal pension fund. The district has previously paid it, starting under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s refusal to reimburse the city with that payment as CPS faced budget challenges last year helped lead to his firing.

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

There are many ideas for solving CPS’ budget issues. Here’s how 9 of them could play out.

2025-08-05T21:51:32+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools has a $734 million problem.

That’s the size of the district’s budget deficit, which must be closed in the coming weeks in order for CPS to comply with state law requiring it to pass a balanced spending plan for the upcoming school year. District officials must release their budget proposal to the public by Aug. 13 for the board to pass by its Aug. 28 meeting.

Officials have not yet decided on how they’ll close the gap, but there are generally two approaches: Find more money, or make cuts. Last month, Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski said CPS had so far reduced the deficit by $165 million through a series of layoffs and other cost-saving measures, leaving $569 million left to resolve. That number is now $519 million due to an unexpected $50 million increase in state money.

Even after the Board of Education passes a balanced budget this year, Chicago’s financial issues are not projected to go away. As it faces rising costs, CPS projects a $1.3 billion deficit by 2030.

So, where could CPS get more money? Are there expenses that can be cut?

Below is a list of various solutions that different groups, including CPS, civic organizations, and unions, have floated to close the gap.

This list does not include every idea but is meant to provide a small buffet of options. Some of these ideas are short-term fixes, meaning they solve the budget deficit this year but do not help increase revenue or reduce expenses down the road. Other ideas would provide long-term help, but may not help now. And many of the solutions would not be under the Board of Education’s control and would require another government entity to act.

All of the figures are estimates based on research done by advocacy organizations and budget experts who spoke to Chalkbeat. The numbers could fluctuate for different reasons. For example, it remains unclear how much CPS could actually issue in bonds. And the revenue potential from an additional tax on corporations would depend on how much corporations actually earn in the year that would go into effect.

Many of the timelines, including those that could take effect in fiscal year 2026, assume the soonest a government entity could take action on these proposals, but not necessarily if they would. For example, state lawmakers have not yet shown interest in calling a special session to address the district’s funding challenges.

Some officials, such as school board President Sean Harden, have made a case for a mixture of these solutions, such as borrowing money right now (a short-term fix) and pushing for more state revenue (a long-term fix).

What are the obstacles to solving CPS’ budget crisis?

What’s not reflected in the options above are the political challenges facing some of these ideas. For example, some organizations argue a progressive income tax is needed to generate more state revenue for schools and other public goods. But voters rejected the idea in 2020 in a 55% to 45% referendum vote on a proposed constitutional amendment. Some political and budget observers see less appetite at the state level to raise taxes and describe such proposals as an uphill battle.

We included the ideas on taxing corporations, which are different from income tax proposals, and assumed a scenario where lawmakers would funnel all of that new revenue into the state’s evidence-based formula, or EBF, which sends money to school districts based on their needs.

The idea about increases to EBF center around advocates’ call for a $550 million annual increase to the formula. That formula calls for an additional $1.6 billion for CPS to be adequately funded, and lawmakers set a goal to fulfill the formula by 2027 — but they’re projected to blow that deadline.

Another proposed solution is consolidating pension systems to free up more dollars available to go directly to classrooms. But it would require approval from state lawmakers and may be a hard sell to legislators who don’t represent Chicago, as well as the Chicago Teachers Union.

Similarly, borrowing money could come with logistical challenges. When CPS asks investors publicly to loan the district money — known as issuing bonds — there are legal limits to how the district can use that money and, in turn, how much it can ask for. The district also has a junk bond rating, similar to a bad credit score, meaning it would likely face high interest rates. Considering those factors and using estimates from the city and a municipal finance expert, we assumed the district would be able to borrow roughly $200 million without going a more private route, like to a bank.

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

Chicago will receive a larger share of state dollars for K-12 schools this year

2025-08-04T23:57:34+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools will receive an additional $76 million from the state this fiscal year for a total of $1.9 billion, according to new data released by the state on Friday.

The new figures indicate Chicago had a significant drop in local tax revenue and an increase in the number of English learners, giving it higher priority for additional state dollars. The new calculations also show that CPS is less adequately funded under the state’s formula than it was last year and will now need about $1.6 billion to reach adequate funding.

CPS had projected receiving an additional $25 million in state funding for the upcoming school year through the evidence-based funding formula, according to an April budget presentation leaked to Chalkbeat the district provided to the Chicago Board of Education. At the time, the district believed the budget gap was $529 million.That projection assumed the district would receive the same increase from the state as it did last school year.

Instead, the district will get about $50 million more than expected in April. A spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools said the state’s recent evidence-based funding formula calculations accurately reflect the challenges the district is facing such as the decline in local tax revenue and inflation.

“That increase will help schools and students but unfortunately does not keep pace with inflation, the rising costs of operating our schools, addressing capital needs, and proudly serving a greater percentage of students who require more services and programming,” said Mary Fergus, spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools.

The state prioritizes districts for additional money using a tier system, with those most in need designated as Tier 1 and Tier 2 and those able to use local revenue sources to adequately fund schools falling either in Tier 3 or Tier 4. Chicago has been categorized as a Tier 2 district since 2022, when the city experienced a dip in the number of students from low-income families and a bump in property tax revenue. CPS’s return to Tier 1 this year is the reason for the funding boost.

Chicago Public Schools is dealing with a budget gap at $734 million. The district has announced several reductions, including cutting 480 custodial jobs and end private custodial contracts to help lower costs.

The state’s second largest district serving almost 34,000 students, Elgin’s U-46, dropped from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and will receive less than last year due to a decline in average student enrollment and students from low-income households. The district will receive an additional $4.8 million, almost $14 million less than it received last year in new money.

Rockford School District 205, the state’s third largest district serving about 26,418 students, is expected to receive an additional $19.7 million in state dollars — $9.5 million more than last year. The district has seen an increase in average student enrollment, English learners, and a significant decrease in local property tax revenues.

The Illinois General Assembly approved the fiscal year 2026 budget at the end of June. The budget included an additional $307 million for K-12 schools around the state, less than the usual increase of $350 million. At the time, a spokesperson for the state board said the agency has paused the Property Tax Relief Grant, a program school districts applied for to receive assistance from the state. The program is being reevaluated.

State Superintendent Tony Sanders said in an email to Chalkbeat that adding an annual minimum of $300 million to the funding formula for schools received a “broad consensus” among advocacy groups and education stakeholders.

“That consistency has been critical in allowing districts to plan long-term,” Sanders said, adding that “ISBE continues to advocate for a sustainable and reliable annual increase of $300 million for tier funding.”

This year, the Illinois evidence-based funding formula currently sits at $8.9 billion. The state’s funding formula has grown by $2.1 billion under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration, according to a press release from the Illinois State Board of Education. The state’s overall education budget, which includes the evidence-based funding formula for K-12 districts, an early childhood education block grant, transportation, career and technical education programs, and other grants is $11.1 billion.

The state board said in a press release that the number of districts at or above 90% adequacy increased from 194 to 313 between fiscal years 2018 and 2026.

State formula works, but needs more funding, advocates say

When lawmakers created the funding formula in 2017, they set a deadline to get schools “adequately” funded by 2027. The law guarantees all Illinois school districts the same funding as the previous year and then distributes new money based on a variety of metrics, such as the number of students from low-income families, the average student enrollment, the number of English learners, and how much a district can raise through local property taxes. The formula calculates an “adequacy target” or how much each district needs to educate their students.

The districts most in need of help funding their schools, or Tier 1 districts, get the largest increases while those with less need, Tier 4 districts, get smaller increases.

While the state has allocated more funding to the funding formula, many advocates say more is needed.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, who was involved in the creation of the evidence-based formula, said that while the formula is working as it is intended, it is time for the state to rethink adding only an additional $300 million into the formula each year.

“There’s no way a flat bump on a year-to-year basis is going to get you to the level you need to be, unless that flat bump is significantly greater than year to year inflationary growth,” said Martire.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, some education advocates have been calling on the state to invest an additional $550 million annually into the evidence-based funding formula.

Bravetta Hassell, director of communications for advocacy organization Advance Illinois, said in a statement to Chalkbeat that while the organization appreciates the commitment to honoring the annual minimum increase for the formula, it joins other education advocates in saying “it’s not enough.”

“We cannot wait another generation to get to full funding,” Hassell said, “The minimum investment of $350 million a year simply won’t cut it for our students.”

A 2022 report from Martire’s group estimated that if the state continues to add only $350 million a year to the formula, districts will not be adequately funded by 2034 — seven years past the original deadline of 2027.

Districts around the state anticipate doing some belt-tightening for their local budget since the $7 billion in federal emergency COVID relief funds have dried up. In addition, the Trump administration has threatened federal funding to schools and, in early July, withheld funds meant to go to schools but redistributed them later in the month.

Reema Amin contributed to this report

Chicago Public Schools cuts 480 janitor positions as it ends all private custodial contracts

2025-08-04T21:37:39+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools will cut 480 custodian jobs, end all private custodial contracts, and directly oversee the work of keeping schools clean.

The move, which comes as the district is working to close a $734 million deficit, sparked an immediate rebuke and demand for reconsideration from the two unions representing school custodians.

Starting Sept. 30, CPS will oversee 2,100 full-time custodians and end seven contracts with private custodial companies. The change will mean cutting about 1,250 private custodians and ending a longstanding practice of contracting with private companies to help clean schools.

CPS officials said the move is not only about cutting costs, but also part of the district’s goal to bring 25% of privatized positions back under direct district oversight, as outlined in the five-year strategic plan. Last year, CPS ended its agreement with Aramark, the Philadelphia-based company that oversaw management of all privately-employed and CPS custodians.

When Aramark took over management of custodians in 2014, the district also laid off 480 janitors and many schools complained of dirty conditions for many years. The cost of outsourcing went millions over budget. A decade later, unions and school principals cheered the end of the Aramark deal.

Now, some are also raising concerns about school cleanliness with these staffing reductions two weeks before the school year is set to begin on Aug. 18.

“You can’t eliminate 1,200 custodians just two weeks before school starts without any real plan for how these buildings will be cleaned and ready,” said Genie Kastrup, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1, the union representing privately-employed custodians. “Our kids deserve a safe and healthy learning environment on day one.”

Charles Mayfield, the district’s chief operating officer said Monday he believes more CPS oversight will help ensure cleanliness at schools, even with fewer custodians. That includes improved staff training, better monitoring of cleaning supplies, and a mobile app that allows custodians to upload information about rooms they’ve cleaned, giving the district “visibility” on the work at schools, he said.

Custodians with the private companies have received a text message and email about the change and instructions on how to apply for 750 full-time custodial roles inside CPS. They’re being asked to fill out an interest form by Aug. 22 and apply.

In a letter sent to elected officials Friday, Mayfield wrote that the district’s budget challenges made it “necessary to consolidate custodial services to ensure greater efficiency and long-term sustainability.”

CPS said the custodial changes will save about $40 million, which is part of the $165 million in savings that district officials already announced earlier this summer through layoffs and cutting down on some school-based services, such as hot meals and health services.

The seven private custodial contracts now set to end were expected to cost a total $222 million over the next two school years, according to a summary of the contracts that the Board of Education approved last February. CPS has the right to terminate those contracts with at least 30 days notice, according to district records.

Mayfield also wrote that the district is “mindful” that many of the private custodians losing their jobs have served CPS “loyally for years.”

“While CPS is proactively inviting all privately-employed custodians working within CPS schools to seek employment directly with CPS, unfortunately, due to budget constraints, not all positions will be retained,” he wrote.

The district says the changes will also “streamline” custodial operations and improve oversight and quality.

One South Side principal said she supports the shift to having CPS directly oversee custodians, but she’s concerned about the transition. However, she said it may be difficult for schools to manage with fewer positions and worries about schedule changes.

SEIU sharply denounced the change, raising concerns about job losses and the district’s ability to keep schools clean. The union demanded the district rethink the number of positions it is cutting, provide custodians with the most years of seniority the right of first refusal for new in-house jobs, and ensure that any worker who takes an in-house custodian role represented by SEIU’s Local 73 — which represents CPS-managed custodial workers — can keep the current rate of pay and minimum benefits.

CPS officials did not directly comment on those demands.

In SEIU’s press release, Maria Avila, Local 1 vice president, said she’s worked in CPS schools for more than 15 years, but the change feels like CPS is “throwing us away like we don’t matter.”

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

Chicago expands Sustainable Community Schools initiative even as budget worries grow

2025-08-04T21:15:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools will add 16 schools to a joint initiative with its teachers union that provides campuses $500,000 annually to offer more student and family services, officials announced Monday.

The Sustainable Community Schools initiative has offered after-school programs, parent outreach, restorative justice support, and other services in tandem with community nonprofits at 20 schools since 2018.

The expansion to 36 schools for the 2025-26 school year is part of the new Chicago Teachers Union contract that includes an agreement to grow the number of participating schools to 70 by the end of the four-year deal in 2028.

At a press conference at the South Shore Cultural Center, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and district and union leaders hailed the program’s expansion, even as they acknowledged significant fiscal challenges that make its sustainability uncertain.

The district is gearing up to unveil a 2025-26 budget in the face of a $734 million budget deficit. But officials said they are determined to keep backing the program.

Johnson’s mayoral transition team recommended rapidly growing the number of schools in the program to 200. The mayor used the occasion to make yet another appeal for more state funding for the district — an ask state lawmakers have signaled they are reluctant to accommodate. On Friday, Illinois released new calculations showing CPS will get an additional $76 million in state aid this year, bringing the total to $1.9 billion, slightly more than district officials expected.

“Until our schools become community hubs in every single neighborhood, we won’t see real transformation,” Johnson said, calling Sustainable Community Schools “truly the future of public education.”

A string of pandemic-era evaluations of the initiative have shown mixed results, even as they acknowledged COVID’s disruption of its rollout.

Some schools offered more mental health and social-emotional support to students and moved away from punitive discipline. Others reported slower staff buy-in and communication issues with community nonprofits. Overall academic outcomes were largely in line with those at schools with similar demographics not receiving the extra support.

The 20 schools participating in the program have also lost 15% of their student enrollment since 2018, and a half dozen have lost more than a quarter of their enrollment — a much sharper decline than the district overall experienced.

When asked how the city will track whether the program is paying off for students, Johnson said he wouldn’t measure success based on student outcomes, such as test scores and graduation rates, but rather on the extra staff and programs the schools offer students.

“The schools are successful when every single child has everything they need,” he said.

At Monday’s event, Alicia Anderson, a recent graduate from Fort Dearborn Elementary School on the South Side — one of the initiative’s original campuses — said the program had shifted the campus climate. She said the school now offers more mental health support and chances for students to weigh in on classroom and school decisions.

The initiative “is important because it gives schools the opportunity to put their students first,” she said.

School board member Jitu Brown spoke about the hunger strike and community activism that led to the reopening of the South Side’s Dyett High School in 2015, and which he joined as an organizer.

He said the effort inspired the Sustainable Community Schools program, which has boosted Dyett: The school’s boys basketball won the state title earlier this year, an experience Brown said he wants all Chicago students to have. Its latest four-year graduation rate of 87% is above the district average of 81% and close to the state average of 88%, using the state’s graduation rate calculations.

Officials said the district and union chose the 16 schools joining the program this school year using the city’s hardship index, which factors in poverty, homelessness, and other factors. They invited almost half of the district’s roughly 500 campuses to apply.

Officials said they sifted through 87 applications to choose the new schools, seeking a mix of majority Black and majority Latino schools in neighborhoods that experienced historic disinvestment. Officials did not say which community organizations will partner with the 16 campuses; no representatives of these schools spoke at the Monday press conference.

“It’s an investment in our students,” said interim CPS CEO Macquline King. “It’s an investment in our communities. It’s an investment in our future.”

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

Illinois lawmakers offer no quick solutions for CPS during district finances hearing

2025-07-31T22:44:33+00:00

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Illinois state lawmakers did not express willingness Thursday to help Chicago Public Schools close its $734 million budget gap in the coming weeks.

Although some lawmakers agree they want to boost education spending, they did not commit to doing so during a public hearing held in downtown Chicago just a few weeks before the start of the school year on Aug. 18. Chicago’s school board has until the end of August to pass a balanced budget for this fiscal year, which began on July 1. The board is expected to vote on a spending plan at its Aug. 28 meeting.

“I’m hopeful that we can move past the rhetoric, the talking points and unrealistic demands, and get down to business about how we can do better by CPS and its students,” said Illinois Democrat Rep. Ann Williams, who represents neighborhoods on the North Side of Chicago and chairs the House Executive Committee.

Illinois has increased funding for K-12 schools across the state by more than $2 billion under a funding formula created eight years ago, of which $1.1 billion has gone to CPS. The state set a goal to “adequately” fund all school districts by 2027, but they’re projected to miss that deadline. According to the state’s formula last year, Chicago schools need almost $1.2 billion to be considered adequately funded.

The hearing was called at the urging of Democrat State Rep. Curtis Tarver, who filed a bill during the spring legislative session to reinstate the Chicago School Finance Authority, which oversaw CPS’s finances from 1980 until 2010. It made financial decisions for the district and had the authority to borrow money, issue bonds, levy taxes, and approve school budgets instead of the Chicago Board of Education, according to the Civic Federation, an independent, nonpartisan research organization.

During the hearing, Tarver sharply criticized the mayor’s popularity and his legislative team. School Board member Michilla Blaise, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, defended the mayor by highlighting his background as a teacher, to which Tarver said, “Part of the reason we are where we are is because of the ineffectiveness and sometimes ineptitude of the fifth floor,” a reference to Johnson’s City Hall office.

Chicago’s budget deficit is driven by multiple things, including rising costs and the district’s use of onetime federal COVID relief dollars to hire thousands more staff.

For weeks, the Chicago Teachers Union and some school board members have pushed the state to call a special session to address school funding issues and other impacts of federal cuts to social safety net programs.

State lawmakers and the governor have not said whether they’ll hold a special session before the regular fall veto session. Thursday’s hearing didn’t reveal an appetite to do so. After the hearing, Williams told Chalkbeat that she is interested in progressive tax ideas for raising revenue, but that calls for a special session are “gimmicky” and designed for “media attention.”

“Demanding special sessions when [the city and CPS] really weren’t there in May, when we were actually working on the budget, seems disingenuous to me,” Williams said.

The district, board members, unions, and civic groups have all floated various solutions for closing CPS’s projected $734 million budget gap. Those include borrowing money, more state funding, using more surplus dollars from a city pool of tax dollars meant to spur economic development, and forgoing a $175 million pension reimbursement to the city.

During her testimony to state lawmakers, interim CPS CEO Macquline King outlined current impacts of the shortfall, including cuts to crossing guards and hot meals.

“We cannot completely cut our way out of this situation,” King told lawmakers. “To do so would have a devastating consequence on the day-to-day operations of our schools and therefore the quality of our students’ education.”

Asked why lawmakers didn’t ask CPS officials more questions about the budget issues, Tarver said state lawmakers were “really just trying to better understand, as opposed to drill them with questions.”

Appointed Chicago school board members Blaise and Debby Pope, along with elected members Jennifer Custer and Ellen Rosenfeld, also testified about why funding cuts would negatively impact students and classrooms. But their joint testimony revealed differing opinions among the 21-person board on how CPS should solve its financial problems.

Blaise and Pope pressed state lawmakers to help CPS. Rosenfeld and Custer echoed calls for collaboration, but Rosenfeld said she’s not calling for a special session and doesn’t want the school board to take out a loan or reimburse the city $175 million for a municipal pension payment that covers some school staff. Custer said she’s not expecting the state to give CPS “a handout,” but wants lawmakers to work with the board on a solution.

Joe Ferguson, president of The Civic Federation, said a School Finance Authority might be an acceptable solution, but it wouldn’t need to operate as it did in the past. For example, it could have partial decision making power over budgets or veto power over contracts, but otherwise leave those powers in the hands of the school board, according to a report from the Civic Federation.

Tarver said he thinks the state “should have some say” over how the district spends its money. The state provides flexible education funding to all districts in Illinois and Chicago is the largest.

“I don’t know that [a School Finance Authority] needs to be in the same iteration that it was before,” Tarver said. “That was obviously 40 years ago. Things have changed.”

Multiple organizations, including the Chicago Teachers Union, called for more state money for public services in Illinois.

Half of the room was packed with members of the Chicago Teachers Union, which held a rally before the hearing along with other progressive organizations to pressure state lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to raise revenue through new taxes, including on the state’s highest earners and corporations.

“Illinois has a Democratic super majority,” said Diane Castro, the CTU’s financial secretary, during the rally. “We are a blue state. We need that to mean something.”

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

Chicago school board president says borrowing could solve CPS’s budget woes — but not in ‘isolation’

2025-07-23T22:51:10+00:00

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Chicago school board President Sean Harden laid out a case Wednesday for borrowing as “a viable option” for closing the district’s $734 million budget deficit. But he said it must be paired with long-term solutions to solve CPS’s larger financial crisis.

“The centerpiece is children and education, and if the tool that we have to protect that is borrowing, then that’s the tool that we’ll use,” Harden said in an unrelated interview with Chalkbeat. “But we’re also saying: ‘Give us different tools, and then we will use that.’”

The district must pass a balanced budget within 60 days of July 1, when the new fiscal year started. CPS hosted a series of public budget meetings last week, and is expected to present a budget update to the board this week. District leaders have said they plan to present a budget proposal to CPS next month, with a board vote expected at its Aug. 28 meeting.

Harden is one of 11 people — the majority of the school board — appointed by the mayor. Harden can only vote to break ties.

Former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez resisted short-term borrowing last year when City Hall floated it as a way to reimburse the city for pension costs and cover new labor contracts. That resistance led, in part, to Martinez’s firing and the mass resignation of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first appointed school board.

But Harden said borrowing could be the only pathway to avoid “draconian cuts” to schools and said he doesn’t feel the public is connecting the dots between budget cuts and how they could impact students in schools. He made similar comments to WBEZ on Wednesday.

“We’re talking about significantly impacting educational experience,” Harden said, arguing that cuts could hurt the progress made by CPS students in the wake of significant academic declines during the COVID-19 shutdowns.

But borrowing shouldn’t happen in “isolation,” Harden said. That means looking for money down the road that could bring in additional sustainable revenue for the district to solve its long-term financial problems. That could include more “efficiencies” in CPS’s budget, examining declining enrollment and underutilization of buildings, pushing the state for more revenue, providing additional tax levying authority for CPS, and looking at pension obligations.

Harden also pointed to future revenue expected from expiring Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, districts, which represent a pool of city tax dollars meant to spur economic development.

Roughly half of the property tax revenue tied up in those districts would go to CPS once they expire — a point City Hall officials have previously pointed out when making the case for CPS to borrow money. By the end of 2025, CPS is expected to receive $54 million in additional property tax revenue from expiring TIF districts and another $117 million by the end of 2026 with amounts growing beyond that, according to data published by Cook County.

“The goal is to have this be a short-term strategy connected to structural change,” Harden said.

Still, attracting lenders could be difficult for CPS. The district has a junk bond rating status, which is similar to having a bad credit score. Additionally, its financial difficulties and challenges to find more revenue are well-publicized.

Any short-term borrowing the district does now is more likely to have high interest rates, which could mean costly debt payments in the coming years — potentially impacting classrooms in the future as revenue is diverted to pay off debt. Asked if it’s worth the risk of incurring high interest rates and failing to secure long-term revenue solutions, such as more state money, Harden said, “Yes” — but that failure shouldn’t be an option.

“I could make a just rationale for incurring [a high interest rate] in lieu of what would happen in terms of job loss, the atrophy that would occur in schools,” Harden said. “That domino effect is so significant that I would argue it pales in comparison to what we would incur in interest.”

The Chicago Teachers Union, a strong ally of the mayor’s, has advocated for a similar solution: borrowing now and finding sustainable revenue in the future, such as pushing the state to hold a special legislative session and impose greater taxes on the state’s highest earners.

Several board members and other organizations, however, have also advocated for not reimbursing the city for a pension obligation of $175 million, which CPS is not legally obligated to do but began paying back under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, as well as having the city provide more TIF-related dollars to avoid borrowing.

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

Chicago Public Schools lays off more than 1,450 staff

2025-07-11T22:30:14+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools laid off more than 1,450 school-based staffers, including teachers, on Friday as it works to narrow a $734 million budget deficit.

The layoffs include 432 teachers, 311 paraprofessionals, such as teacher assistants, 677 special education classroom assistants, or SECAs, 33 security officers, and five parent workers.

Across district-run schools that are not alternative or specialty schools, 57% saw a reduction in positions, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of school budgets that were released publicly Friday. The remaining 43% saw no change or an increase in the number of positions available compared to last school year.

However, 123 special education teachers and up to 300 SECAs will be eligible for retention pools, meaning they would be paid centrally over the next school year and can be deployed to schools with vacant jobs, according to Ben Felton, CPS chief talent officer. Staffers with unsatisfactory ratings are not eligible for the retention pools, Felton said.

The district typically adjusts staffing and announces layoffs in the summer before school starts. In the past, about 80% of those laid off got jobs at other schools, said CPS, adding in a news release that it is “working diligently to maintain or improve that rate again this year.”

School-based layoffs are happening later than usual this year amid delays in the district’s budgeting process. The new fiscal year began July 1, but CPS doesn’t expect to present a budget to its board for approval until next month.

Interim CPS CEO Macquline King also emailed teachers and principals on Friday promising that they would get retroactive raises for last school year in their checks by mid-August, according to copies of emails obtained by Chalkbeat.

Last school year, CPS laid off 1,410 staffers. CPS did not immediately say how many of these staffers were rehired.

Layoffs announced today may not be the end of staffing cuts and changes at schools.

CPS publicly pegged its budget deficit at about $229 million this spring under former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, hoping for about $300 million additional money from the city and state and not taking into account certain potential expenses. When King took office earlier this month, she said the gap is about $500 million larger, removing the assumption that additional money will come in and factoring in additional costs, including a much-debated $175 million pension reimbursement to the city.

The larger deficit means additional cuts could still be on the horizon. Officials could also choose to borrow money — an option that has for months divided the school board and education advocates in Chicago. CPS officials are holding a series of public meetings next week across the city to collect public feedback on how the district should close its budget deficit.

Budget Director Mike Sitkowski said CPS is in a “tough situation” and the district has been open about its funding challenges. He said officials are “open-minded” about how to solve its deficit going forward “in a way that’s student-centered and that protects our schools.”

According to Chalkbeat’s analysis of the data released Friday, there will be 477 fewer positions across all district-run schools next year. CPS officials said they could not immediately verify that number. Sitkowski said position cuts at the individual school level are because of less need for those jobs at those specific schools.

At the same time, Sitkowski said, the district plans to give schools more positions after the academic year starts, based on need and “where students show up.”

“Anything that’s looking like a net reduction is going to be made up for in what we add back,” Sitkowski said.

District officials told Chalkbeat earlier this month that they’re changing how they staff schools with special education teachers and SECAs in order to address staffing imbalances at schools across the city. And they emphasized that those staffing changes have nothing to do with budget belt-tightening. Still, families and teachers expressed concern that the shifts could reduce the amount of support provided to students with disabilities.

The layoffs sparked frustration from the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents teachers and support staff. Earlier this week, CTU called for Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to launch a special legislative session in order to find additional funding for education.

More than 740 people laid off are CTU members, and just over 700 belong to SEIU, CPS said.

In a letter to members on its website, CTU’s leadership team called the layoffs a “harmful and distressing annual ritual at CPS” but highlighted the retention pools they bargained for.

In a statement, SEIU said it hopes the city and the school board can work with state leaders “to mitigate these cuts so the workers do not bear the brunt.”

SEIU’s statement also said that CPS informed the union the SECA layoffs are because of a “philosophical position that too much support from SECAs will impact the independence of students post-graduation.” The union said district officials did not discuss this matter with the union or advocacy organizations before making this decision, which will “negatively impact students.”

The district’s funding formula has shifted in recent years, now providing schools with positions instead of dollars. Schools with higher needs — determined by a formula called the Opportunity Index — are generally provided more resources.

One principal on Chicago’s South Side said her budget, which is based on the smaller deficit figure, was down just one position compared to last year, and she’s trying to save it through “some savvy budgeting and maneuvering.”

She’s warned her staff that more cuts could be coming, and that the budget they’ve been working on since May is like using “monopoly money.” She’s advocating with her alderperson to provide CPS with more surplus money from a city pool of tax dollars to spur economic development, known as Tax Increment Financing, or TIF.

“I am concerned that the budget I worked with and put together is not a fully funded budget,” said the principal, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press. “It’s fictitious in some ways at this point.”

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

Chicago Public Schools facing cash crunch as it works to close $734 million deficit

2025-07-09T22:59:22+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is struggling to pay some of its bills and is facing increasing pressure to avoid layoffs as it searches for ways to close a $734 million deficit.

The district’s budget challenges are the most severe in at least the past five years and have already resulted in dozens of layoffs of central office staff and crossing guards. Officials said previously that school-based layoffs would happen in July and teachers union leaders are demanding retroactive raises be sent out as soon as possible.

This year’s budget will be the first approved by the city’s new partially elected school board.

District leaders must find a way to close the deficit either by finding more revenue, making more cuts, or borrowing money. Their plan must be approved by the 21-member Board of Education, which met Wednesday to hold an hourslong closed session and review its agenda for its full board meeting later this month.

The new fiscal year is underway, but the district isn’t expected to finalize a budget until Aug. 28. By state law, Chicago’s school board can approve a budget as late as the end of August.

So far, CPS has closed just over one-fifth of the budget gap through various cuts, including through layoffs and reductions in some contractual costs, budget director Mike Sitkowski told the board on Wednesday. Big pressures on the budget include rising costs for students with disabilities, who are legally entitled to additional support, and the cost of maintaining aging buildings, he said.

By 2030, the district’s deficit could be $1.3 billion unless the district finds more permanent, long-term revenue, Sitkowski said.

CPS’s budget gap this year could grow after the Trump administration announced last week it would withhold and reevaluate some streams of federal funding, which amount to about $60 million for CPS, Sitkowski said.

Board members asked several questions, including whether they need to factor in a much-debated $175 million pension payment to the city, which is not required by state law, and whether there is wasteful spending that the district could curb to avoid cuts. Though the district’s budget challenges have been shared with the board for months, multiple board members said they’re feeling unprepared.

Interim CPS CEO Macquline King said the district will hold five meetings from July 14 to July 21 to collect public feedback on how CPS should close its budget gap.

In a statement to families earlier this week, King said CPS is “currently working with state and local partners to maximize opportunities for additional revenue, including Tax-Increment Financing (TIF) surplus funds.”

CTU pushes for state legislative session to address funding

During a rally Wednesday outside Board of Education headquarters, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter called on CPS to avoid staff layoffs. Potter pushed for more funding, including from new state taxes and a city pool of tax dollars known as Tax Increment Financing, or TIF.

A private district presentation to board members in April offered one scenario: With a deficit of $734 million, CPS could cut 10% of funding that goes directly to schools. That April presentation also suggested that in order to close a smaller $529 million deficit, CPS would need to eliminate 1,600 school-based positions.

The current deficit figure includes the pension reimbursement to the city. It also does not assume that CPS will get roughly $600 million in TIF surplus dollars — something Martinez pushed for before his departure.

Mayor Brandon Johnson provided CPS with a record-high of roughly $300 million in TIF surplus dollars last fiscal year, and some observers have described the push for more as wishful thinking.

Service Employees International Union 73, or SEIU, which represents school support staff, and CTU have also called on more TIF funding, but teachers union leaders have also supported borrowing money and finding new revenue to pay it off.

Some school board members view borrowing as a short-term avenue to avoid painful cuts at schools, while others worry about high-interest debt repayments that will take money away from classrooms.

At its rally Wednesday, the teachers union demanded that Gov. J.B. Pritzker call a special legislative session in order to allocate more state funding to education funding in light of potential federal funding cuts. Several states, including New Mexico and Colorado, are considering calling special sessions in response to President Donald Trump’s tax bill that imposes cuts to social safety net programs.

Chicago Teachers Union members rally, in part, to push Gov. J.B. Pritzker to find more funding for schools.

The state created a new funding formula in 2017 that provides more money to all districts across the state, but prioritizes additional dollars to those with higher needs. Illinois lawmakers set a goal to fully fund all districts by 2027, but projections indicate they won’t make that deadline.

The state has typically provided an annual increase of $350 million in funding for all Illinois districts — though this year, that increase was $307 million. Since 2017, Illinois has increased what it spends on K-12 education by more than $2 billion, and in that time, state funding for CPS has increased by $1.1 billion. However, the formula says CPS is still $1.2 billion short of what’s considered adequate.

On Tuesday, Alex Gough, a spokesperson for Pritzker’s office, referred Chalkbeat to a statement last year from Pritzker saying he’d like to fund education more — and noted that the state hasn’t yet fully funded its own formula — but said, “Now the question is, where do you find the dollars to do that?”

On Wednesday afternoon, Pritzker’s office issued a news release that called Trump’s budget bill “destructive” and a “major setback for students across the nation.”

“Here in Illinois, we’ll do everything in our power to protect the public education systems we’ve worked so hard to improve and continue supporting students in every way we can,” Pritzker said in a statement.

Union officials said Pritzker should consider various revenue-raising strategies, including new taxes on capital gains and digital advertising.

“For the governor to say we’ve done everything we can is patently false,” Potter said. “We need to do more — that is their own commitment.”

Gough declined to comment when asked if Pritzker is considering calling a special session.

CPS could delay retroactive pay raises for union members

Separately, Potter also said CPS must pay the union’s members retroactive pay they’re owed after getting a new contract, noting that the district said it could afford those raises when it settled its new contract with CTU.

WBEZ first reported this week that the district may not have enough cash on hand until the fall to pay CTU members retroactive raises stemming back to last July, when their contract expired. The $100 million price tag represents the annual 4% raises included in the new contract, which was finalized this May.

Sitkowski told WBEZ that CPS will get a second tranche of property tax revenue from Cook County in the fall. CPS did not respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about the retroactive pay issue.

The district typically provides retroactive pay “when payroll has the tax receipts to enable the payment,” Potter said. Absent those county tax dollars, Potter said all emergency funding “options need to be on the table” in order to pay CTU members in a “timely manner.”

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

Illinois schools chief denounces Trump administration decision to withhold federal education funds

2025-07-02T21:19:30+00:00

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Illinois schools chief Tony Sanders called the Trump administration’s decision to withhold almost $7 billion in federal education funds “deeply disruptive” for the state’s 1.9 million public school students.

The U.S. Department of Education notified states on Monday about the hold on funds, Sanders, the state superintendent of education, said in a weekly message Tuesday. According to news reports, most of the funding was to support English learners and children of migrant workers, while a smaller part was supposed to go to afterschool programs, teacher training, and enrichment programs.

The funds were approved by Congress earlier this year and were expected to go out by July 1. However, the Trump administration claimed that the money was being used to “subsidize a radical leftwing agenda” and ordered a halt, pending a review.

Sanders said the administration’s move “forces local districts to deal with unnecessary uncertainty and places an undue burden on teachers, administrators, and families alike at the exact moment when they should be focused on preparing for the next school year.”

A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement to Chalkbeat on Thursday that the board expected to receive around $218.7 million in federal funding across five programs on July 1.

Afterschool advocates have also voiced concerns about the withholding of federal funds for afterschool and summer programs. Susan Stanton, executive director of the ACT Now Coalition, said in a statement on Tuesday that the decision was a “profound and direct attack on children.”

“It is a cold, calculated move to rip away the vital network of high-quality services from diverse communities,” Stanton said. “We can’t hold hostage the safety and future of our children in the name of partisan politics.”

School districts around the state already have to deal with tighter budgets for the coming school year since federal COVID relief dollars have expired. The state’s overall education budget increased slightly, with $307 million more going to the state board’s evidence-based funding formula to support K-12 schools. This fiscal year the state board’s education budget increased to almost $11.2 billion, from $10.8 billion in fiscal year 2025.

In recent years, school advocates have been asking for the state to put in an additional $550 million to help schools reach “adequate funding” sooner.

Without more state funding, and with federal funding at risk, school districts will have to adjust to a new fiscal reality. Chicago Public Schools recently reported having a $734 million budget deficit. The district has so far decided to lay off about 161 employees, including many crossing guards, and will not fill over 200 vacant positions. More cuts could be in store.

A district spokesperson said CPS does not yet know the impact of the federal funds being withheld. For the last school year, CPS was expecting to receive at least $90 million in the federal funding streams that the state said are currently on hold, according to CPS’s website.

Updated July 3: This story was updated with new information from the Illinois State Board of Education on the amount of federal funding that has been withheld, and a clarification on changes to state funding for the current fiscal year.

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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.

Chicago Public Schools laid off 161 employees. More cuts could be on the way.

2025-07-01T16:16:51+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools’ layoff of 161 employees last week is a likely precursor to more budget cuts the district will consider to address a $734 million deficit.

The layoffs included 87 people represented by SEIU Local 73 — nearly all of whom were crossing guards — plus 67 employees in the district’s central and network offices, and seven people represented by the Chicago Teachers Union, CPS confirmed to Chalkbeat.

The district also said it will not fill more than 200 vacant positions, including 166 at the central office and 19 CTU-represented positions. The district originally said it would not fill 24 open crossing guard jobs as part of freezing those open positions, but late Monday revised that figure to 19.

The district said Tuesday it has found roughly $150 million in savings for the next fiscal year through cuts at the central office and citywide staffing, including through layoffs, cuts in contracting, and “scaled-back citywide programming.” These don’t include cuts to school-based jobs. The district declined to say exactly how much money last week’s layoffs saved.

Crossing guards are assigned to streets and intersections at public and private schools, the district said Tuesday. At CPS schools, the district cut the number of intersections that were covered — meaning, for example, a school with four covered intersections may now only have guards at three of them.

The layoffs were of people who work citywide or in central offices and are not assigned to schools, CPS spokesperson Sylvia Barragan said in a statement. Under the leadership of previous district CEO Pedro Martinez, officials were “identifying ways to be more efficient and find cost savings across our central offices and administrative functions” and also cut other expenses, including some contractual services “to further limit the impact on school communities,” Barragan wrote.

Barragan said school-based “staffing adjustments” will come in July. While schools lay off some people every year, those employees often find jobs in other schools. This year’s cuts could go deeper than in past years, given the size of the deficit.

The district was already preparing to make cuts to close a budget gap previously projected at $229 million. That projection assumed the district would receive hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue, which has not materialized. Without those additional dollars, the district expected to see a $529 million deficit.

Now, the district’s official deficit for the fiscal year beginning Tuesday has grown to $734 million because of additional expenses that interim CEO Macquline King is factoring in, including a $175 million pension reimbursement to the city.

That deficit represents the most dire financial situation for CPS since at least before the pandemic, and it remains unclear how CPS will close it. The district is expected to present a budget proposal to the Chicago Board of Education later than usual, most likely in late July or early August. To narrow the deficit without major budget cuts, the district may also consider borrowing, an idea that is already dividing the school board.

In a presentation to school board members in April, CPS officials indicated that in a scenario with a $734 million deficit, funding that goes directly to schools could take a 10% hit — or $300 million to $400 million. It’s unclear if that’s still the sort of scenario officials are considering.

The uncertainty is sowing anxiety in school communities, which could face additional cuts and layoffs before the start of the school year.

In a statement, SEIU Local 73 president Dian Palmer said last week’s layoffs are likely just the beginning. Laying off “any of these essential workers” would represent a “significant blow to our education system,” Palmer said.

In a statement, the CTU said it is planning to drum up support for more state funding this summer by knocking on doors and visiting state lawmakers.

“Parents shouldn’t have to be worried about if their child’s class will have a chemistry teacher or if there will be staff to meet the needs of their IEP, and educators shouldn’t have to spend their summer attending job fairs instead of planning lessons for the coming school year,” the union said.

The CTU and SEIU held back-to-back rallies last week calling for the district to avert layoffs of their members. The unions have called for additional revenue that, for now, seems unlikely to pan out. That strategy includes seeking more money from the state and calling on Mayor Brandon Johnson to provide more money to CPS from a pool of tax dollars for development projects. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates has also supported the idea of borrowing to stave off cuts.

Chalkbeat Chicago bureau chief Becky Vevea contributed.

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

Chicago Public Schools plans to release school budgets relying on unlikely city, state money

2025-05-14T23:08:26+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is putting together a roughly $10 billion budget for next school year that relies on getting more money from the city or state. But neither entity has committed to the funding, and critics call the plan unrealistic.

In a call with reporters on Wednesday, district officials said that while individual campuses could see changes based on enrollment, the total amount of funding that goes to its roughly 600 schools would stay the same as last year — for now. Principals are slated to get their school’s budgets on Thursday but could see changes and cuts over the summer if new revenue doesn’t come through. The principals union sent a letter to members Tuesday calling the anticipated budgets “magical” and “false,” as first reported by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.

“If it changes, then that’s going to have a multitude of ripple effects throughout the district, throughout the communities,” said Tyrone Dowdell, the longtime principal of Green Elementary School in Washington Heights and a board member of the principals union. “I don’t want for any of our colleagues throughout the city to have to change and tell their Local School Councils something different from what they say in May.”

Last month, district officials privately told the Chicago Board of Education CPS is expecting a $529 million deficit, which it could close by cutting up to 1,700 school-based positions, Chalkbeat previously reported.

At the time, the district also laid out two other scenarios: one in which the district’s deficit grows because of additional costs, and one where the deficit shrinks because CPS gets more money. The latter of those two scenarios is what the district is proposing: A $229 million deficit with the assumption that the city or state will come up with an additional $300 million for CPS.

Under that scenario, CPS will still need cuts to balance the budget but could keep them away from schools, officials said. CPS has not yet finalized what those cuts would be but is “confident” it will find “reductions and efficiencies,” said CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus. The district closed last year’s roughly $500 million deficit with a mix of cuts to central staff and administrative costs, but kept overall funding to school budgets level.

With both the city and state grappling with their own deficits, CPS’s hopeful outlook is unlikely to come to fruition.

How the budget deficit gets addressed may depend on who replaces current CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, whose last day is June 18. The district’s new fiscal year starts July 1; the Board of Education has historically voted on a budget in June or July.

Martinez advocates for more city funding

The district’s budget calculations include different possibilities, including getting $600 million from the city related to Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, districts, or double what CPS received last year in TIF-related funds.

Additionally, CPS did not budget for a pension reimbursement to the city — setting up another potential fight with City Hall.

Martinez said Wednesday the budgets going to principals Thursday represent what the school board, unions, and Mayor Brandon Johnson want: no cuts to schools. District officials touted adding hundreds of staffers and new investments funded by federal COVID relief money, such as extra help for struggling students. A 2024 Chalkbeat analysis found those one-time COVID relief dollars, which have now run out, helped support roughly 7% of school budgets annually over the past four years.

The district has been asking the state for more money over the past year, Martinez said. If TIFs didn’t exist or were allowed to expire when they’re supposed to, Martinez said, the district would be getting at least an additional $600 million annually.

TIFs are special taxing districts that last for at least 23 years and set aside a portion of property taxes in that specific area to help spur development and improve public amenities, including parks and schools. Surplus money that’s not earmarked for projects goes back to the local taxing bodies, including CPS, which gets roughly half. When a TIF expires, the property value goes back to the tax base, benefiting government entities like CPS.

Martinez said if the city dissolved existing TIFs now, CPS would be able to solve its budget problems. Dissolving a TIF early, however, requires City Council approval, which school board President Sean Harden said is a “steep hill” to climb.

Nevertheless, Martinez said he’s encouraging the mayor, the City Council, the school board, unions, and families “to unite around a plan to use TIF funding to close our budget gap and supply our district with sustainable revenue for the future.”

“This is the only scenario that will allow us to maintain school funding levels,” he said.

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Critics call the potential budget plan unrealistic

Harden, who was appointed by the mayor, told Chalkbeat that CPS may also be in a weak position to press the city for more money after refusing to reimburse the city for a portion of CPS-related pension costs. That reimbursement is not legally required, but the district had previously made the payment, starting under Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Doing so this year would have required borrowing or cuts and an inability to afford labor contracts, district officials argued.

Additional revenue is not likely to be coming from the state legislature either. Some school board members have said they’ve gone to Springfield at least twice this year to advocate for more funding. District officials also went at the end of April.

“Any proposal that assumes revenue from the city, state, or any place else, the board would want to see the basis for that assumption,” Harden said.

Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said the district’s budget plan so far appeared to be a pressure tactic on the city and the state to send more money that is unlikely to materialize. What CPS revealed Wednesday is more of a “tactical document for negotiation” that doesn’t allow principals, schools, and parents to “begin to plan for the coming school year,” Ferguson said.

Martinez rejected the idea that he is making a political move or that it is irresponsible.

“I think it’s irresponsible to force our schools to cut a significant number of staff … I think it’s irresponsible to have over $1.2 billion every single year coming into the city that taxpayers think are going to the taxing bodies, and they are not,” Martinez said, referring to revenue generated by TIFs. “I think it’s irresponsible to propose tax increases at the city level when you have this much money.”

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

Chicago Public Schools floats hundreds of layoffs as one option to close $529 million budget gap

2025-04-25T22:19:36+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is considering laying off hundreds of school-based staffers next school year — one of multiple scenarios being considered to close a $529 million budget gap, Chalkbeat has learned.

Between 1,600 and 1,700 positions based inside schools could be cut, according to a presentation used to brief board members obtained by Chalkbeat. However, it’s not clear if the number represents a net reduction in the overall number of CPS employees. The district currently employs more than 41,000 people.

While some of the belt-tightening could include cutting vacant positions, it would “overwhelmingly” involve layoffs, according to a CPS source who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.

The potential cuts are not yet final. The presentation suggests there are ways to lessen the blow, specifically by getting more state funding or more city money than it is already expecting from special taxing districts meant to spur development, known as TIFs. Mayor Brandon Johnson has the power to declare a surplus of those funds, and CPS is assuming it will again receive roughly $300 million in those funds next year, according to the presentation.

The CPS budget for next school year, which would begin July 1, must still go through a public hearing process and be formally adopted by the board. School budgets are typically shared with principals and Local School Councils in the spring. By state law, the district’s budget must be balanced.

The challenge ahead marks the first time in recent years that CPS has had to consider deep school-based cuts. That’s largely because the district benefitted from a windfall of nearly $3 billion in federal COVID relief money over the past four school years, which supported 7% of school budgets, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said the district is considering multiple scenarios, including what happens if state or local revenue doesn’t change. The different scenarios don’t “necessarily reflect the district’s recommendation.” She added that CPS leaders, students, parents, and advocates will travel to Springfield next week to push for more state funding.

“CPS will continue to seek every opportunity to boost revenue and minimize cuts, particularly those that could disrupt the learning experience or impact our dedicated staff,” she said. “Our primary focus will remain on safeguarding the quality of education for our students and minimizing any disruptions to their daily learning.”

The school board’s office did not return a request for comment. Service Employees International Union local that covers school support staff also did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates said the potential cuts are “evidence of a fired CEO’s failure to lead.”

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez was fired without cause in December and will leave in June. He will likely take a job as the new education commissioner of Massachusetts.

“It’s time for this board to define for Chicagoans how it will lead and show there’s no place for going backwards on the district’s commitment to quality public education,” Davis Gates said.

Closing budget gap could mean at least $200M cuts to schools

The expected $529 million gap between revenues and expenses is calculated after accounting for several new expenses, including the new teachers contract, potential raises for principals as part of their union’s negotiations, and increased costs related to SEIU and other unions, according to the internal presentation. CPS is also expecting increases in charter school funding and teacher pensions, to comply with state laws. The projection does not, however, include a much-debated pension reimbursement to the city of Chicago, which the district declined to pay this year. That suggests the district will, for now, refuse to reimburse the city for the pension payment next school year.

The projected budget gap does not include new risks to federal funding under President Donald Trump, such as Title I, which provides additional funds to about 400 Chicago schools with high shares of students from low-income families.

If the board chooses to balance the budget through this plan, it would reduce the deficit by a total $200 million to $260 million, about 6% to 7% of the $3.5 billion in funding that goes directly to schools, according to the presentation. The district also floated cutting central office expenses by $20 million to $40 million — 7% to 13% — and trimming another nearly 20%, or between $250 million and $280 million, from centralized support services and staff that work more directly with schools.

The plan could mean cuts to discretionary funding for high-needs schools, staff that provide additional support to struggling students, such as tutors, and social-emotional support, according to the presentation. However, it also said those potential cuts would keep class sizes at contractual limits in the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

The contract lowers kindergarten class sizes to 25 students and adds a teaching assistant for any class with more than 23 students, the union previously told Chalkbeat. In first through third grade, class sizes would be 28, and in fourth through eighth grade, the cap is 30 students.

Cuts could also impact support staff, such as custodians, security guards, building engineers, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards paid for under the Safe Passage program. The internal presentation also mentioned trimming transportation costs that are not legally mandated. That could impact recent increased efforts to restore transportation to general education students who largely attend magnet or selective enrollment schools.

However, in its presentation, the district foreshadowed that there could be cuts even if new revenue comes through. For example, if the district received $300 million in additional funding through either state or city funding, it could mean a $70 million to $110 million cut to direct school funding.

Despite the potential cuts, the presentation said CPS is “committed” to maintaining teaching staff that prioritizes “reasonable class sizes” and “differentiated support for high-needs schools,” as well as support for kids with greater needs, such as students with disabilities and English learners.

According to the CPS source, the district does not prefer instituting a hiring freeze to address cuts because high-needs schools are typically where vacant positions exist. That means a hiring freeze would impose greater burdens on the schools that likely need the most staffing. Cuts would more likely impact larger schools.

School board members look to city, state for help

School board member Jitu Brown said while the presentation was “thorough,” it wasn’t a surprise. District officials have publicly shared for months that CPS expected at least a half-billion-dollar deficit.

He argued that there hasn’t been a solid legislative strategy from CPS to convince state lawmakers to send funding help. He also thinks CPS’s resistance to taking out a loan in order to reimburse the city for some pension costs was a misstep.

District officials worried that taking out such a loan would result in high-interest rates that would become difficult to pay back down the road.

While CPS is not legally required to pay the city back for those pension costs, it had done so under Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Brown worried that by not paying the city back, City Council has lost interest in sending more TIF surplus to the schools. Aldermen and city officials warned the school board in March that they could hold back on funding help for CPS if the district did not reimburse the city for the pension payment.

Brown said he and other board members plan to press state lawmakers for more funding and more relief on certain costs, such as teacher pensions that other districts don’t pay. Those are issues that district staffers have also previously highlighted.

“To me this whole piece has been due to a lack of leadership,” Brown said. “I’m not in favor of any budget cuts.”

Board member Carlos Rivas said he supports pushing the city for more TIF surplus funding to help make an “absolutely terrible” cut “much more manageable.” He placed more blame on city officials for not developing a strong state advocacy campaign and doesn’t believe the state is going to bail out CPS. But he believes there’s political will on the City Council to support the public school system, despite the tension around the pension payment.

“I believe we all want great schools so I don’t believe the City Council will hold that against us,” Rivas said.

Financial issues can be tied to the end of the COVID relief money

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, CPS spent nearly $3 billion in federal COVID relief funding on many school-based investments, primarily staff, including a cadre of new academic interventionists. The district touts those investments as helping students perform better than some of their peers nationwidef after the pandemic.

However, those were not one-time costs, and the money dried up last year. The district had to close a roughly half-billion-dollar deficit this year, too, as it tried to hold on to many of those new investments.

The district’s internal presentation outlined possible cuts that include many of those post-COVID investments: cuts to professional development, after-school programming, curriculum support, and academic interventionists — a position that has already been pared down since last school year.

Martinez appears to be leaning toward pushing for more TIF funding. At Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, he said after conversations with state legislators, he isn’t confident more state funding is in the cards. Illinois is working to close a $3.2 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year.

The internal presentation also outlined scenarios where the CPS deficit could grow — and require even deeper cuts. For example, the pension reimbursement would increase the district’s projected deficit, as would about $30 million in costs to begin the planning and transitioning of five Acero charter schools into district-run schools by the fall of 2026. Those are separate from the costs related to eventually taking over the schools.

The board voted in February to take over the five Acero campuses previously slated for closure. Asked why the Acero transition costs weren’t included in the district’s deficit projection, a CPS source said “doing that would require significant cuts” and district staff wanted to ensure the board knows “what the consequences are.”

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

A majority of Chicago teachers, support staff ratify tentative Chicago Teachers Union contract

2025-04-14T19:43:35+00:00

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The Chicago Teachers Union announced Monday 97% of teachers and support staff at Chicago Public Schools who voted last week approved the tentative deal it reached after a year of sometimes heated bargaining with the district.

The union said 85% of all union members voted last Thursday and Friday across 500 schools and some central locations for citywide employees. The Chicago Board of Education must still vote to approve the deal. The board must also amend its budget to pay for the first year of the four-year contract, which will include retroactive pay reaching back to last July.

During a press conference Monday announcing the results, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said the approval numbers were a result of the union’s democratic process, including consulting its roughly 30,000 members on proposals for the contract.

“That should be an expectation: That people are engaged, that people have an understanding, that they get their questions answered, they see the progression of the work and then they ratify in those numbers,” Davis Gates told reporters.

To members who voted no, Davis Gates said the union will continue to “build” with them and asked those members to give the union “a few more years” to meet their demands. Davis Gates is up for re-election in May and faces at least one slate of challengers.

The approval from CTU’s membership caps a process that heightened tensions between the district, the union, and Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher and CTU organizer. It fueled deep disagreement over how to pay for the contract and other costs, leading to the resignation of Johnson’s entire first appointed school board and the firing of CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who will stay through the end of the school year.

In recent weeks, tensions grew to a boiling point, raising the question of whether the union would go on strike, as it did in 2019 and 2012. That didn’t come to pass. The union and the district agreed on a tentative deal that was far more modest than the original 700-plus proposals the union had pitched at the start of bargaining.

The new contract will include 4-5% raises annually over the life of the four-year contract, as well as additional pay for more veteran teachers. It will also require hiring hundreds more staffers, including more teacher assistants, and includes some new class size limits.

One of the thorniest issues resolved in the final days of bargaining was additional preparation time for elementary school teachers. Those educators will receive an additional 10 minutes of prep time each day, as well as an additional three teacher-directed professional development days that were previously controlled by principals. District leaders said this will be achieved differently by schools, such as by increasing recess time to the state-mandated requirement of 30 minutes so that teachers can prepare.

While CPS has said it can afford the first year of the contract, it’s unclear how it will pay for the rest of the deal, which in total is projected to cost $1.5 billion. Martinez has said the district’s revenues could be enough to cover the costs, but it struggles every year with a structural deficit.

Potentially choppy financial waters are ahead for the district, which is projected to face at least a $500 million deficit next fiscal year. Additionally, there is a looming threat of federal funding cuts under the Trump administration. Union, district, and city officials have all said they plan to advocate for more funding from the state, though so far it’s unclear if those demands will be met. Mayor Johnson said the city will sue the Trump administration if it withholds federal funding because of the district’s policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Asked if she is worried about furloughs and layoffs in the upcoming school year, Davis Gates said no. She said the union has organized and fought before against painful cuts and layoffs, including during the 2013 school closures. Key players in those fights now sit in the highest places of power in Chicago’s government, she noted.

“I’m not worried about it because Jitu Brown is on the school board and he did that work already. I’m not worried about it because Brandon Johnson is on the fifth floor and he did that work already. I’m not worried about it because Jeanette Taylor is in the City Council and she’s done that work already,” she said. “See, we have set ourselves up for this moment.”

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

Chicago Public Schools starts work on its capital budget as $3 billion in ‘critical’ repairs loom

2025-04-08T21:59:03+00:00

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If Chicago Public Schools were to tackle all the building repairs and upgrade projects on its list, that would cost $14.4 billion. Just the ones the district considers “critical”? About $3 billion.

District officials highlighted these eye-popping price tags — which haven’t budged since the fall of 2023 — on Tuesday at the second of five virtual and in-person hearings CPS is hosting this month to get community input as it develops its capital budget for the 2025-26 school year.

Maintaining CPS’s 520 campuses and other facilities is no small task: The average age of CPS’ roughly 800 buildings is more than 85 years, and dozens of schools were built before 1900. Chicago’s oldest public school building was built in 1874.

Over the years, officials have readily acknowledged that they tend to put off many projects because they can’t afford them, often focusing on the most urgently needed repairs — an approach that sometimes means having to tackle costlier projects down the line as building issues escalate. For that reason, officials stressed at Tuesday’s virtual hearing, the $3 billion figure for pressing repairs on leaky roofs, malfunctioning heating and cooling systems, and other issues is poised to grow.

“That’s just to bring our facilities to a state of good repair,” said Ivan Hansen, the district’s chief facilities officer.

The district is facing these costs at a time of rising financial pressures: the end of federal COVID aid, ballooning structural budget deficits in the coming years, and the risk of losing funding from the Trump administration.

At the Tuesday hearing, attendees could submit questions to CPS officials and were invited to fill out a survey at the end. Only seven people logged in.

In the current year, the district earmarked $611 million for facilities spending in its $9.9 billion overall budget. The previous year, district officials had budgeted an unusually low $155 million for buildings and put many projects on hold so they could craft a longer-term infrastructure plan. Officials said Tuesday the district has spent more than $4 billion on capital projects since 2016.

“While the needs continue to be consistent and significant,” Hansen said, “the funding varies on an annual basis.”

At the hearing, district officials explained that in recent years, CPS has used two metrics to steer dollars to certain projects and schools first. One is the equity index, which combines metrics on the neighborhoods where a school’s students live, its student demographics and historical funding for facilities projects. The other is a facility condition index.

CPS said this is the first year the district is hosting in-person hearings to get input on its capital budget.

All the capital hearings will be live-streamed on CPS’ YouTube Channel, and the presentation materials are available on the Capital Plan Community Meetings website in English, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Urdu, and Arabic. Residents can also provide input through online survey.

The upcoming budget hearings are:

5:30 p.m. April 15, in-person at the CPS Garfield Park Administrative Offices, 2651 W Washington Blvd., in English and Spanish
5:30 p.m. April 17, virtual in Spanish only
3:30 p.m. April 19, in-person at the CPS Colman Administrative Offices, 4640 S. State St., in English and Spanish

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Ivan Hansen, the district’s chief facilities officer.

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

Seven Chicago school board members say they oppose reimbursing city for disputed pension payment

2025-03-22T23:33:10+00:00

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Seven Chicago School board members say they oppose a plan to allow Chicago Public Schools to reimburse the city for a highly disputed pension payment — kneecapping for now the city’s efforts to close its budget books.

The declaration from the seven members — in a letter obtained by Chalkbeat and sent to board President Sean Harden on Saturday — means the city does not have enough support from the Board of Education to get the $175 million it is seeking from Chicago Public Schools. Reimbursing the city would require a vote from the board to amend CPS’s budget, and such an amendment needs two-thirds approval — or 14 yes votes — from the 21-member board.

The board president does not vote unless there is a need to break a tie. Harden did not immediately return a call for comment. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office could not immediately be reached.

“We cannot in good conscience make payments towards things for which we have no sustainable means of raising revenue,” said the letter signed by elected board members Jessica Biggs, Therese Boyle, Jennifer Custer, Angel Gutierrez, Carlos Rivas Jr., Ellen Rosenfeld, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith. The group has so far emerged as a faction of the board that has sometimes been critical of policies favored by Mayor Brandon Johnson, who appointed 11 of the 21 board members.

The pension reimbursement has been a major subject of debate between city and school district officials for months. For several board members, the idea of making cuts, borrowing money, or restructuring debt to cover the payment — which has been floated by City Hall and, more reluctantly, an independent consultant — has been a nonstarter.

“As a body entrusted to govern the Chicago Public Schools, its teachers, staff, and students, it is important to make decisions that are in the best interest of the district and in line with our fiduciary responsibilities,” the letter said. “Any terms brought forth that suggest more borrowing and the addition of more debt to the district is not financial best practice and creates further risk to the district.”

The issue centers around a pension fund the City of Chicago is legally obligated to fund, which covers, in part, retirement for CPS staffers who are not teachers. CPS began contributing to the pension fund under an agreement with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Johnson continued that practice, but CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has resisted reimbursing the city this fiscal year as the district faces financial challenges.

That resistance has become so charged that it helped cost Martinez his job.

In the letter, the seven board members say they will partner with the city in lobbying the state so CPS can levy taxes in order to cover the pension payment in the future.

“We see an opportunity to work together to create more responsible budgeting on these issues in the future, and look forward to those conversations,” the letter said. “We understand that the financial entanglement between the City and CPS are vast and intricate.”

The City of Chicago must close its current budget by the end of this month and needs the reimbursement from CPS or must turn to another fix, such as dipping into its reserves, which the city argues could result in a bond rating downgrade and make it harder to borrow in the future.

The district appears close to settling a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, and Martinez has said he wants to ensure the district has the funding to pay for additional labor costs. CPS — which did not budget for pension payment or union contract costs — would need to receive more funding from another source, make cuts, or refinance its debt in order to make the payment, according to the outside consultant’s report.

The city has provided the district with an additional $139 million in surplus Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, dollars, which come from special taxing districts meant to spur development. The district was set to amend its budget last week in order to accept the additional funding and earmark it toward the pension reimbursement and labor contracts with teachers and principals. That additional money is not enough to cover all of the district’s upcoming costs.

However, amid ongoing contract negotiations and pushback from several board members who don’t want to reimburse the city, Harden tabled the amendment.

The letter says the listed board members will vote yes on a budget amendment that allocates the $139 million toward new union contracts for teachers and principals.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@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 school board debates high-stakes budget amendment ahead of vote

2025-03-13T22:33:58+00:00

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A divide started to emerge Thursday in the Chicago school board’s meatiest discussion so far this year over a city pension fund payment that has pitted CPS leaders against the mayor’s office.

Some board members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson or elected with Chicago Teachers Union endorsement urged the district to pay the city $175 million to cover a portion of an annual payment to fund the retirements of non-teaching school staff.

That payment has caused a major rift between district leaders — who note that the city, not the budget deficit-plagued district, is on the hook for the cost under state law — and Johnson, who insists the district must chip in as it becomes more independent from the city.

But other elected board members appeared to signal more support for CPS’s stance that it’s the city’s responsibility to cover the pension cost. They want to use the money to cover the cost of new contracts with their teachers and principals unions — both still under negotiation.

Next week, the school board is expected to vote on an amendment to the district’s budget for the current school year. It will revise the $9.9 billion budget to add in an additional $139 million in tax revenue CPS received from the city.

But it leaves a lot of ambiguity about how CPS will pay for more than $300 million in added costs.

On Thursday, at the first of two public hearings on the amendment, district officials told the board the amendment’s open-ended phrasing gives members the leeway to decide how to spend the extra dollars. But they stressed repeatedly, as they have in the past, that unless the city comes through with additional funding, the district will need mid-school year budget cuts to cover both the cost of the two contracts and the pension payment.

Board members puzzle over the way forward

Some board members made it clear they want the district to find a way to pay for the teachers contract, a principals union agreement, and the pension payment. They argued that failing to fork over the pension payment would anger city leaders and could make them withhold tax revenue from the district in coming years as punishment.

“We recognize that all three are obligations that the district has, and we are doing everything in our power to meet them,” said board President Sean Harden.

But other board members said that at a time of mounting fiscal pressures and uncertainty for CPS, the city shouldn’t pass on costs it has historically covered to the district. Across the board, members voiced some uncertainty and even confusion about their options and way forward. Harden said an upcoming report from Baker Tilly, the financial consultants the board hired to review the budget, will be “a major component to determining what our next steps are.”

Board member Jitu Brown said he spoke with some aldermen who signaled that they won’t look kindly on a CPS refusal to kick in on the pension payment — and that might affect their willingness to pass on surplus tax revenue down the road.

“They won’t be supportive of those resources coming to CPS for our long-term health,” he said.

But Carlos Rivas, one of the board’s elected members representing Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and Logan Square, voiced skepticism, noting the city is legally obligated to pass on a portion of surplus dollars from special tax-increment-financing, or TIF, districts to CPS and cannot just choose to cut off the district.

Another elected school board member Jennifer Custer, who represents neighborhoods on the far Northwest side of the city, noted that the extra TIF money the district received from the city recently isn’t even enough to cover the pension payment.

Some mayoral appointees stressed that CPS’s budget reflects a record influx of cash from TIF surplus — a total $298 million. Besides the new $139 million in revenue from the TIF surplus in the amendment, the budget already included $159 million from that source.

Debby Pope, another Johnson appointee, insisted that CPS should strive to make that payment, perhaps by “rearranging things” in its budget. The district has chipped in for the pension fund in recent years, she noted; that fund, which she said has been “outrageously underfunded” over the years, covers many CPS employees.

Some board members repeatedly invoked an option the mayor’s office has floated in recent days — refinancing the district’s debt to eke out more dollars for this year’s budget — even as district officials insisted CPS did all the refinancing it could possibly do at the start of the school year.

City officials argue for debt refinancing

Senior mayoral aides on Tuesday said CPS could refinance existing debt to free up about $250 million in order to pay for both the pension reimbursement and increased contract costs.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago, said CPS would be “hard-pressed in the current interest rate environment” to refinance in a way that would free up $200 million.

Marlowe added that the district could try to do “an extreme scoop and toss” where they make zero principal payments for several years and then face ballooning payments in 15 or 20 years.

“It seems like a trade off they’re just not willing to make,” he said.

To better understand those and other financial options, some board members, such as Johnson appointee Michilla Blaise, called for a chance to question outside experts and city leaders, perhaps as early as the second public hearing on the amendment on Friday.

Meanwhile, other board members, such as Karen Zaccor, another Johnson appointee, called on the district to settle its contract with teachers so the board would know exactly how much money it needed to steer to that this year.

“It would be really important to get it done as soon as possible,” she said. “We can have actual numbers and not those theoretical numbers we can offer.”

Chicago Teachers Union leaders, organizers, and members packed the available public hearing slots Thursday, asking the board to press district officials to give in on a number of CTU contract negotiation priorities: more preparation time for elementary teachers, less frequent teacher evaluations, smaller class sizes, and additional staffing. And they urged the district to settle its four-year contract with teachers — with negotiations almost a year in the works — before passing the amendment.

Two-thirds of the 21-member school board need to vote yes for the amendment to pass. Some members have told Chalkbeat they plan to oppose the amendment because they believe the district cannot and should not have to handle the pension payment. When former Mayor Lori Lightfoot passed on some of that pension fund’s costs to CPS, the teachers union sharply criticized her for balancing the city’s budget on the backs of students.

CTU leaders did not directly address the pension payment on Thursday. But Stacia Scott Kennedy of SEIU Local 73, which represents support staff in CPS, cautioned the board about covering the pension payment at any cost, including by cutting staff or further indebting the district.

“Those chickens come home to roost years from now,” she said. “It’s the children and the workers who come to suffer from these decisions.”

At Thursday’s meeting, district leaders and board members seemed to agree on one thing: The district and the city must work out a clear way to handle financial obligations each has struggled to cover in the longer run. Brown said he wants a comprehensive plan from district leaders on addressing CPS’s budget challenges.

“It’s almost like we’re in a boat, and we have duct tape on the bottom of it, and we’re just hoping a leak doesn’t spring,” he said.

The next public hearing is 10:30 a.m. Friday, March 14 at the district headquarters, at 42 W Madison St.

Becky Vevea contributed to this report.

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

While the state faces a tighter budget, Illinois’ schools chief asks for a boost in education funding

2025-01-15T21:21:46+00:00

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The Illinois State Board of Education is proposing an additional $497.2 million for the state’s education budget — a smaller increase than last year as federal COVID relief money dries up and the state grapples with a projected deficit.

If approved by the state’s general assembly, the education budget would grow from $11 billion to $11.4 billion in fiscal year 2026, which starts July 1 and ends June 30, 2026.

The board unanimously approved Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders’ budget proposal at a Wednesday board meeting without any pushback from members.

Sanders proposed an additional $350 million for the state’s evidence-based funding formula for K-12 schools, which distributes new state education funding to schools based on need, sending more to under-resourced schools and those that serve a majority of students from low-income households, English learners, and students with disabilities.

ISBE’s budget recommendation also includes an additional $75 million for the board’s early childhood education block grant. The state approved an additional $75 million for the grant in 2023 and 2024 as a part of the governor’s initiative to increase funding to early childhood education.

The modest education budget proposal — which will now head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker as he develops a full state budget — grapples with the end of $7 billion in federal emergency COVID relief funds for schools that expired at the end of September. Overall, Illinois is projecting an $3.2 billion budget deficit in fiscal year 2026.

Still, education advocates are disappointed, but not surprised that the recommendation for the evidence-based funding formula for K-12 schools is less than the $550 million advocates called for during the budget hearings in the fall.

A report from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability last spring found that Illinois schools will remain underfunded past 2027, the year lawmakers anticipated schools would all be adequately funded when they passed the new formula in 2017. If the state continues to increase education funding by only $350 million a year, schools would be fully funded by 2034, the report said. The state could speed that up if lawmakers allocated $550 million to the state’s education budget each year.

Claiborne Wade, chair of Kids First Chicago’s Equitable Funding Task Force, a CPS parent, and staff member at DePriest Elementary, is not surprised that the board decided to propose $350 million. However, he hopes the state will boost funding to K-12 schools by $550 million due to the uptick in inflation and the end of COVID-19 relief funds for schools.

“COVID dollars was, I believe, one of the main purposes of some schools and community-based organizations to be able to function without having to worry about where the next dollar was going to come from,” Wade said. “Now that it has run out, it’s ‘How do we sustain these programs that’s been in effect for the past couple years?’ It’s going to be tough.”

This year, the state board did not recommend funding a Supporting Newcomers grant, which would support students who recently immigrated to the United States. Last year, the board requested $35 million, but it was not approved for the final budget.

As the state and local school districts put together their budget for next school year, they will have to make decisions with less funding.

In Sanders’ proposal, career and technical education programming would receive an additional $1.3 million, increasing the budget line from $58 million to $59.3 million. But some advocates spoke Wednesday about the need for more.

Matthew Sell, a former Illinois student who took courses at the Galesburg Area Vocational Center and currently works in advanced manufacturing, asked for additional funding for the center in Western Illinois to support workforce development.

“I think that increased funding would not only be an investment for the students in this area, but as well as the community as a whole.” said Sell.

The education budget proposal will now be incorporated into Pritzker’s overall budget plan, which he is scheduled to present Feb. 19 at the state capitol in Springfield.

State lawmakers can make changes to Pritzker’s proposal and must pass a budget by the end of the spring legislative session, which is currently scheduled to wrap up May 31. In previous years, the legislature has extended the spring session to pass the budget.

How can Chicago Public Schools pay for a new teachers contract?

2025-01-14T22:36:35+00:00

As Chicago Public Schools continues contract talks with its teachers union, a pressing question looms: How will the district pay for a new contract — and rein in ballooning budget deficits?

Money from local property taxes, the state, and the federal government fuel the city’s public schools. As the feds’ contribution shrinks with COVID aid running out and state proposals to boost education spending remain modest, Chicago is increasingly looking into its own pockets to find more money.

In recent weeks, the Chicago Teachers Union has repeatedly spoken of a three-pronged solution as it keeps pushing CPS to agree to more of its proposals:

Dip into the district’s reserves.

Bank on an influx of dollars freed up as special taxing districts that siphon property tax revenue to spur development in a specific area expire in the coming years.

Keep lobbying the state to chip in more.

District CEO Pedro Martinez’ administration has said the reserves idea is untenable, a sentiment some school finance experts echo.

“There is no mythical pot of gold, so I hope we can put this to bed,” district CEO Pedro Martinez said at a Monday news conference.

But Martinez agrees the potential new tax revenue expected to flow to the district as so-called tax increment financing districts, or TIFs, end is a promising piece of the district’s fiscal stability puzzle. CPS is projected to see hundreds of millions in additional property tax revenue in the coming years as TIFs expire. But similar to state funding that is ramping up over time, the added TIF boost might not start really moving the needle until after the four years of the teachers contract the district is now negotiating.

Union officials have pointed out that key sticking points at the bargaining table, such as giving teachers more latitude to select their own curriculums, don’t necessarily cost money. But the two sides have yet to reach agreements on educator pay and staffing — the costliest items — as talks enter their eighth month. The CTU has more recently come close to the district’s pay offer, asking for 4% to 5% cost-of-living raises in each contract year.

District officials have held up CPS’ financial limitations to argue they must hold the line in the contentious talks.

The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog agency based in Illinois, released a new analysis this week cautioning the new partially elected school board, which takes office this week, of the district’s precarious financial outlook.

The district is at a “critical financial juncture,” the report notes, with growing deficits and costs, declining enrollment, aging and underused buildings, and more than $9 billion in debt.

The report argues for “right-sizing” the district’s $10 billion budget, which added about 7,000 positions largely with one-time federal pandemic relief as enrollment shrank.

Marguerite Roza of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University says CPS is not alone in facing budgetary and demographic headwinds, with the end of federal COVID aid, rising costs, and shrinking enrollment. Many are bracing for belt-tightening in the coming years, with little likelihood of extra help from the incoming Trump administration.

“What makes Chicago unique is this push to up the spending now, when the federal relief funds are already gone,” she said.

But Mayor Brandon Johnson and the CTU have been adamantly opposed to cuts they say will hurt the district’s students, and Martinez has shied away from broaching the topic, saying he wants to protect investments that helped students rebound from COVID’s academic toll.

Can CPS dip into its reserves?

In recent weeks, the union has increasingly pointed to a fund balance listed at more than $1.1 billion, which at 10% of the district’s budget is still lower than the 15% called for in district policy.

It’s an amount that has increased in recent years after dropping precariously in the late 2010s. The district has touted that healthier balance in front of credit agencies as it has sought to improve its credit rating and thus lower its runaway borrowing costs. In a memo district officials wrote to the mayor’s office last summer, they noted that CPS remains one of the largest junk bond issuers in the United States, which has meant steep borrowing price tags.

Pavlyn Jankov, a CTU researcher, acknowledges at least some of the reserves are tied up in day-to-day district expenditures because money from property taxes and the state comes in twice a year while payroll and other expenses are ongoing. Still, “it means the district has more flexibility to make financial decisions,” Jankov said.

He said other districts, such as Minneapolis, are dipping into their reserves to soften the financial blow from the expiration of COVID relief funds and ward off some cuts.

But CPS has a consistent cash flow crunch. District officials said Monday the district only has about $66 million in actual cash on hand, or about three days’ worth of operating expenses. Despite a healthier balance on paper, CPS continues to borrow to make payroll and pay vendors through the school year — and continues to shoulder the costs of such short-term borrowing.

Martinez said he fears that if the district, which faces a budget deficit of more than $500 million next school year, “overextends itself” in addressing CTU staffing and pay increase demands, it might have to resort to layoffs, furloughs, and other painful measures.

“We don’t want to be adding positions on the one hand and laying off teachers on the other,” said CPS Chief Talent Officer Ben Felton.

Roza said leaning on reserves to cover ongoing expenses slated to grow over time is irresponsible.

“If you use reserves to pay the first year, next year you have no reserves and no way to pay for contract costs,” said Roza. “You have left the district very, very vulnerable.”

Is more property tax revenue coming as TIFs expire?

Roughly half the district’s operating budget comes from local property taxes. Johnson ran on a promise of not to raise them — a possibility deeply unpopular with residents and the City Council.

A large amount of property in Chicago sits in tax increment financing districts. When money is not used to spur development within each district, the mayor and city council can declare a surplus and send dollars back to taxing bodies, such as CPS.

This year, the district received a record roughly $300 million in TIF surplus money.

But in addition to that surplus, CPS is looking at a more stable potential source of new revenue: freed-up property tax dollars that will begin flowing to the district and other city agencies as 13 TIF districts expire over the coming years.

According to public data provided by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development and first reported by the Chicago Tribune, CPS is projected to see as much as $100 million more in local property tax revenue in 2026 as a result of the expiring TIFs. The projections balloon to more than $600 million past 2031.

In an interview with Chalkbeat last week, Johnson, a former CTU employee and close ally of the union, said the district should count on future property tax revenue to continue growing its staff.

“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,” he said.

The union and the district agree the end of TIFs will help the public schools, and both have argued the city should let more of TIF districts sunset.

Jankov, the union’s researcher, said the TIF money — from both surpluses and expiring districts — offers a significant and little discussed source of financial stability. It also can help Chicago and the district advocate more forcefully for more state dollars.

“The city is releasing so much more TIF dollars than in the past, and it shows that the city is doing its part,” he said. “CPS can count on this revenue coming in.”

But Martinez, who had requested $190 million TIF surplus dollars more than the district actually got last year, says the city can do more.

“I appreciate the long-term schedule for release, but it’s not fast enough,” Martinez said. “It’s time to release those TIFs for our children.”

CPS officials said much of the $300 million it got in TIF surplus money has already been dedicated to covering the costs of a new support staff contract with SEIU Local 73 and other expenses. That leaves about $139 million to spend on new teacher contract costs.

The district estimates that the cost of its pay and benefits offer to CTU is about $120 million next year, not including some staffing increases and other concessions it has already offered. The extra TIF surplus could also cover a payment to a city pension fund that covers non-teaching CPS staff. District leaders still insist the city, not CPS, should cover that payment.

Ferguson, of the Civic Federation, said the increase in property tax revenues as TIFs expire over time can offer a partial solution to the district’s financial woes. But in the shorter term, these extra dollars represent a relatively small piece of the puzzle.

How much state money can CPS count on?

State dollars make up about a quarter of the district’s operating budget. Illinois has steered more money to the district in recent years and the current budget includes $2.4 billion in state money.

Still, by the state’s own calculation, its funding for CPS is still about $1 billion short of what would be considered “adequate.”

The Illinois State Superintendent’s budget proposal for next school year includes a modest $350 million increase to the evidence-based formula — and signalled possible belt-tightening down the road. That’s the same annual increase lawmakers have been dedicating to K-12 schools since 2017 when it pledged to ramp up education funding. Last year, Chicago got roughly $25 million of the state’s $350 million increase.

Jankov of the CTU said he appreciates that the Civic Federation report nods to state underfunding of CPS.

But, he said, “the report goes to great lengths in looking narrowly through a financial lens instead of looking at needed investments in our students.”

Jankov also criticized the Civic Federation for suggesting the possibility of a state financial takeover — which Ferguson, the budget watchdog’s leader, defended.

Ferguson said the district and new school board need to find a path to fiscal stability to avoid what happened to CPS in 1980. That’s when the state created a finance authority over CPS to help it out of a financial crisis that involved being cut off from the bond market and unable to make payroll.

Ferguson said he doesn’t see a path forward for CPS today that does not involve cuts to staff and other expenses.

“Those are hard and politically loaded conversations,” he said, “and we need to have them now because we don’t want to have them in a state of full-blown crisis.”

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

Days after Martinez is fired, Chicago Board of Education members attend CTU contract negotiations

2024-12-23T22:34:18+00:00

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Three days after voting to fire the school district CEO, Chicago Board of Education members took the extraordinary step Monday of attending contract negotiations between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union.

The lawyer for Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez responded with a letter demanding board members cease and desist from attending negotiations, describing it as “unlawful interference” with Martinez’s authority.

The back-and-forth shows how the vote to oust Martinez has taken the power struggle over the nation’s fourth largest school district into a new, more public phase.

It also could signal that Mayor Brandon Johnson and his handpicked school board feel a sense of urgency — and perhaps see an opportunity — to get a deal done.

The union previously called for an agreement by Christmas. Negotiations started eight months ago and have become increasingly tense.

Board members Olga Bautista and Frank Thomas attended negotiations in the morning, and board President Sean Harden attended in the afternoon, according to Chicago Public Schools spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus.

Harden told Chalkbeat that the board members attended on their own, without the direction of the mayor, to “observe and be part of the support” for CPS.

“I, along with the other board members, thought it was incredibly important for our team to feel supported,” he said, adding they wanted to “make sure the talks continue.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment, and CPS did not share Martinez’s thoughts on board members attending. But according to two sources who have spoken with the CEO, Martinez was “surprised” to hear board members planned to attend negotiations.

Typically, contract negotiations are left to bargaining teams from the district administration and union.

CTU vice president Jackson Potter wrote on social media that it was the first time board members have attended negotiations since 2012 bargaining was winding down, when then-Board President David Vitale attended. Potter wrote that members attended to help “both sides land an agreement.”

The 2012 contract negotiations led to a strike that attracted national attention. A former board member who served with Vitale described the context on condition of anonymity because he did not receive required approval from his employer to speak to the media. He said Vitale joined negotiations during “a very tense moment” because he was directed to do so by then-mayor Rahm Emanuel and then-CPS CEO Jean Claude Brizard. Before that, neither he nor his co-members were involved in negotiations, the former board member said.

“What is the function of a board? It is generally to conduct oversight and accountability and governance of management,” he said. “Board is not management.”

A board member sat in on negotiations on at least one other instance, also during labor strife. Board member Miguel Del Valle attended ahead of the union’s 2019 strike.

Martinez — who was not present at negotiations on Friday — continues to oversee the district because his contract stipulates that he is to stay on for six months if he is fired without cause, which is the route board members took. The resolution on Martinez’s firing states the board wants to modify his powers but does not specify how. Martinez said after Friday’s vote that he didn’t know what the board had in mind, but he urged reporters to “get to know” his attorney.

Martinez has clashed with Johnson, a former CTU organizer and continued close ally, over how to pay for the union’s contract demands and $175 million in pension obligations that the city wants to shift to CPS. He has resisted the mayor’s suggestion for CPS to take out a short-term loan to pay for labor contracts and pension obligations. Amid that tension, the former Board of Education — mostly appointed by Johnson — resigned en masse in October.

Negotiations have become increasingly tense since Johnson asked Martinez to resign in the fall. The union’s initial 700-plus proposal package has been pared down in recent weeks in an effort to close a deal. Current demands include a 6% raise in the first year of the contract, hiring additional staff over the life of the contract, and more teacher prep time in elementary schools — an issue the city’s principals union has taken issue with.

The union believes its demands would add critical support to schools and beef up protections for LGBTQ and immigrant students after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

CPS has not outlined how it will pay for the contract in the next fiscal year. District leaders have raised concerns about the potential cost, pointing to a projected $500 million deficit next year before the cost of labor negotiations.

Johnson won’t have sole control over who serves on the board for very much longer. Ten members elected by voters in November will take their seats Jan. 15, joining 11 Johnson appointees. Johnson has picked 10 people for the board so far. The board will be fully elected in 2027, when Johnson is up for reelection.

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

Citing Trump, CTU cranks up pressure on school district to settle contract before 2025

2024-12-13T02:48:47+00:00

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The Chicago Teachers Union turned up the pressure Thursday for Chicago Public Schools to settle its contract before the end of 2024.

After roughly seven months of contentious talks, the union has pushed the district in recent weeks to strike a deal on its contract. The union appealed to the school board — appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU employee and close ally — to press the administration on its behalf, and the board immediately obliged in a letter to CEO Pedro Martinez.

During nearly two-and-a-half hours of public comment during Thursday’s Board of Education meeting that sometimes featured boos and chants, several union members and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates called for a swift deal. The union also held a rally before the meeting to argue that although the district approved a resolution reaffirming its welcoming status to immigrants, Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans made it crucial to settle the contract and avoid disruptions to students and families.

The union’s latest push highlights the different pressures, including the new school board set to take office early next year, that are affecting contract talks.

Davis Gates asked the board to “make a directive to the senior leadership team and the CEO” to settle the contract before Trump’s inauguration.

“Settle this contract so we can have a protective force field over a district that represents the tapestry of this country,” Davis Gates said, to loud applause from dozens of union members in the audience.

The board was scheduled to discuss collective bargaining during its closed session portion at the end of its meeting, which is not open to the public.

Martinez said Thursday that daily negotiations sessions are yielding progress in several areas, thanks to a revised, shortened list of CTU priorities. For example, he said the district committed to maintain school athletic director positions and increase stipends for coaches. He also said the district will hold the line on protecting principals’ ability to lead their schools and on keeping instructional time for students unchanged.

But the union also continued to sharply criticize Martinez, whose job has hung in the balance for months after Johnson asked him in the fall to resign. Martinez has so far refused to leave or reportedly take out a buyout offer.

The union and the district appear to have made some more headway this week.

For months, CPS has resisted the union’s demands for a major increase in staffing, noting that the district added thousands of new positions during the pandemic and now faces growing budget deficits.

But union leaders announced in a video before the Thursday meeting that the district had offered to increase the number of teaching assistants, technology coordinators, and school librarians, and to create a bilingual teaching assistant pool.

The teachers’ union has also continued to push for higher pay raises after the district offered cost-of-living increases of up to 5% that would raise the average teacher salary to more than $110,000 in four years, along with other pay and benefit improvements. CTUIt has reduced its initial proposal for 9% increases to 6% the first year.

But some of the controversy about the contract isn’t really about salaries and pay increases. Some aldermen, other employee unions, incoming school board members, and others have increasingly expressed concern about rushing to settle a high-stakes contract with enormous financial and academic implications for the cash-strapped district and the city.

Some have said there shouldn’t be a deal before a new board, partly elected by the residents of Chicago, takes over in just five weeks.

“It should be that school board that begins the process of bringing back stability to our school district,” said Alderman Gilbert Villegas during a press conference this week calling for that new hybrid board to settle the contract. “They are the ones that voters picked.”

But Michilla Blaise and the rest of the board have said they have the right to make decisions they see fit immediately.

Villegas sent a letter Thursday to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to review whether the “unprecedented” standoff over the contract might violate state law, alleging that current board members have been in touch directly with the CTU about contract talks. Under state law, the schools chief is supposed to be the one negotiating directly with employee unions, with the board stepping in to approve the resulting contracts.

Separately, during Thursday’s meeting, representatives from both Service Employees International Union 73 — which represents school support staff — and the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association reiterated concerns about contract proposals that they view as scaling back the power of their own members.

And some incoming board members expressed concern about the cancellation of their board training for next week. The training was canceled at the direction of the current board, but newly elected board members say they haven’t been told why.

“The historic elected board will be joining you soon to help set district goals and priorities, approve policies, make purchasing decisions, evaluate contracts, approve the budget and capital plan, and set the school year calendar,” said board member-elect Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who will represent District 10. “We need all the information and training … with no interruptions.”

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 Teachers Union contract negotiations cause rift with other school employee unions

2024-12-06T20:49:51+00:00

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The Chicago Teachers Union’s contentious contract negotiations have already spurred a major clash between district leaders and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office and endangered CEO Pedro Martinez’ role.

Now the teachers union’s demands for a significant expansion of CTU-represented positions and of educators’ say over school matters are pitting that union against two other district labor groups: The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association and the Service Employees International Union 73, a longtime CTU ally.

The principals union, which is in the midst of negotiating its first contract with CPS, wrote a letter this week to the Board of Education saying some CTU proposals would trample on principals’ authority to run schools. Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union 73, which represents support staff at schools, has voiced concern over a CTU demand it says will take work away from its members — and threatened to sue the district if it approves the proposal, the Chicago Tribune reported. The rift with the SEIU is especially notable as that union has jointly advocated for more special education services and staff with the teachers union, and the two groups went on strike together in 2019.

Principals union leaders said they are concerned about school board pressure on Martinez to settle the teachers contract as quickly as possible and about the cost of the union’s staffing and other proposals. They worry that the cash-strapped district might have to resort to assistant principal layoffs and other cuts to afford them. CPS estimated the union’s initial proposals to cost $10 billion but is reassessing that estimate; the union has called that estimate inaccurate and has pared back some of its proposals, but it has not shared a cost estimate.

“We don’t believe the problematic provisions are intentionally problematic,” wrote Troy LaRaviere, CPAA’s president, in the letter to the board. “They are simply the result of the limited perspective of teachers. By that I mean teachers run classrooms, not schools.”

Thad Goodchild, CTU deputy general counsel, told Chalkbeat that the goal of the union’s proposals is to beef up staffing in critical areas and ensure teachers have a voice at schools. He said there’s “an open dialogue” between leaders of both unions, and CTU is also “working to find a solution” with SEIU.

Contract negotiations with the teachers union have stretched on since April and soured the relationship between Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teacher, CTU employee and close union ally, who has asked Martinez to resign. The school board, installed by Johnson after the previous board resigned amid the conflict, wrote to Martinez late last month to demand a quick resolution to the talks.

The CTU recently shared what it is calling a “roadmap to settlement” with the district, including a smaller raise proposal than the 9% a year it demanded at first and a pared-down set of staffing and other demands. But that roadmap still includes proposals that would give teachers the final say over curriculums and a larger role in evaluating principals.

Principals worry their role in school decisions will shrink

The principals union says one of its major concerns is a proposal that would allow teachers to pick their own curriculums as long as they meet state learning objectives.

Goodchild, from CTU, said the proposal is meant to ensure that teacher voice exists in all schools.

“Academic freedom doesn’t mean that teachers get to teach whatever they want — it means that their professional judgment is respected and that they aren’t expected to teach from scripted, online curriculum with lots of gaps in it, which unfortunately is the direction that district has been heading in recent years,” Goodchild said.

But one elementary school principal, who spoke with Chalkbeat on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly, said she felt that allowing teachers more academic freedom would prevent staff from developing a schoolwide strategy for instruction.

“I know it’s not implemented really well in every single school, but the mechanism for that teacher input and voice exists, and I think to swing to the extreme of every teacher making their own decision in that regard is going to be harmful for kids,” the principal said.

The principals union, which formed last year, also started negotiating with the district in April. But unlike the publicly contentious teachers' contract negotiations, talks with principals have unfolded quietly behind closed doors, and the two sides have taken a few months off as the CTU talks intensified.

According to a CPS presentation for the school board obtained by Chalkbeat, district officials and principals union leaders have met five times, and the union has put forth proposals on wages and benefits, discipline and discharge procedures for school leaders, and more.

The two sides haven’t reached agreements yet, Banks said, but, “We have enjoyed a much more amenable and open-minded engagement with CPS than others have.”

Earlier this week, a group of school leaders working independently of the union also sent a letter to the school board saying the contract talks with the CTU and the pressure on Martinez to step down are creating “an atmosphere of uncertainty.” Nearly 700 CPS principals and assistant principals representing almost 80% of the district’s campuses signed the letter, arguing that replacing the CEO would be “a decision rooted in political interests, not the interest of students.”

CTU leaders have dismissed these concerns on social media, with Vice President Jackson Potter recently calling principals “middle management foremen of the system.”

SEIU says CTU demands will hurt its members

Other CTU proposals have threatened a rift with SEIU Local 73.

A recently amended contract proposal by the Chicago Teachers Union obtained by Chalkbeat Chicago would give the district more flexibility to choose between teacher assistants, represented by the CTU, or Special Education Classroom Assistants (or SECAs), represented by SEIU, based on what a student’s Individualized Education Program or a 504 plan requires. SEIU Local 73 says this proposal will take work away from SECAs, who are trained to work with students with disabilities.

Stacia Scott, executive vice president of SEIU Local 73, told Chalkbeat that adding flexibility for school leaders to choose between teacher assistants or SECAs to work with students with disabilities could cause confusion in a school building.

“We have tried to make our contract as explicit as possible so that we can focus on ensuring that SECAs are providing the services that are legally required to special education students,” Scott said.

SEIU Local 73’s recent contract with the district requires that SECAs receive professional development and training and that SECAs are included in IEP meetings. It also protects SECAs from performing other tasks in schools that would take time away from students with disabilities, unless it is to support a student’s IEP.

Goodchild said the CTU proposal is ultimately meant to beef up special education staff such as teacher assistants so that students with IEPs get the support they need.

The number of SECAs has grown by roughly 150% over the past decade, when comparing employee figures from December 1, 2014 to the same day this month, according to data from CPS. In that same time period, the total number of teacher assistants grew by just over 50%, the data show.

“We’re trying to, you know, restore balance,” Goodchild said.

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.

Chicago’s Board of Education presses schools chief to settle teachers contract ‘in the coming days’

2024-11-26T19:34:44+00:00

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The Chicago school board is pushing district CEO Pedro Martinez to quickly wrap up contract talks with the Chicago Teachers Union.

In a letter sent Friday obtained by Chalkbeat, board members demanded “a fully executed contract in the coming days” — an extraordinary ask given that the two sides remain far apart on key issues and are gearing up to bring in a neutral fact-finder to assess the district’s financial situation and the potential impact of union proposals in December.

Board members wrote to Martinez to speed up the negotiations the same day the union sent the board a letter asking them to put pressure on district administrators to settle. The talks have been underway since April.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a close CTU ally, appointed the seven-member board in October after the entire previous board stepped down amid pressure to fire Martinez.

The union has said its package of proposals will help the district meet the goals of a five-year strategic plan it approved earlier this fall — a sentiment the school board echoed in its letter to the schools chief. CPS officials have countered that a district facing ballooning deficits cannot afford to commit to a major expansion in staffing and other investments the union is seeking.

Some aldermen and board members elected earlier this month have called on the current board members not to take any consequential actions until the new hybrid 21-member board is seated in January. But the board rejected the plea to “sit on our hands” in its letter to Martinez.

“Let’s reach a swift settlement so that our school communities and educators may gain peace of mind and so that our district leadership can redirect capacity taken up by bargaining, to improve our schools and student outcomes, as soon as possible,” board members wrote.

Member Debby Pope, who worked for the teachers union until this past summer, did not sign the letter.

The teachers union, which last week also called on Johnson to intervene in the talks and held a downtown rally in support of its proposals, wrote school board members decrying a letter to families and a press briefing that district leaders held last week. On both occasions, the district said that the union’s demands would add about $10 billion in costs over the contract’s four years. But union officials argued that they have since narrowed down and revised their proposals, resulting in smaller costs.

The bargaining has been one issue that spurred a clash between Martinez and Johnson, leading to months of CPS turmoil — and a push to oust the CEO. The schools chief and mayor have disagreed over how to pay for the cost of the contract, with Martinez and the former largely Johnson-appointed board arguing it would be irresponsible to take out a loan and add to the district’s significant debt burden.

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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

Chicago Board of Education pushes Acero to find alternatives to planned charter school closures

2024-11-15T00:40:31+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education passed a resolution Thursday that called for a later deadline for GoCPS applications and sought to find alternatives to the Acero charter school network’s plan for seven campus closures on the Southwest Side.

The board’s resolutions came during a specially called meeting and were the latest in an increasingly tense situation surrounding the charter network’s planned closures, which have increased friction between Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office and Chicago Public Schools leadership.

The Acero charter network announced last month that it will close seven campuses because of a $40 million budget shortfall. The staff at those campuses are members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

The board’s Acero resolution called for Acero officials to meet with the board to discuss alternatives to the campus closures, which would impact 2,000 students and 500 staffers.

Families and teachers have rallied against the closure since the network’s announcement. Earlier this week, the mayor said he directed CPS leadership to dig into the network’s finances and wanted to see a “contingency plan” from CPS related to the closures.

The board’s resolution demands that if the network declines to find alternatives, Acero “shall return all unspent public funds and property” to the district.

Resolutions are nonbinding in nature and don’t compel Acero to meet with CPS or discuss alternatives. However, Acero must meet with CPS by Nov. 15 to discuss the school closures as part of its agreement with the district. All charter networks — which are privately run entities that receive public funding — operate based on conditions set in agreements with CPS.

Based on Acero’s agreement with CPS, the district does not appear to have a legal pathway to prevent the closures.

In an emailed statement, Acero said “there are no winners when high-quality schools are forced to close their doors due to the implications of inequitable and inadequate public school funding.”

“While we are disappointed by the misinformation surrounding this heartbreaking circumstance, we welcome working with the Chicago Public Schools to find long-term and sustainable solutions for everyone impacted by these anticipated closures,” the statement said. “This is clearly evidenced by the nearly 20 meetings Acero Schools has had with senior CPS officials before the special meeting to provide timely information to advance this initiative.”

CPS was expected to give a presentation at the meeting that would provide “a more complete picture” of the Acero closures and “provide options for impacted families, address the questions raised and the feedback received during the briefings and meeting, and outline several solutions for the Board to consider at a future meeting,” CPS said in an emailed statement earlier this week.

But that presentation was canceled, Board Vice President Mary Gardner said at the top of the meeting. Asked why, Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s chief education officer, said, “I don’t know,” and said the board’s office would have a better idea. Board members Frank Niles Thomas and Rafael Yañez declined to comment to reporters after the meeting.

Chalkbeat obtained a copy of the presentation, which included options the district could pursue in response to the closures. One option is that CPS would provide “support” to Acero to keep the campuses open. The presentation said the district has “confirmed and identified the financial needs” but didn’t elaborate, saying more budget information would be shared at upcoming board meetings.

A second option would be helping affected students enroll at CPS-run schools, which the district says is in line with what it has done in the past when charter operators moved to close their own schools. It would provide more money to district schools that enroll “a significant number” of additional students.

A third option would have the district absorb the seven Acero campuses slated for closure and reopen them as CPS schools in the 2026-27 school year. The union has previously asked the district to absorb the campuses.

This option “may provide the least amount of disruption to students and families,” the presentation said. The presentation noted that the district would have to take a number of steps to add the schools to CPS’ portfolio, including getting board approval and amending the capital budget, but that long-term costs “may not increase significantly.” Still, there would be costs associated with transitioning the schools from charters to district-run buildings, the presentation said.

The presentation also laid out the steps the district has taken since Acero announced the closures Oct. 9. City Hall officials have criticized how CPS leadership has monitored Acero and responded to the planned closures.

According to the presentation, between Oct. 11 and Nov. 1, the district met with the charter operator and requested more financial information. It also provided families with information on what to do next. The presentation noted that this was standard operating procedure, and the Board of Education did not ask the district to deviate from that until its Nov. 1 meeting, which followed weeks of upheaval, including the entire former Board of Education announcing its resignation Oct. 9.

Asked if the board was trying to block CPS CEO Pedro Martinez from presenting at the meeting, the mayor told reporters Thursday, “I’m not aware of this blockage that you’re speaking of, and there’s no particular directive outside of making sure that we invest in children,” according to a tweet from a Chicago Tribune reporter.

In an extraordinary moment before the board passed the resolution, board member Michilla Blaise criticized district leadership and thanked Acero families for raising their concerns about the closures. Caroline Rutherford, an Acero teacher who is currently on leave, asked CPS “to take action to keep our schools open” during the public comment portion.

“It seemed that CPS was kind of resigned to letting it go and giving up, and that based on your work and how your words touched us, we’re making sure we’re putting our feet down, and we’re going to stand with you in terms of at least exploring what the opportunities are,” Blaise said.

The board also sought to push the deadline for GoCPS — an application families use to get seats at a variety of schools, including charters and selective enrollment programs — to Dec. 15 to give affected families more time to choose a school for next year. District officials are expected to officially move back the date, a spokesperson said.

The district has already pushed the deadline back to Nov. 22.

Separately, the board also retained outside law firm Cozen O’Connor, which offers legal services for a wide range of subjects. District officials did not respond to questions about why the board decided to hire the firm.

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

Mayor Johnson’s budget would send Chicago Public Schools $300 million – less than what CPS wants

2024-10-30T19:12:06+00:00

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Facing a nearly $1 billion deficit next year, Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed a city budget Wednesday that would send roughly $300 million to Chicago Public Schools.

That’s nearly $140 million more than what CPS already budgeted to receive from the city. But it’s still roughly $190 million short of what CPS wants to help cover critical upcoming costs that have been at the heart of leadership conflicts between the mayor’s office and CPS.

The makeup of the city’s budget could have a significant impact on the school district’s finances this year. It could also decide whether the district will cut spending or borrow money to cover looming costs.

District leaders, union officials, and the mayor have balked at the idea of CPS budget cuts.

“We are building a government that truly works for the people … no longer will the city of Chicago be dismissive about our young people and the children who are the future of the city,” Johnson said during his budget speech to the City Council.

The key to the money CPS wants from city coffers is surplus funding from Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. This comes from special taxing districts meant to fight blight and spur development.

Johnson’s $17.3 billion budget plan, which would raise property taxes to help the city close its deficit, includes $570 million in TIF surplus funds. By declaring a surplus, the mayor is releasing TIF dollars that have not been dedicated to any specific project. When that happens, by law, 52% of those funds — in this case, $296 million — would go to CPS under Johnson’s budget. Last year, the district received $226 million in TIF surplus funds, according to CPS.

In July, the Chicago Board of Education approved a $9.9 billion budget that assumed the district would receive $159 million in TIF funds from the city. But that budget did not include union contract costs or pensions for non-teaching staff. The latter is an expense the city used to cover until Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office. This year, the district has refused to cover the cost without the city’s help.

To help pay for those pensions and labor costs, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has asked for an additional $325 million in TIF surplus funds, a request he says he began making in the spring. Without such help or additional revenue, district officials say they may have to turn to cuts or borrow money to cover upcoming expenses of those contracts and pension obligations.

CPS did not immediately respond to the mayor’s budget proposal. The Chicago Teachers Union, an ally of the mayor, applauded his budget plan but called for alternatives to raising taxes. In a statement, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said that if there’s at least $500 million in TIF surplus funds, “there’s likely double that available” to be used on city services, including public schools.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas, who has criticized the mayor’s request for Martinez to resign and recent leadership turmoil at the district, said CPS should have been more responsible with its COVID relief dollars, which have buoyed the district’s finances over the past few years. The money recently expired, blowing a more than $500 million hole into CPS’s budget this year that officials closed through central office cuts and other savings.

“The reliance on the city of Chicago to help bail out CPS is really frustrating because we have no say in how they appropriate their budgets,” Villegas said Wednesday. “Basically what they’re doing is telling us, ‘We need all this revenue,’ and we have no say. This reliance on us only when and wanting to include us only when they need money is a problem for me.”

CPS has defended its use of COVID relief money, which went toward more staffing and programming for students, and says it resulted in important academic gains.

Ald. Jason Ervin, a West Side alderman who is a close ally of the mayor’s and chairman of the council’s budget committee, said the city allocates the TIF surplus funds that it is required to, and CPS always gets a chunk of that.

During Martinez’s five-hour testimony to City Council two weeks ago, Ervin sharply criticized the district for increasing its request for TIF surplus funds, arguing that such a move takes away development dollars from low-income communities like the one he represents.

“Whatever CPS needs to do to manage beyond that [money] is their decision,” Ervin said Wednesday after the budget address.

The mayor’s office has pushed the district to take out a short-term loan to cover those costs. But district leaders have so far rejected the idea, saying such borrowing would incur high interest rates, further degrade the district’s bond rating status, and saddle it with payments that will ultimately hurt classrooms.

That was one reason the previous Board of Education resigned en masse earlier this month. Johnson has appointed a new board that could still take out such a loan. They are set to meet this Friday, Nov. 1.

Alternatively, the question of how to pay for major upcoming costs could fall to the district’s new, 21-person board that will be half elected and half appointed by the mayor. The school board election is on Nov. 5, and the new board will be sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025.

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

What’s at the heart of the turmoil at Chicago Public Schools? Money.

2024-10-29T20:23:43+00:00

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The upheaval engulfing Chicago Public Schools didn’t start when Mayor Brandon Johnson prodded schools CEO Pedro Martinez to step down last month. Or when the entire school board resigned at once. Or when Johnson swiftly appointed new members “tasked to carry out the vision that I have for public education in this city.”

And the disagreements roiling the school system just weeks before voters choose the first members of a new elected board aren’t just about whether the city should take out a short-term, high-interest loan to cover pension payments.

In many ways, the conflict can be traced back to pivotal decisions made five years ago. The district agreed to an ambitious new teachers union contract after a bruising 2019 strike that followed years of struggles to balance the budget. The Chicago Teachers Union successfully made the case that more staff earning higher salaries would help students in schools that lacked the resources to meet their needs.

But even then, leaders were unsure how they would pay for all the new staff positions and salary increases over the life of the contract. Federal pandemic aid came to the district’s rescue, allowing Chicago Public Schools to cover the contract, hire more staff, and make investments that many educators and community members felt were long overdue.

Now that money is going away, leaving the district with a math problem it hasn’t yet decided how to solve.

Districts around the country are facing difficult choices about which programs to keep and whether to lay off employees, but Johnson has said he’s not interested in making cuts. And he has a narrowing window in which to push through a loan that would temporarily avoid cuts or find another solution.

This is playing out in a city where decades of fraught education politics have eroded trust. Chicago provides a stark example of the challenges many districts are facing with the expiration of federal COVID relief money, declining enrollment, and larger payrolls. How Chicago resolves the crisis could mean cuts to staff and programming now or taking on debt that could impact how much money is available for future generations.

“Right now all the key players are attacking one another and looking for the immediate battles to fight and win,” said Kenneth Wong, professor of education policy at Brown University. “But the core of this debate is about whether Chicago Public Schools are going to be better off as a result of these decisions and is the city going to benefit from a higher-quality Chicago Public Schools as a result of these decisions.”

Chicago school budget problems built for years

Struggling to pay for things is not new for Chicago Public Schools. In the 1990s, then-CEO Paul Vallas deferred pension payments to balance an anticipated $1.4 billion budget deficit.

The district also took out a series of emergency loans to deal with budget shortfalls between 2016 and 2018. According to the district, it still owes $2.1 billion on those loans, including $200 million this year alone.

Chicago Public Schools won a partial reprieve to its school funding struggles in 2017 when the state of Illinois revamped its funding formula to send more money to districts with higher needs. State funding makes up a quarter of the district’s operating budget.

But if the state continues with its current rate of annual increases, it won’t fully fund the formula until at least 2034, according to a report from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

Five years ago, as the Chicago Teachers Union fought for a wide-ranging contract that led to an 11-day strike, it was unclear how the city or district would pay for all of the demands. At the time, union president Stacy Davis Gates accused then Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration of not kicking in enough city money to properly fund the district.

Thousands of educators and CPS support staff flood Chicago streets near City Hall on the fifth day of the 2019 strike.

While the deal fell short of some of the union’s biggest goals, it required the district to hire more staff, including social workers and nurses, raise salaries, and commit to lowering class sizes. In total, the contract was expected to cost $1.5 billion over its five-year lifetime.

Two credit rating agencies called the costs “manageable,” but Standard and Poor’s issued a warning: The district’s expenses could outpace how much money it actually had on hand, and that could degrade the district’s already junk bond rating status.

Five months after the contract was finalized, COVID-19 hit.

At a recent press conference, Gates acknowledged the $2.8 billion the district received in federal pandemic relief was critical to paying for the 2019 contract, which she credits with helping bring academic gains.

“We received that money from [federal COVID relief] funds because the Chicago Public Schools has never been funded at the rate in which it needed to be funded, ever,” she said.

Federal COVID relief funding helped pay for the teachers union contract, launch new academic recovery programs, and sustain current programs that otherwise may have been pared down or cut. In the spring of last school year, a Chalkbeat analysis of spending found an average 7% of Chicago’s school budgets were made up of COVID dollars.

CPS doubled the number of social workers and added hundreds more interventionists who work with students struggling in core subjects. The money also went toward a slew of other initiatives, including limiting class sizes and growing its universal preschool program. It helped the district paper over longstanding deficits that have plagued its budget for many years.

An interventionist at Chicago’s Brunson Elementary School works with a student on multiplication and division using flashcards. CPS hired hundreds of these specialists using federal COVID relief money.

Between 2019 and this fall, the district said it has hired more than 6,500 additional staffers, including 2,600 teachers and 4,000 paraprofessionals. Today, the district’s budget is roughly $10 billion – a nearly 30% increase in five years — even as the district is serving fewer students.

Paul Bruno, assistant professor of educational policy, leadership, and organization at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said Chicago is not alone. Districts around the country have added staff for reasons that need more research. Employing more people makes it harder to raise pay, and with more spots to fill, districts can struggle to hire only the best candidates or fill all their positions. Bruno said it’s not clear that it’s always in the best interests of students.

School leaders previously told Chalkbeat that the extra money helped their schools provide more after-school programs to children and beef up academic support in ways they never had the flexibility to do.

“Winning the lottery is what it felt like,” one former school administrator said. “Everything your kid ever asked for, you could give them.”

The federal dollars dried up last month, and the loss of that money helped create a more than half-billion-dollar deficit for CPS. The district closed that budget gap through central office cuts and other savings, but it did not budget for big costs coming its way in the next union contract or in pension obligations. District and city officials pressed the state for more funds, but state leaders refused.

At a recent City Council hearing, Martinez acknowledged that he’s been criticized for spending one-time money on long-term personnel expenses. Knowing that federal COVID money would expire, some districts invested in facilities or hired people on short-term contracts, while others followed Chicago’s approach of hiring more permanent staff.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez speaks at a hearing regarding the Chicago Board of Education at City Hall on Oct. 16, 2024.

Martinez argued that the additional investments helped the district see “gains we have not seen before, and we are seeing more of our students graduating with a real shot of having economic mobility.”

Chicago’s reading scores recovered faster than many other large urban school districts, according to one study from Harvard and Stanford that the district has cited frequently while making its case for more funding.

Johnson committed to avoiding cuts

Now the district and the teachers union are at the bargaining table again, with the union pushing for 9% raises for teachers, along with “common good” proposals such as affordable housing for homeless students. The district says paying for just a portion of the union’s wide-ranging proposals would create a $4 billion deficit by the 2029-30 school year. CPS has already offered 4% raises, but the two parties are now in mediation.

Another looming cost is pensions for non-teaching staff. Former Mayor Lightfoot shifted a portion of pension costs onto the district in 2020, a practice Mayor Johnson has tried to continue. But so far this year, the district has refused to pay a $175 million contribution to the municipal pension fund, putting the city on the hook as it faces its own deficit.

To cover the cost of pensions and the union contracts, Johnson’s office has pushed CPS to take out a short-term loan. The district has refused, citing concerns that such a loan would come with high interest rates and saddle CPS with more debt down the road. Martinez asked the mayor to dedicate more funds from special taxing districts, known as TIFs, to cover the pension cost.

At stake is how much money the district will have to invest in classrooms and salaries now versus in the future. The disagreement could yet cost Martinez his job.

Johnson’s presence in the mayor’s office looms large over the negotiations. Johnson is a former classroom teacher and union organizer who got his start in politics working to oppose school closures. On the campaign trail, Johnson called for fully funded schools. In an interview earlier this month with WBEZ, he was adamant that CPS should not make cuts — as most other districts in Chicago’s position are planning.

“Guess who loses when we cut schools?” he said. “Black and brown children. I don’t want Black and brown children to lose under my administration. In fact, they’re not going to lose under my administration.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, then a Cook County commissioner, kicks off his mayoral campaign, flanked by more than 100 supporters, elected officials, and union leaders near the site of the former Cabrini Green and Jenner Elementary school.

“The new mayor is probably closer to the unions than any mayor in history and he’s committed to raising salaries substantially,” said Thomas Toch, director of Future Ed, an education think tank at Georgetown University that focuses on underserved students.

Spending more on teachers helps students most when districts spend on better-performing teachers and those in hard-to-fill subjects, Toch said, strategies teachers unions generally oppose. At the same time, Chicago stands out among large, urban districts for its investments in high-impact tutoring and the academic gains students have made in recent years.

If Chicago makes major cuts now, “there is a significant risk of losing that positive momentum,” Toch said.

Sally Nuamah, a professor at Northwestern University who has studied Chicago Public Schools, said Johnson faces a decision: “Will he be the progressive, activist mayor that he ran on being? Or will he acquiesce?”

Nuamah noted that the dispute in Chicago doesn’t seem to be about whether to cut but how to find additional money.

If Chicago can find a way to fund these investments into the future, other districts would pay attention, Nuamah said. But historically, taking on debt for ongoing costs has been dangerous for school systems.

It will now be up to the new and future board members to untangle the district’s financial issues.

For the first time in Chicago’s history, voters will choose 10 elected school board members on Nov. 5. The school board will expand to a total of 21 members, with the remaining 11 chosen by the mayor. The board will become fully elected in 2027.

Related: Everything you need to know about Chicago’s 2024 school board election

Voters could choose school board members aligned with the mayor’s vision or elect people more inclined to push back.

Before the election, Johnnson’s new appointees could fire Martinez. Asked whether it plans to do that, school board president the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson declined to answer, calling it “a silly question.”

The prospect of leadership change could be driving some of the turmoil, said Bruno, the University of Illinois professor.

“There’s an urgency from the city’s perspective to make as many policy decisions as possible before the power dynamics change,” he said. “Johnson wants to impose more of his own agenda and that sense of urgency might be exacerbating things.”

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

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez asks City Council for additional $325 million in funding

2024-10-16T21:58:15+00:00

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During a sometimes tense City Council hearing Wednesday, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez asked alderpeople for an additional $325 million in city funding amid an extraordinary leadership shakeup at the district that is rooted in budget problems.

During the more than five-hour hearing for the council’s Committee on Education and Child Development, Martinez also told alderpeople that no cuts are planned for this school year, but the district would have to resort to them if it doesn’t get additional revenue or doesn’t borrow money.

West Side Ald. Jason Ervin, who was perhaps the most critical of Martinez on Wednesday, asked the schools chief why the city should redirect funding that could benefit low-income West Side neighborhoods to “bail out CPS.”

“What I am asking for — for the record, alders — is to protect the investments that have went to our highest poverty schools, many schools on the South and West side,” Martinez replied.

Wednesday’s hearing was called because alderpeople “wanted to get some clarity around the budget,” said Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who chairs the education committee. The hearing was scheduled following the extraordinary resignation two weeks ago of all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education. Six of those members were appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, who last month asked Martinez to resign following budget-related disagreements.

Former and current board members were invited to attend Wednesday’s meeting but declined, Taylor said. Multiple alderpeople expressed disappointment that none showed up. Ald. Scott Waguespack said the new board “better show up here” when asked in the future.

The board and the mayor’s office described the board shakeup as a natural transition as the city prepares to vote for its first elected school board members, who will be sworn in in January alongside mayoral appointees. But sources with knowledge of the situation have said the resignations were related to the board’s unwillingness to side with the mayor on a couple of key points, including to fire Martinez for cause and take out a short-term loan to help cover some large looming costs.

By state law, the mayor’s appointments for the new school board must live in areas where someone has not won an elected seat — something the public won’t know for certain until after the Nov. 5 election.

Mayor, CPS spar over how to solve the district’s money problems

At the heart of the recent leadership turmoil – and the backdrop of Wednesday’s hearing – is disagreement between the district and City Hall on how to cover major upcoming costs for the school system. That includes a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching staff and costs related to a new Chicago Teachers Union and principals contracts.

The district closed a more than $500 million deficit for its budget this year, a hole exacerbated by the expiration of billions in COVID relief money from the federal government. But it did not budget for the looming pension and labor costs, and without additional funding, would have to resort to cuts or borrow money, officials said.

Despite the acrimony, Martinez largely declined to criticize the mayor and attempted to strike a tone of unity. He said he, Johnson, and the teachers union are “frankly in alignment of visions” for a more well-funded school system and must make that case to state lawmakers when requesting more money in the future.

For now, however, Martinez asked the City Council to provide CPS additional funding by declaring a surplus of Tax Increment Financing, or TIF dollars. These funds come from special taxing districts designed to spur new development and fight blight. Chicago has dozens of TIFs with more than $2.5 billion in property tax revenue. When a surplus is declared, money that’s not earmarked for projects goes back to the local taxing bodies, including CPS. Roughly half of any surplus goes to CPS.

Martinez publicly requested city money last week but said he’s been privately asking for that money since April. The mayor’s response, he said, was to ask CPS to take out a short-term loan.

Martinez’s request for more city funding would come on top of $159 million in TIF dollars the district is already slated to get. The additional funds would cover the pension payment, as well as 4% raises for teachers, more health care benefits, an expansion of Sustainable Community Schools, and more staff, the district said. The union’s wide-ranging proposals include 9% raises, as well as calls for more staffing and additional support for students, including affordable housing access for those who are homeless.

Additional city money would help the district avert cuts, CPS officials argue. They have repeatedly pointed to improved reading and math scores at the district since the pandemic – some of the highest in the nation, according to one study – largely because of billions in federal COVID relief dollars, and why that level of funding must be maintained to build on those academic gains.

Martinez grilled on budget solutions, short-term loan

The district has so far declined to take a loan out of concerns that it will downgrade its bond rating status and saddle the district with high interest costs that would take money away from hiring “teachers, counselors, and social workers,” Martinez said.

Alderpeople probed Martinez on a range of issues, including how the district allocates funding for schools, what his strategy is for getting more money, and what it would mean for the district to take out a short-term loan to pay for ongoing costs.

Ald. Angela Clay asked Martinez how the district would cover costs next year, when it is expected to face another $500 million deficit, if the city bailed CPS out this year. Martinez said he hopes TIF districts will expire under Johnson, potentially freeing up more money for CPS. He added that he will ask for City Council “and the mayor’s help” to advocate for more state funding.

While the state has been increasing its share of funding for CPS, its funding formula says the district needs an additional $1.2 billion to be considered adequately funded. State leaders, however, have said more money than what CPS has already received is not coming.

Some alderpeople seemed reluctant to provide more money for CPS when dozens of its schools enroll fewer than 200 students. Martinez countered that schools need more resources in order to boost enrollment.

Alds. Byron Sigcho-Lopez and Ervin, both close allies of the mayor, raised concerns about shifting TIF dollars meant to improve blighted communities in their wards to help buoy CPS’s budget. Ald. Nicole Lee said she wants to give the district more TIF money, but it’s a “short-term solution” and it’s difficult to know how much will be available.

“Can’t squeeze blood out of stone,” Lee told Martinez. “We only have so much money as a city.”

A few alderpeople who have been critical of the mayor peppered Martinez with questions about the mayor’s request for a short-term loan to help cover some of the costs.

Waguespack asked what sort of response the district would get from credit agencies if a new board comes in, approves a short-term loan, and fires Martinez. Miroslava Mejia Krug, the district’s chief financial officer, said she expects credit agencies to downgrade the district’s bond rating in response.

In a statement previously provided to Chalkbeat, Mayor’s office spokesperson Ronnie Reese said Matinez “flatly refused” to adopt a budget that included labor contract and pension costs “as covered by TIFs and additional financing.”

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

Chicago Public Schools chief presses for different fix for district budget problems

2024-10-10T00:04:26+00:00

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Amid turmoil over district leadership and a disagreement over the budget, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said Wednesday that a special set of city funds meant to incentivize development could help stabilize the district’s finances.

In a prepared statement, Martinez said CPS has been advocating since April for the city to use Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, funds to help CPS pay for things like pension costs for non-teaching staff, costs related to a new Chicago Teachers Union contract, and the inaugural contract for a new principals union.

Martinez is at odds with Mayor Brandon Johnson over how to pay for the pension and union contract costs – expenses that the district did not set aside funds for in its current budget. The Johnson administration has pushed CPS for months to take out a short-term loan but district leaders have resisted, saying that it would saddle the district with high interest rates for years to come and could worsen CPS’s bond rating, making it harder to borrow in the future.

The disagreement factored into an extraordinary series of events in the past week — all seven members of the school board announced their plans to resign and Johnson swiftly named replacements, all as the city prepares for its historic first school board election. The new-look board will feature a mix of Johnson appointments and elected members in January.

The district’s proposal centers on TIF surplus funds, which haven’t been dedicated to a specific project and, according to the district, could help fund the $175 pension payment and labor agreement costs. Tax increment financing is a funding tool that uses future property tax revenue to fund community redevelopment projects.

This year’s budget, which covers the current school year, includes $159 million of TIF surplus funding – close to 40% of which is being used to cover the new contract with SEIU Local 73, which represents school support works, such as custodians. (CPS said the district has not yet received those funds.)

Martinez said “we all recognize that more revenue is necessary” to cover the pension and union contract costs.

According to CPS, more than $1.2 billion in property taxes are “diverted from CPS and other taxing bodies into TIF funds annually, depriving CPS of over $600 million in annual revenue.”

In his statement, Martinez said “government and labor partners are coalescing around this revenue source.” That, he said, means the district could pay for upcoming costs “without cuts, without taking on expensive short-term debt, and without waiting for additional funding to materialize from the State.”

In a statement, mayor’s office spokesperson Ronnie Reese said Johnson has repeatedly told Martinez that he would give CPS the maximum” TIF amount. He said Martinez “flatly refused” to adopt a budget that included union contract and pension costs “as covered by TIFs and additional financing.

“Had the CPS CEO worked collaboratively with the City and the Board of Education to pass a budget with the source of revenue being TIF and additional financing, as we and our [budget] team worked diligently to do, we would not be in the predicament we find ourselves in today,” Reese said.

Some local officials have floated the idea of providing more TIF funds to CPS, including Ald. Gilbert Villegas, WBEZ reported. That idea drew some nods, including from Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates and 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez, who said it’s a “better recommendation” than a short-term loan.

The teachers union called this week to end all TIF districts and direct unused or unobligated money to Chicago Public Schools.

The mayor’s office has for months pushed CPS to take out a short-term loan that would help cover the union contracts and the $175 million pension payment – a cost the city used to cover until Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office. The mayor’s transition team report called for those funds to be returned to CPS, but in practice Johnson has so far asked CPS to cover that cost.

In a July 8 internal memo obtained by Chalkbeat, CPS described the idea from City Hall as a $300 million short-term loan that would incur high interest rates. CPS expressed concern that it would saddle the district with expensive debt down the road and worsen the district’s bond rating status, making it harder to borrow in the future for capital costs, such as repairing a school. A $300 million loan would cover 4% raises for members of the teachers and principals unions, the memo said.

“My team and I have specifically resisted taking out expensive short-term debt, and we have advocated against cuts, because we knew that this solution was on the table at our request,” Martinez said in Wednesday’s statement. “In fact, we developed scenarios to show how devastating each of these options would be if additional revenues were not found.”

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

All Chicago Board of Education members to resign amid tensions between Mayor Brandon Johnson and CEO Pedro Martinez

2024-10-04T22:55:50+00:00

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The entire seven-member Chicago Board of Education will resign in the coming weeks after months of tension between Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.

The resignations pave the way for Johnson to appoint new board members who could then carry out his wishes, including potentially firing Martinez. Johnson’s office said late Friday he will announce new appointments on Monday at 10:30 a.m.

Word of the resignations comes more than a week after the school board took no action to remove Martinez and about a month before the city’s first school board elections, which will create for the first time a hybrid board of 10 elected members and 11 appointed by the mayor. In three decades of mayoral control, no Chicago mayor has replaced all of their hand-picked members so quickly. Johnson hand-picked six of seven members last July.

The upheaval is also happening amid contract negotiations with Johnson’s former employer the Chicago Teachers Union.

In a joint statement Friday, Johnson and the current appointed school board announced all current members would “transition from service” later this month.

“None of the members leaving the current Board planned to continue onto the hybrid Board, and none are running for election. With the unprecedented increase in Board membership, transitioning new members now will allow them time to orient and gain critical experience prior to welcoming additional elected and appointed members in 2025,” the statement read.

Johnson said this week that he never discusses personnel issues in public. But he told reporters Wednesday, “I was elected to fight for the people of the city and whoever is in the way, get out of it.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Jen Johnson, deputy mayor for education, youth, and human services, said the mayor’s office “did not ask for resignations.”

“We knew that none of these board members were running [for election] or going to stay, and so we collaborated to ensure that there was a shepherding, a passing of the torch, as we approach this new board,” Johnson said, adding that all seven board members signed on to the statement the mayor’s office sent to the press.

Earlier this month, the mayor asked Martinez to step down — which he publicly later denied doing. Nonetheless, Martinez refused to resign and the school board has declined so far to fire him.

Board members have declined to comment publicly on Martinez’s clash with Brandon Johnson, but the board has in recent months backed Martinez in a couple of decisions that defied the mayor’s wishes. That includes adopting this year’s budget, as well as declining Johnson’s request for CPS to take out a short-term loan to cover some upcoming costs.

The board members stepping down are Board President Jianan Shi, Elizabeth Todd-Breland, who was appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Mary Fahey Hughes, Tanya Woods, Mariela Estrada, Michelle Morales, and Rudy Lozano Jr.

Shi and Todd-Breland declined to comment further Friday. The other members have not returned emails or calls asking for comment on the resignation rumors this week.

The resignations will pave the way for Johnson to appoint new people to fill the vacancies on the board, who could then vote to approve a short-term loan and fire Martinez. The next school board meeting is Oct. 16, one of few remaining scheduled meetings before the new partially-elected, 21-member school board is sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025.

“The board certainly will have the same authority, to evaluate the CEO against the objectives, and they will, you know, have to certainly tackle the incompleteness of the budget,” Deputy Mayor Johnson said.

Johnson did not directly answer when asked if it is the mayor’s hope that the new board will fire Martinez and approve a loan.

The mayor “will work with this new board just as he did with the current board to ensure we are protecting investments in our schools and that we are not cutting and using the truly chaotic solutions of past administrations, which harmed students in communities for generations,” she said.

In a statement, CPS CEO Martinez commended the board members “for their steadfast dedication to ensuring greater equity in our system, emphasizing our collective responsibility to improve the quality of education for those who are furthest from opportunity.”

If the mayor’s intention is to install a new board in order to fire Martinez, it would “be a group that has never evaluated [Martinez], has never worked with him,” according to a source familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak with the press. “They don’t know any of his work, they haven’t been part of any of these conversations.”

That source also noted that new board members typically have an orientation, which could be difficult to wedge in before the board’s first meeting.

In order to conduct business, the school board must have a quorum, which board rules define as “a majority of the full membership of the Board of Education then serving.”

Deputy Mayor Johnson declined to specify the exact date of departure for each current board member, calling the latter a “personal decision” for each person.

A CPS central office staffer, who was not authorized to speak with the press, said the board “doesn’t want to undermine the mayor publicly” and feels board members were pressured to leave for not adhering to the mayor’s wishes. Another source familiar with the situation, also not authorized to speak with the media, questioned the official explanation.

“The mayor’s office will try to spin this as a transition,” the source said. “There is no credible explanation for why seven people would all leave a month or two ahead of time to facilitate a transition.”

The mood in the CPS central office was “like a funeral home” Friday as news of the resignations broke, according to the central office staffer, who said many people were sad to see the board departures.

“You could tell they really care about what’s going on at the district,” the staffer said, adding that they have worked with multiple CPS boards. “They have a sense of responsibility that I think I haven’t seen in the past.”

Multiple board members had been in serious discussions to resign as of at least Sunday, three sources told Chalkbeat.

As rumors of resignations floated earlier this week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he hoped the school board would not resign before new members are elected. Friday morning, former Chicago school board member and once interim-CPS CEO Jesse Ruiz put out a statement thanking current board members and urging them to “stay the course.”

“Despite all the pressures I know you all are under, I truly hope you continue to provide the steady leadership, governance and oversight that is critical for our public institutions to operate in the best interest of ALL its stakeholders,” Ruiz wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The school board shakeup likely won’t have an immediate effect on schools, students, and educators, said Jeffery Henig, professor emeritus of politics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who has studied mayoral control of school boards.

The resignations “will create a potential embarrassment” for the mayor, but also give Johnson a chance to “step in strongly” and make swift decisions that he thinks are necessary, Henig said.

The turmoil could, however, create long-term problems for the new board, which may be tasked with replacing Martinez, hiring a permanent replacement, or addressing the issue of borrowing to cover costs, he said.

“This dramatic gesture by the current board could set into motion enough turmoil and public positioning and open vying for leadership in one faction [of the school board] versus another, that it would make it harder for the new board to set an even course at the beginning,” Henig said.

Some candidates running for school board in the November election began issuing statements.

Kate Doyle, a candidate in District 2, said she was “disappointed to see leaders step away” at a critical time and that if elected, she would “work to ensure that decisions are made transparently and with the long-term success of our students in mind.”

Tensions between Martinez, Johnson building for months

In its year-plus tenure, the Johnson-appointed Board of Education has pursued and approved policies that line up ideologically with the mayor. That includes making a commitment to prioritize neighborhood schools, moving away from student-based budgeting for schools, and barring police officers from school campuses.

Martinez and his administration worked in tandem with the board to develop and implement those changes. But the school board has had some frustrations with his performance, WBEZ reported last week. According to documents related to his annual evaluation, board members felt blindsided or unprepared in certain circumstances. Still, CPS told WBEZ that the board and Martinez “have worked collaboratively throughout our tenure to have open dialogue, fostering a respectful and professional relationship.”

“It’s true that the board has been frustrated with Pedro along the way,” said the source familiar with the situation. “But I do think that, in my knowledge of the situation, there has been this relentless pressure to fire Pedro for cause and do it quickly, and the board is not comfortable doing that.”

According to Martinez’s contract, the board would need to provide six months notice before firing him without cause. If the board fired him for just cause, such as criminal activity, he would have to leave immediately. Martinez could sue the district if he believes he was wrongfully terminated.

At the heart of the tension between Johnson, his school board, and Martinez is the district’s budget, which faced a half-billion-dollar deficit before CPS made cuts to close it. That deficit existed largely because billions of federal COVID dollars that the district used to beef up staffing and invest in new programs, such as tutoring, expired this week.

The district’s $9.9 billion budget approved in August did not set aside dollars for the new teachers contract, which it is currently negotiating. It is not unusual for the school district to amend its budget once a contract deal has been reached. WBEZ recently reported that the district has outlined several options, including the “last resort” option of furloughs and layoffs.

Johnson criticized the budget plan, which included the same amount of funding for schools but resulted in other cuts, including of support staff who CPS said will be reassigned or paid for the rest of the year.

The district also did not include a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching staff that CPS began paying in 2020 when Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, was in office. Johnson opposed that cost shift before he became mayor, but has now asked CPS to continue paying it as he works to close a $223 million deficit in the city’s current budget and a nearly $1 billion deficit projected for 2025.

Johnson was expected to deliver his city budget proposal in a speech to City Council on Oct. 16, but earlier this week the mayor’s office announced Johnson would deliver his budget on Oct. 30, a week after the school board is scheduled to meet.

Over the summer, Johnson asked CPS to take out a short-term loan to help pay for the cost of the pension payment and the added expenses of contracts for the teachers and principals unions. Martinez and the board refused, in fear that taking on such a loan would saddle the district with high-interest rates and deepen its looming deficit for years to come.

The board’s departure so close to the election will likely turn up heat on school board candidates, said Henig, the Columbia professor who has studied mayoral control.

“If the candidates haven’t been forced to address this, there’s gonna be a lot of pressure on them to address this,” Henig said.

Union negotiations turn up heat on Martinez

The conflict is compounded by ongoing contract negotiations between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union, where Johnson worked as an organizer before his foray into politics. The union’s wide-ranging proposal package asks for 9% raises, more staffing, and more support for students, but the district has said its financial challenges remain – and less than 10% of the CTU proposals could create a $4 billion deficit for the district by the 2029-30 school year..

The union further turned up the heat on school district officials after saying it obtained a list of potential co-locations between 140 schools. The district, Martinez, and the Board of Education have said they have no plans to close schools. In letters to staff and families earlier this month, Martinez said the list was created as part of its analysis for the five-year strategic plan, and that it led district leaders and the board to affirm that they did not want to close schools.

The union’s House of Delegates recently passed a vote of no-confidence in Martinez.

Under state law, no school closures can happen in Chicago until Jan. 15, 2025. After the union’s claims over the past couple of weeks, the now-outgoing board passed a resolution Thursday, which Martinez prompted, that calls for no school closures until 2027.

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

Chicago Public Schools wants to combine state and local teacher retirement funds. Is that possible?

2024-09-24T16:02:22+00:00

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As they worked to close a budget deficit this summer, Chicago Public Schools officials proposed a surprising and bold cost-saving measure: Combine the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund with the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System.

Chicago school officials said the move could direct more money to schools by reducing the cost of Chicago’s contribution to the pension fund. It would also mean Chicago taxpayers would no longer have to pay for two pension funds. As Illinois residents, Chicagoans contribute to the state teacher pension system for districts outside Chicago, and they also pay for Chicago teacher pensions through their property tax dollars.

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund oppose the plan, saying teachers would not support it and both groups want to keep the pension system they’ve had since 1895.

The Illinois General Assembly would have to pass a bill for a consolidation of both pension systems to happen. Even proponents of the plan aren’t sure if state lawmakers would take this on.

Chicago Public Schools pays for the pension plan out of its operating budget each year. This school year, Chicago’s budget projects paying $661.6 million toward teacher pensions. This number includes $102.9 million from the district’s operating budget, $558.7 million from property taxes, and $353.9 million from the state.

That sizable payment comes as Chicago grapples with the loss of federal COVID relief funding, a decrease in property tax revenue, the increased cost of employee health care, and an uptick in expenses for students with disabilities. In addition, it’s unclear how much teacher salaries will increase over the years as contract negotiations are ongoing.

Why is Chicago proposing consolidation now?

Chicago Public Schools’ proposal, first raised by Kids First Chicago and The Civic Federation, would require the state to take on the current costs of teacher pensions and previous debt by combining both pension funds. Kids First Chicago and the Civic Federation say a consolidation could solve Chicago’s budget deficit and bring “parity” to how teacher pensions are funded in the state.

In a statement to Chalkbeat Chicago, district officials said the district makes

“substantial payments toward teachers’ pensions” while the state pays about 25%-30% of CPS yearly pension system. Chicago Public Schools says the state government pays the cost of teacher pensions for other Illinois school districts. Chicago hopes consolidation would put more money toward schools at a time when they are having financial struggles.

“As a district, we have been making historic strides in academic recovery that show our school investments have been working, leading us to advocate for more equity in state funding to ensure we can continue to support teaching and learning in the State’s largest Pre-K-12 school district,” the statement said.

The story behind why Chicago Public Schools have to contribute a large amount of district funds starts in 1995. That year, the state passed the Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act, which gave Chicago’s mayor control over the school system and to send property tax revenue to Chicago Public Schools’ operating budget instead of directly to the pension fund.

In 1997, the state legislature passed a subsequent law that allowed Chicago Public Schools to stop making payments to the teachers’ pension fund if it had almost 90% of the money to pay out teachers’ retirement benefits.

Under former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, the Chicago Board of Education redirected property tax revenue to the district’s overall operating budget to deal with an anticipated $1.4 billion budget deficit in 1995. The Board of Education did not pay into the teacher pension fund until the early 2000s.

Between 1998 and 2003, the fund had almost 90% of the money needed to pay out teacher retirement benefits. But when the stock market crashed in 2008, investment assets and pension systems across the country, including the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, took a hit.

As of 2023, the fund has slightly less than half of the money needed to pay off teacher pensions.

Carlton Lenoir Sr., executive director of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, said the organization found that $3.2 billion in contributions were not made to the pension fund after state laws changed in the 1990s and the district stopped making payments. No matter the investment returns, he said, the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund could not make up for the lack of funding.

“It wasn’t something that we could invest our way out of because the funds were just not there to invest,” said Lenoir.

Proponents doubt state would pick up the bill

Consolidating the plans would require state lawmakers to pass a bill to combine both pension plans – something proponents of the proposal think is unlikely.

Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit that organizes Chicago parents, and The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research group, say state lawmakers might not want to consolidate both pension systems because the state would have to allocate more funding to cover Chicago’s debt.

Both organizations propose gradual consolidation of both pension funds over the course of 10 years to make the proposal more palatable for legislators to create and pass a bill on.

Hal Woods, chief of policy for Kids First Chicago, said if the state were to consolidate the teacher pension funds over a year, it would cost the state about $650 million. But if the General Assembly were to do it over 10 years, it could be easier to get through Springfield.

“The state with a $50 billion budget could actually absorb those new costs,” said Woods.

A report from Kids First Chicago notes there is still concern about the future of consolidation. The report, which was issued in July, notes, “future state administrations or economic downturns could alter the commitment to this funding arrangement.”

Chicago teachers don’t want to get rid of their pension system

Another major obstacle to consolidating both pension systems will be gaining the support of current educators and retirees.

After Chicago officials proposed consolidating the funds during contract negotiations with the union, the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund’s Board of Trustees said it did not support a consolidation, according to Lenoir, the Chicago Teachers’ Fund executive director. Even if the board was to support the proposal, retired and current teachers would have to vote for consolidation and Lenoir believes the plan would not have any support.

Also, Lenoir said the fund is in a better position than the state’s and Chicago educators would not support a consolidation.

The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund is currently 47.2% funded, while the state’s is funded at 44.8%, Lenoir said.

The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund has 10 elected representatives and two appointed by Chicago Public Schools on the Board of Trustees, while the state has a board of 15 members with seven elected members. Lenoir says the fund worries consolidation means Chicago teachers would lose a seat at the table to determine what business the fund invests in. The fund is currently invested in minority and women-owned businesses.

The Chicago Teachers Union, which has come out against the proposal, acknowledges it is “unfair and inequitable” that Chicago taxpayers have to pay into both teacher funds.

However, the union said, “Instead of risky consolidations, CPS should fight for the state to properly fund the [Chicago Teacher Pension Fund] just as it does for downstate teachers.”

Amid contract negotiation standoff, the Chicago Teachers Union invokes school closures

2024-09-19T22:43:21+00:00

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The Chicago Teachers Union is escalating a fight with CEO Pedro Martinez as its contract negotiations drag on, with the union accusing the schools chief of plotting to close or consolidate underenrolled schools.

Martinez says there are no such plans, and that the district’s recent analysis of its buildings led to the conclusion that closures were unnecessary. State law bars Chicago from closing public schools until Jan. 15, 2025.

“Let me reiterate: I will not recommend that any schools be closed during my leadership of CPS,” Martinez wrote to district families this week.

But CTU has doubled down, arguing that the existence of the analysis — which neither CTU nor the district would provide to Chalkbeat — is a problem. Jackson Potter, the union’s vice president, told Chalkbeat Wednesday that school board members should consider removing Martinez over the analysis, calling the schools chief a “huge barrier to our collective success.”

The back-and-forth is a sign that the union is looking to put additional pressure on the CEO as negotiations continue. Martinez, appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, is already on shaky ground, with Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer and close ally of the union, reportedly considering ousting him. And in a city where the shuttering of roughly 50 campuses a decade ago still touches a nerve, the union’s allegations are eye-catching — even if it’s unlikely the schools chief would pursue politically unpopular closures under a mayor and school board that oppose them.

The war of words over closures comes as the district faces looming budget deficits and after Martinez has clashed with both the mayor and the union. The CEO recently rejected an appeal from Johnson to take out a high-interest short-term loan to cover a $175 million employee pension payment and the cost of the teacher contract. Meanwhile, the union has lambasted Martinez for limited progress in the talks over the CTU’s slate of proposals, the union’s most far-reaching and costliest to date.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus reiterated that there are no plans to close or consolidate schools.

School board President Jianan Shi and Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland did not respond to requests for comment.

The facilities analysis: what we know

Although the arrival of migrant families helped push enrollment up last fall, CPS has grappled for years with enrollment declines that have left many of its campuses underenrolled, especially on the city’s South and West sides. How to best address the issue of shrinking schools is a challenge districts across the country are facing post-pandemic, amplifying fears of possible closures.

In a letter to families earlier this week, Martinez said the district conducted a neighborhood-by-neighborhood facilities analysis to inform a new five-year strategic plan that prioritizes efforts to prop up neighborhood schools. In separate communication to staff, he said the school board requested the study.

In his letters to parents and staff, Martinez said the district would not consider a consolidation plan without first consulting families and residents. He noted that the district is currently looking into two specific moves: a new home for the Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center and moving the seventh and eighth grade from Kelvyn Park High School to three neighborhood elementary schools.

Officials have also pointed out the state moratorium against school closures in Chicago, which expires in January on the same day a partly-elected school board will be sworn in. Johnson’s administration and his appointed school board have said unequivocally that they have no appetite for closing campuses, though they opposed a bill in Springfield that, in part, would’ve extended the moratorium to 2027.

Despite Martinez’s reassurances, union officials have repeated their claim that the district is considering closing schools, including during public comment at the school board’s Wednesday meeting.

Potter said the analysis CTU obtained included a detailed list of roughly 70 schools that could be consolidated with 70 other campuses. He also said the union has internal budget slides that reference consolidation as one option for addressing the district’s financial woes, with staff furloughs as another possibility.

“Why would a CEO have a list of 140 consolidations? Why would that be generated in such a detailed manner if they weren’t considering it?” Potter said. “That’s a waste of time and resources.”

Fergus, the district spokesperson, reiterated that the district reviewed facility usage as part of ongoing work related to the Education Facilities Master Plan and its annual capital plan.

By state law, Fergus said, CPS is required to post guidelines by Oct. 1 for “school actions,” a term used to describe changes to a school. She said only co-locations – when schools share a building – would be considered and can only be explored by CPS once a school community has requested it.

As negotiations continue and city budget looms, more pressure on Martinez

The backdrop to this fight is the ongoing contract negotiations.

After months of little progress, the district and union brought in a mediator to oversee the contract talks last month. At the bargaining table, the district has offered teachers raises of up to 5% in the next four years, which officials say will bring the average educator salary to more than $110,000 by the end of the contract, along with benefit increases at no cost to teachers and other concessions. But the district has balked at the union’s proposals to codify class sizes and staffing minimums in the contract, among others. The two are scheduled to bargain in public next Tuesday.

Also looming is pressure on Johnson to close a $223 million deficit in the City of Chicago’s current budget and close next year’s nearly $1 billion gap. Both gaps in the city’s budget, which covers city services such as police and fire, public libraries, and streets and sanitation, exist partly because the school board passed a $9.9 billion budget this summer that did not include money for the pensions of non-teaching staff. The CTU once sharply criticized Lightfoot when she passed on this same pension payment to the school district during her tenure.

Johnson suggested CPS take out a high-interest, short-term loan, but district leaders, backed by the school board, have said short-term borrowing to cover those costs would only add to CPS’s already substantial debt. Reports that Johnson was laying the groundwork to remove Martinez emerged in August amid this disagreement.

The union has made its displeasure with Martinez clear, arguing that district officials – and Martinez specifically – have failed to lobby state lawmakers and the governor aggressively for additional funding.

Potter said union leaders to his knowledge have not spoken with board members about removing Martinez. But he noted that since reports first came out that Johnson was planning to oust the schools chief, the district and union have made more headway at the bargaining table — “improvements in the pace and seriousness of bargaining.”

Still, he said, “If every time we make incremental progress at the bargaining table it’s because we have to threaten Pedro Martinez’s job, that’s not a healthy standard. It’s an impossible one.”

The CEO still has the support of many school leaders. Earlier this month, roughly 460 principals and assistant principals wrote to the school board arguing that after years of leadership turnover, Martinez is making progress in leading the district and his removal weeks into a new school year would cause significant disruption for students and staff.

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

Chicago Public Schools says teachers union proposals would lead to $4 billion deficit by 2029-30

2024-08-14T02:12:05+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools estimates that a chunk of the Chicago Teachers Union’s proposals, including raises for educators, would create a $4 billion deficit for the district by the 2029-2030 school year, officials said Tuesday.

The union, for its part, made recommendations for raising more money to support the district, including increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, and suing banks for what union officials described as predatory lending practices involving CPS in past years.

Their comments came during a public bargaining session Tuesday at Morgan Park High School on the city’s Far South Side, as part of negotiations between the district and the CTU over the union’s new contract. Those negotiations have not made much progress over the past few months. Tuesday’s session, the third bargaining session held in public, focused on the district’s finances.

Granting just 52 of the union’s 700-plus contract proposals would widen the district’s deficit from a projected $509 million next fiscal year, to roughly $3 billion, said Mike Sitkowski, the district’s budget director. That gap would grow by another $1 billion by fiscal year 2030, he said.

Deficits are already projected for each of the next five years, without the cost of a new contract, CPS officials have said. In order to balance future budgets, the district will have to find more funding or will make cuts to staff and programs, they said.

The Chicago Board of Education passed a budget for this upcoming school year that closed a $505 million deficit through cuts and other savings, but that budget does not include funding to cover the costs of a new teachers contract.

The district did not identify the 52 proposals it considered as part of its analysis, but Sitkowski said the list included the union’s requests for 9% raises and additional staff.

“We believe our educators deserve fair raises, but we must acknowledge what is responsible and sustainable,” Sitkowski said.

Jackson Potter, the union’s vice president, told district officials that highlighting the deficit related to CTU’s contract proposals “sends the message that you can’t meet any of our recommendations,” such as more librarians or more support for bilingual students. Union President Stacy Davis Gates didn’t directly answer a reporter’s question about how much the union’s proposals would cost.

“The price tag is opportunity for Black children, immigrant children, and Latine children,” she said.

Davis Gates credited previous union demands for delivering the post-pandemic student achievement gains that the district often touts. She said she plans to end the fight for funding with this contract, “come hell or high water, and I don’t give a damn who pay.”

Concern about budget challenges has hovered over the contract negotiations this year, as the district grapples with budget deficits as federal COVID relief dollars dry up.

In order to cover additional costs, both CPS and the union have called on the state to provide more than the $25 million funding increase it gave this year. Both parties point a finger at the state’s main school funding formula, under which the district needs an additional $1.2 billion to be considered adequately funded. That figure rose slightly this year after the district enrolled more students learning English as a new language and as the city saw a drop in tax revenue from corporate profits.

Both Gov. J.B. Pritzker and State Superintendent Tony Sanders have said more funding is not coming this year.

Beyond advocating for more state funding, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration also encouraged the Board of Education to take out a short-term loan to cover additional costs, which the board and CPS have rebuffed for now.

Asked recently if the district could still take out such a loan, Board President Jianan Shi said “everything is on the table,” declining to elaborate further.

During the bargaining session, the teachers union offered up several recommendations beyond more state funding on how the district could raise money. Apart from more taxes on the wealthy and suing big banks, they also suggested seeking more federal funding and taxing big tech corporations “profiting off our students’ and families’ private data.”

District officials said they want to advocate for more state funding, including to fully cover costs of preschool programs and teacher pensions. The state’s main funding formula already accounts for the fact that the district pays for its own teachers’ pensions.

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

Amid budget challenges, CPS and the teachers union make little movement on contract negotiations

2024-08-13T10:00:00+00:00

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When Chicago Public Schools students head back to class later this month, their teachers likely won’t yet have a new contract.

In the past, that was a bad omen, signaling that a strike loomed. This year, a strike does not appear to be on the horizon, and both sides have said the tone at the bargaining table has been more amicable.

But by most accounts, the district and the Chicago Teachers Union have made little headway in the high-stakes negotiations that began this past spring. The CTU is pushing for its most far-reaching package of proposals, which includes 9% annual raises, more school support staff, smaller class sizes, and efforts to address homelessness and the challenges migrant families face.

Those demands come as the district and city face budget deficits, with no clear path to securing extra funding for schools. Illinois lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have balked at appeals to steer more dollars to Chicago schools. Meanwhile, district leaders and the school board have said they are wary of adding to the district’s already considerable debt burden after Mayor Brandon Johnson encouraged them to take out a short-term loan to cover some contract costs and ward off cuts.

After years of contentious relationships with mayors, the union is now negotiating with a district overseen by Johnson, a former CTU employee whom it helped propel into office. His critics had argued during last year’s mayoral race that he would readily sign off on the union’s demands, no matter the cost, even as he shot back that he would be best positioned to “deliver bad news” to his friends in the union.

Neither scenario has played out so far, according to sources on both sides.

The union has struck an increasingly combative tone. Tensions have spilled out at two public bargaining sessions; a third one focused on financial issues is slated for Tuesday evening.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Board of Education President Jianan Shi, who is not involved in daily negotiations but will eventually vote to approve a deal, said he expected by now that both sides would have “made more progress.”

“I think the people of Chicago want to see us finding alignment, demonstrating that we can work together, and doubling down on things we know that improve student outcomes and the student experience,” Shi said.

Bargaining may bleed past the Nov. 5 school board elections, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the pace of negotiations. And if that happens, it could mean whatever agreement district and union leaders reach could come before the new 21-member board that will be sworn in on Jan. 15, including 11 mayoral appointees.

CPS did not respond to Chalkbeat’s questions or multiple requests for an interview. City Hall declined to comment.

A 9% raise, more support staff, and less learning time

The union is proposing hundreds of substantial edits or new additions to its current contract, from more prep time for elementary school teachers and making school buildings more environmentally-friendly to providing housing assistance for homeless students and dollars for transportation, mental health services, and academic support for immigrant families seeking asylum.

In its opening proposals, the union asked for a 9% pay increase and salaries that don’t dip below $46,500, or 150% of the federal poverty level. The average teaching assistant salary — a group represented by the CTU — is now about $44,000.

The starting salary for teachers is $61,990, according to the current contract. A Chalkbeat analysis of compensation data shows a regular teacher makes about $92,500 a year on average, up from $78,400 in 2019. Teacher pay varied significantly, with head teachers, who play key leadership roles on their campuses, making almost $115,000 on average, while high school support teachers average about $88,000.

In the recent past, CPS has agreed to raises of up to 4%, and an internal district memo obtained by Chalkbeat last month contemplated 4% for the coming year, which the district estimates would cost $120 million. Though comparing compensation across districts and states is tricky, Chicago teachers are better compensated than many others. One pandemic-era study from the National Council on Teacher Quality put CPS at No. 1 for teachers lifetime earnings among 90 large districts.

But union leaders have said their main focus is on proposals aimed at beefing up support for schools and students. Those include librarians in every school, air conditioning in all gymnasiums by 2026, in-home counseling for students who have experienced trauma, class sizes of between 20 to 25 students depending on the grade, and even smaller classes for those that include at least one child learning English.

Zeidre Foster, the union’s head of grievances and member of the district’s bargaining team, said the two sides have reached several tentative agreements on low-cost proposals that likely won’t excite members, such as around professional development. The tone at the table remains collaborative, she said.

But overall, progress has been slow.

“The most frustrating part at this point is the lack of urgency,” she said. “We are looking to transform the district, and CPS is stuck in the status quo.”

The union has gotten a small number of proposals from the district and some counter offers on CTU demands, she said; there has been no response on the union’s compensation proposal.

One major issue CPS and CTU are far apart on is providing additional preparation time for elementary school teachers, according to two sources familiar with negotiations. The union has argued that elementary school teachers need more time to plan engaging lessons. The current contract allows for an hour of preparation time a day. The district says more preparation time means less learning time for students amid ongoing pandemic recovery.

The union unsuccessfully demanded a similar proposal during 2019 contract negotiations.

In a July letter to CPS families, Martinez called negotiations “fruitful.” In the most recent public bargaining session at Roswell B. Mason Elementary School in North Lawndale, district officials also opted for an upbeat tone, highlighting additional investments they’ve made in schools, as well as average class sizes of 20 students in elementary schools and 20 students in high schools.

The 330,000-student district’s payroll has grown by roughly 8,200 full-time positions since 2019, to about 46,670 positions, according to district data.

But CTU members, a student, and union President Stacy Davis Gates, who unsuccessfully pressed the district to codify those class sizes in the teachers contract on the spot, offered a dimmer view. They highlighted some of their top issues, such as a lack of librarians at every school and the need for more early childhood classes for students with disabilities.

“I’m actually struggling right now trying to understand how we are going to come to some agreement and settlement of this contract,’” Davis Gates said during the bargaining session, adding that she wanted the district to acknowledge that there are problems in need of solutions.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, center, talks to reporters after a public bargaining session with CPS in early August.

Proposals such as dedicated space for social workers and nurses are reasonable to Tyrone Palmer, a social worker at Walter Payton College Prep and one of hundreds of union delegates who voted to approve the proposals. Palmer’s biggest wish is for more staff inside buildings, including librarians, paraprofessionals, and social workers.

Palmer said he supports the union wielding its power to improve problems that fall outside of teacher pay and benefits and address broader problems, such as homelessness.

“When there are societal issues, that affects our jobs and if that comes in through the schools, it’s hard to educate a student,” Palmer said.

But he noted that contract talks are going more slowly than he had expected.

“When Brandon Johnson got elected, I remember thinking, one, we’re gonna ask for a super extravagant proposal and two, we’re gonna somehow get everything we ask for,” Palmer said. “It’s a harsh reality check of, ‘No … it’s still very slow-going.’”

Unknown contract costs prompt questions of cuts, borrowing

CPS budget will need amending once contract costs are known

The question of how to pay for a new contract looms over the negotiations as the district faces budget deficits that could approach $1 billion in the coming years.

The Board of Education would have to amend its already-passed budget once the contract is settled. Both Pritzker and State Superintendent Tony Sanders have made it clear that the state won’t be providing more money this year. Without additional dollars, the district will have to make cuts in order to pay for costs related to the new contract.

CPS is providing “budgets that do not include what we need,” Davis Gates told reporters after another public bargaining session this month. “And what we need are actual bodies in classrooms, teaching our young people. We need a sports program. We need an arts program — not a smorgasbord of things that you may or may not get.”

Asked what funding options are available and if CPS will take out a loan, Board President Shi said “everything is on the table,” but declined to elaborate further. More details could be revealed during the third public bargaining session on Tuesday.

Joe Ferguson of the Civic Federation, an Illinois-based nonpartisan government research group, questioned the district’s decision to pass a 2024-25 budget without any dollars for the cost of the new teacher contract. District officials could have estimated those costs and baked them into the document for a more clear-eyed plan to navigate the rough financial waters.

But it’s not a surprise the district did not do that, given the charged politics of attempting to guess at those costs, Ferguson said. Mayor Johnson has said he will not accept significant cuts to district programs or staff.

Ferguson noted the district significantly expanded its workforce and operations during the pandemic.

“You could be reductionist and say the governor is saying no,” he said. “Or you could argue the governor is saying, ‘We won’t come to the rescue of a system that hasn’t shown it is willing to do the work of reducing some costs firsts.’”

Hal Woods of the advocacy group Kids First Chicago says the group’s leadership and parent network are supportive of higher teacher pay and really like some of the proposals to beef up student support. But they are concerned about the cost of the proposal.

They also have concerns about proposals that would give new powers to Professional Personnel Leadership Committees, advisory bodies made up of educators and other staff that campuses convene under state law. The union wants these committees to have more control over curriculum, professional development, principal evaluations, and more, in some ways, potentially sidelining local school councils and school leaders.

In 2019, contract talks led to an 11-day strike, when union leaders insisted Mayor Lori Lightfoot was squarely in the driver’s seat and lambasted her for not meeting their demands. The same was true in 2012 when CTU leadership sparred with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the length of the school day and year and teacher performance evaluations.

But this time around, the union has blamed Martinez for standing in the way of an agreement, calling him a “Lightfoot holdover” who lacks vision for CPS, though he, like his predecessors, serves at the mayor’s pleasure.

“Disparaging the CEO doesn’t make state legislators or Chicagoans for that matter interested in letting more of their money go to the district,” Woods said.

The union also changed its stance on a $175 million payment from CPS to the city’s pension fund. The union had sharply criticized Lightfoot for passing the payment on to the district, but it now says that the district should cover it, empowering Johnson to pursue a progressive agenda in City Hall.

A City Hall spokesperson said Johnson’s deputy mayor of labor relations, Bridget Early, has been involved in the talks. But Johnson has largely refrained from commenting on them publicly, and union officials said direct reports to Martinez rather than Johnson administration staffers have been on the frontlines.

Brad Marianno, an education labor expert at the University of Nevada, said the CTU remains a trailblazer in promoting the kind of expansive education and social justice contract talk agenda known as “bargaining for the common good.”

The union’s latest set of proposals is the most far-reaching and voluminous Marianno has seen in Chicago or anywhere else. But he said the pushback to taking on more debt to fund recurring expenses such as salaries is understandable because doing so would be “wildly irresponsible.”

And while support for educators remains strong in urban districts such as Chicago, Marianno believes even here, there is little appetite for a teacher strike among parents and community members on the heels of extended remote learning and other COVID-era disruptions to learning.

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.

Amid financial woes, Chicago Public Schools to receive similar state funding increase this year

2024-08-05T23:09:17+00:00

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Amid a bump in students learning English as a new language and a dip in local tax revenue, Chicago Public Schools would now need nearly $1.2 billion to be adequately funded, according to state data released Monday.

The updated figure, which is $93 million more than was projected last year, was provided as part of an annual calculation determining how Illinois will distribute state money to public school districts — and comes as the city’s school district grapples with complex financial problems in the next school year.

Still, Chicago gets about 21% of the funding distributed through the state’s evidence-based formula — which allocates money to districts based on their students’ needs — but serves about 18% of Illinois’ students, said State Superintendent Tony Sanders.

“I think it’s important to note that we still have districts that are below what Chicago was funded,” Sanders said.

Data show 49 Illinois districts are still below 70% adequately funded, compared to 72 districts last year and 430 districts in 2018, right after the state’s funding formula was revamped. Chicago is considered 79% adequately funded.

Districts with greater shares of students with high needs, such as English language learners or low-income students, receive more money under the funding formula. In Chicago’s case, the district’s recent increase in English language learners impacted its adequacy calculation.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said the district is “committed to working with our local, state and federal partners” to find more money for students and schools. But the district, which has previously asked Illinois leaders to provide more funding, acknowledged that significantly more money is not coming through this year.

“District leadership recognizes that achieving state funding at the 90 to 100 percent adequacy level for CPS and all districts in Illinois will take time and was not intended to be reached by Fiscal Year 2025,” Fergus wrote.

A closer look at state funding for Chicago

The Chicago Board of Education recently passed a $9.9 billion budget that closed a roughly half-billion-dollar deficit driven largely by the loss of federal COVID relief dollars.

CPS is expected to receive an additional $25.8 million from the state’s evidence-based funding formula for the coming 2024-25 school year. The district also gets state money earmarked for other education initiatives, such as $284 million for early childhood education, according to the district’s adopted budget. CPS’s budget includes a total of $2.6 billion in state funding.

Thousands of migrant families have arrived in Chicago over the past two years, fleeing political and economic strife in South and Central American countries. Amid that shift, Chicago Public Schools enrolled roughly 5,700 more students learning English as a new language in September 2023, compared to the same time in 2022, according to official district data. And over the course of last school year, between last September and this May, more than 7,500 English language learners enrolled across district and charter schools, for a total of more than 85,000 such students, according to preliminary CPS data analyzed by Chalkbeat.

A dip in local revenue also had an impact on how much funding the state calculation indicates Chicago needs. Sanders cited a dip in tax revenue imposed on corporate profits, plus “modest growth” in property values.

The data released by the state Monday focuses on the money distributed through the evidence-based funding formula, which directs more money to districts with higher needs that lack enough local wealth to cover costs.

Most school districts, including Chicago Public Schools, rely primarily on local property taxes to fund public schools. In Chicago, more than $5 billion is collected from local taxes, $4 billion of which is directly from property taxes.

Illinois boosts K-12 funding by $2 billion since 2017

Data shows Illinois has increased funding for public schools by $2 billion since overhauling the funding formula in 2017. In a news release, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state will “continue to build on our progress” to ensure every student “gets the quality education they deserve.”

Sanders said that compared to other states, Illinois is investing “more and more” annually into public education that has helped schools get through the pandemic “and sustain their growth” through COVID.

“I think the state deserves credit for continuing that investment year over year, recognizing we’re not there yet,” Sanders said.

State lawmakers decide every spring how much money to send to Illinois’ 852 school districts. In August, the Illinois State Board of Education finalizes the dollar amounts each district will receive.

Illinois divides school districts into four tiers in order to determine how to distribute the money allocated by state lawmakers. Tier 1 districts get the largest increases in state funding because they are considered to be the furthest away from having enough money to sufficiently fund schools; Tier 4 districts are those with the least amount of need and get smaller increases.

One report, penned by a budget watchdog organization whose leader helped craft the state’s funding formula, estimates that districts won’t be adequately funded until 2034 – seven years later than the state had originally committed.

Chicago, the state’s largest district, was a Tier 1 district until 2022, when it moved to Tier 2, as the share of the city’s low-income students dipped and property wealth grew.

Illinois’ second largest school district, U-46, which serves Elgin, Bartlett, Streamwood, and other northwest Chicago suburbs, serves 40,000 students and is considered a Tier 1 district that is 71% adequately funded. That district would need another $173 million to close that gap, according to state data.

The teachers union, as well as CPS and the board, have called on the state to provide more funding to help cover costs, which could still grow this year as officials negotiate new collective bargaining agreements for teachers and school leaders. Officials also don’t yet have a plan for covering $175 million in pension payments for non-teaching staff, which the district wants the city to cover, as it did before Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration.

Pritzker has said more money is not coming this year. Sanders reiterated that on Monday.

“The EBF funding formula is used not just for Chicago, but for funding all 852 school districts across the state,” Sanders said. “It is a fair way of distributing funds across the state, it is going to lead us to better equity in the long run, so no, there are not going to be any short-term changes.”

City Hall also directed CPS to take out a loan to cover additional costs; the district pushed back and has not yet taken out such a loan.

The state also released a report Monday detailing trends of how districts across the state had planned to use state funding.

Tier 1 districts were more likely to make lowering or maintaining class sizes a top strategy for improving student achievement, the report said. Overall, nearly a quarter of all districts said that improving programs, curriculum, and/or “learning tools” was a top strategy, while another 15% were primarily focused on maintaining or improving extra support for students.

Becky Vevea contributed.

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

Chicago touts after-school program growth but cuts funding

2024-08-05T10:00:00+00:00

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Kia Banks, the principal at Vanderpoel Humanities Academy on the city’s South Side, found out this summer her school was getting less than a third of the funding it received last year to run after-school programs.

Last school year, she was able to pay Vanderpoel teachers to stay after school to help students who were behind in math and reading, and to provide mentoring. The arts magnet also brought in outside organizations to run music and art programs.

Banks credits these offerings with boosting a sense of community and connectedness on the small campus, which has a predominantly Black and majority low-income student body.

But with funding slashed from about $32,000 to less than $10,000 for this coming school year, Banks will likely have to scale back these programs.

After pouring federal COVID relief dollars into a once barebones budget for such programs, Chicago Public Schools is now cutting funding for academic, arts, sports and mentoring before- and after-school programs, labeled as Out of School Time. This summer, the district touted a 2024-25 budget that “doubles down” on a COVID-era spending boost for extracurricular programs, which officials said has sped up students’ recovery. But in fact, funding for these programs is down by roughly a third, to about $31 million.

Banks said she and other school leaders were bracing for the cuts because they knew the district’s $2.8 billion in COVID relief would be running out this year and a sizable deficit loomed. Still, some principals said they were taken aback by dramatic reductions that might force them to scrap dozens of programs. Some are scrambling to find new ways to pay for them.

CPS officials said they used the district’s Opportunity Index — a metric of a school’s level of need that factors in student demographics and other data — to steer Out of School Time dollars to campuses serving the most vulnerable students. They argued that overall, schools should be able to continue serving roughly the same number of students as they did last year, based on an analysis of program attendance and cost this past school year.

Some officials say schools can lean more on community-based organizations to provide programming, sometimes at a relatively low or no cost to schools. But some principals say Out of School Time dollars offered a key advantage: the ability to pay their own teachers and support staff to run extracurricular programs, helping forge stronger relationships and improve school climate.

“I don’t think there’s any way to replicate having your own staff provide these opportunities,” said Banks, who is also the chief of staff at the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, the union representing school leaders in CPS.

Still, she said, “The fact that those allocations are decreasing shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The money is just no longer there.”

The CPS shift comes at a time of larger uncertainty around after-school programs in Illinois: A federal grant that allows schools to enlist community organizations to provide extracurricular programs is expiring on campuses in Chicago and across the state. Last spring, Illinois lawmakers approved $50 million for after-school and summer programs, but the money hasn’t yet started flowing to schools.

The district did not provide school-by-school Out of School Time allocations to Chalkbeat, despite multiple requests. It said only that schools received an estimated $42,000 to $65,000 in this year’s budgets.

More than a half dozen schools where Chalkbeat connected with a local school council or school leader reported much smaller amounts; a district spokeswoman said both the upper and lower end of that range are average amounts.

Some principals were shocked by drastic cuts

One Chicago principal said expanded Out of School funding was a boon to her campus, where more than 90% of the student body is low-income. Last year, the school offered more than two dozen academic, arts, sports and other programs before and after the school day. These programs kept the doors open from 7:15 am to 6 p.m. and helped students and families feel more connected to the school and its staff.

But in June, the principal, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the issue, found out this year’s budget included less than a quarter of the funding — a cut she called “heartwrenching.” She estimates the money will allow the school to keep only three of its programs and offer them only two days a week.

She said an already tight budget means there are no discretionary dollars she can steer toward saving these programs. And the school faces a double whammy as a federal grant for community-based programming expires as well.

She has been asking community members if they would volunteer to run programs without pay, and she has reached out to state lawmakers representing her district to see if they can help.

“The district kept saying, ‘Have rigorous, high-quality programs.’ ‘Keep your kids engaged,’” the principal said. “Losing that money is going to be a huge detriment to our students.”

The cuts come on the heels of a major pandemic-era expansion. The district spent less than $5 million for Out of School programs in 2017-18 and served about 40,000 students. By last school year, federal COVID relief had boosted that spending to $46 million, with 115,000 students taking part in programs across the district. CPS touted these numbers at a public bargaining session with the Chicago Teachers Union focused on the student experience last week.

In recent years, extra pay for staff overseeing extracurricular programs has come under scrutiny by the district’s Office of Inspector General as spending on those programs has swelled. The office has flagged employees who earned what inspectors deemed excessive extra pay and schools that could not provide timesheets, but there is no indication the recent cuts are connected to these investigations.

How some school leaders are adapting

Banks, of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said Out of School funding was invaluable in supporting post-pandemic recovery — but the district was always clear about using one-time COVID relief money.

“There was never any promise by the district of, ‘We are going to fund these programs in this way forever,’” she said.

She said schools still have some options, such as tapping low-cost vendors vetted by the district — and the union is there to help troubleshoot. Banks said her school will likely provide programs only in the second and third quarter of the school year and only for some grades.

“We’ll be much more targeted and specific this year,” she said.

Another principal said his school’s Out of School Time funding also shrank to less than a quarter of what it was last year. Now, with only about $15,000, 30 programs are in question. He said he hopes parent fundraising can make up the difference to keep the programs, which have strengthened students’ relationships with peers and school employees at a time when absenteeism and mental health issues remain heightened post-pandemic.

Joanna Su, who recently wrapped up her service on the local school council at Gale Community Academy in Rogers Park, will lean more on a close relationship with Loyola University and other local organizations to support its after-school programming. The school’s funding was cut roughly in half, to $11,000.

“We are fortunate to have lots of great community partners,” Su said, “but I don;t know that every school has that luxury.”

Patrick Brosnan of the nonprofit Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which teams up with schools to provide extracurricular and other programs, said most of the group’s partner campuses are also facing budget constraints. The $50 million for community schools the state approved earlier this year was a “huge victory,” he said. But he and others are frustrated that it’s taking some time to push out the funding to schools. The nonprofit might use private fundraising to prevent layoffs and cuts, he said.

“We are trying to figure out how to continue to fund programs,” he said. “It’s a scarcity mindset, and it’s too bad we’re in this situation.”

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

CPS won’t guarantee busing for general education students this school year – but is piloting new strategies

2024-07-25T22:10:02+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools won’t guarantee busing for general education students next school year, but officials are trying two new strategies to help more kids get to school.

Those strategies, officials said Thursday, include plans to adjust bell times at 36 district schools and piloting a program where buses pick students up at “hubs,” officials said.

The efforts are meant to help free up more buses to serve more students after the district cut service last year for about 5,500 general education students who were largely attending selective enrollment and magnet schools.

The district’s decision resulted in a constant drumbeat of criticism over the last school year from families who had lost busing. The policy even led some families to transfer out of their school.

CPS officials cited a bus driver shortage when it decided to only bus students with disabilities and those who are homeless, groups entitled to transportation under federal law. But CPS had been working to comply with a state corrective action plan imposed in 2022 that called for shorter bus rides for students with disabilities. The state closed that corrective action plan in April.

The district’s bus vendors transported just over 9,300 students last school year, with most of them students with disabilities. Another 3,600 students received a stipend to cover transportation costs. The district budgeted $146.3 million for student transportation last fiscal year, which ended on July 1, according to budget records.

CPS announced Thursday it will still offer stipends of up to $500 to students with disabilities who are eligible for transportation, but will now limit these to students who live at least five miles away from their schools. Officials said they made the change to save money and get more of these students on bus routes.

Charles Mayfield, the district’s chief operating officer, said the district is forecasting to enroll more students with disabilities next school year, which starts Aug. 26. CPS said the district intends to provide bus routes to all students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, or 504 plans call for busing, as well as students who are homeless who qualify for busing before launching the new efforts for general education students.

Last year, about 1,900 general education students who were previously eligible for busing also received Ventra cards upon request.

The bell time adjustments will allow bus vendors to cover more routes and increase the number of students they carry, according to CPS. For example, a bus could drop off kids at a school where the start time is 7:30 a.m., then pick up and drop off students to a school that starts at 8:45 a.m., a district official told the board.

The timeline for the “hub stop” pilot program was less certain. Officials said they hope to launch it during the first quarter of the school year. Under the model, students would get on buses to their school from another school. It was unclear how close these hubs would be to students’ homes.

Once the hub pilot program starts, students in “underserved communities” will be given initial access to the hubs, officials said.

It is “the district’s goal” to provide access to the hub stops to “all general education students who are eligible,” said Mary Ann Fergus, CPS spokesperson, in a statement.

Natasha Haque, a leader in the CPS Parents for Buses group, said parents are thrilled that the district will at least try to provide rides for general education students though families still face uncertainty weeks before the school year’s start. The group, which formed last year to advocate for more transportation options, had pushed for the idea of hubs as a way to make school bus routes more efficient.

“This is a vastly different message from CPS,” Haque said. “They are trying to fill all those empty seats on school buses, which they refused to do last year.”

Haque’s husband drove their sixth grade daughter from their Lincoln Park home to her gifted program on the South Side last school year, picking up another student bound for the same school on the way and logging as much as three-and-a-half hours on that commute every day. The husband, who works multiple jobs, had to adjust his work schedule to make the trips possible.

This fall, Haque’s daughter will start seventh grade on a campus much closer to their home, largely because of how tough commuting to school was on the family.

“It was a real struggle last year, with families taking many different modes of transportation,” she said.

Over the course of last year, the district said it held multiple hiring fairs and increased driver pay to attract more drivers, but saw little movement with those efforts.

“It is too early to say how one strategy, such as adjusting bell times or establishing the hub stops, will increase student bus riders as it is contingent on other factors, including the hiring of sufficient drivers,” said Fergus in a statement.

Mila Koumpilova contributed.

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

Chicago Board of Education passes $9.9 billion budget for upcoming school year

2024-07-25T21:55:04+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education passed a budget Thursday for the coming school year, following weeks of tension and opposition that reached as high up as the mayor’s office.

That budget, however, will likely be amended after the district finishes negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union and the district’s new principals union. It does not currently account for increases to teacher salaries.

The $9.9 billion budget boosts overall funding for schools, but it also includes cuts to central staff and administrative costs to help close a roughly half-billion-dollar deficit, including for central staff and administrative costs. It also includes a $611 million capital budget, which largely funds repairs and updates to school facilities.

While the district will freeze about 200 positions and cut 45 other roles, it will also add another 800 school-based staff positions, with just over 60% of those for teachers. Roughly half of those positions are for serving students with disabilities, said Mike Sitkowski, CPS’s budget director.

Sitkowski said the deficit is expected to be at least $500 million by next fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2025 – and that’s without accounting for the cost of bargaining agreements with unions.

One by one, board members praised the budget plan but also raised concerns about the need for more funding down the road and acknowledged the pushback they’ve heard, including that losing staff can feel disruptive for schools.

“Is this budget perfect? No, but in my time here, it is the budget that has most equitably distributed the funds that we do have,” said Vice President Elizabeth Todd Breland, who was also on the Board of Education under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

School communities received their campus staff allocations roughly a month ago, and some have been bracing for the impact of tighter budgets this fall. The budget includes a new way of funding schools by giving more weight to student needs than enrollment numbers. The new formula has resulted in fewer overall positions at at least 150 schools, while many others saw more positions, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

The district’s budget drew rare opposition from Mayor Brandon Johnson, who said he supported efforts to fill the deficit but did not support cuts to staff. At one point, Johnson’s office pushed the Board of Education to borrow up to $300 million to cover costs of union agreements and pension costs that the city shifted to the district a few years ago. CPS balked at that suggestion, arguing that such a move would result in a high-interest, short-term loan that could further damage the district’s bond rating.

The Chicago Teachers Union has protested the budget for weeks during multiple rallies, including before Thursday’s meeting, to push back against staff layoffs and to call on the state and federal governments to send more money to Chicago Public Schools. CPS has promised to find laid-off teachers new jobs or cover their salaries for the upcoming year.

The state increased funding for CPS this year, but the district is still $1 billion short of what the state’s formula considers adequate funding.

One of those teachers is fourth grade teacher Michelle Ludwig, who taught at Christopher Elementary School before losing her job last month, costing her students “a teacher who genuinely cares about them and with whom they’ve built trusting relationships,” Ludwig told the board Thursday. She said she has not yet found a new position.

“There should be vacancies based upon retirement and personal choice, but not because the district decided to devalue teachers,” Ludwig said.

Dozens of people in red CTU T-shirts gathered outside Jones College Prep in the South Loop, where Thursday’s meeting was being held, with multiple signs, such as “Equitable Funding,” “$1 billion short,” and multiple signs criticizing CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who the union says has been shortsighted in crafting the budget proposal.

CTU Vice President Jackson Potter told school board members that this is a ripe time to pressure the state for more money, given that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is being considered as a running mate for presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, who has called for more teacher pay. And, he noted, the Democratic National Convention will be in Chicago.

“I think we can be heroes if we can get the decision-makers to the table to agree that this is a priority,” Potter said.

Kids First Chicago, an parent advocacy group, has suggested different ways to raise revenue and save money, including by advocating for more state funding, raising property taxes, and gradually consolidating the Chicago teacher pension system, which is funded by CPS, with the state’s pension fund for teachers, which is funded through the state budget, not local districts.

Those recommendations were endorsed by the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, which warned that the district does not have a long-term solution for its deficit. The deficit next fiscal year is projected to increase to $933 million if the district provides a 4% raise for teachers and principals and picks up a $175 million payment to cover the pensions of non-teaching staff.

Sitkowski acknowledged those long-term challenges, noting that the deficit for next fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2025, is projected to grow to at least $500 million. He said the district will need more funding going forward to close those gaps.

District leaders have argued that the city should step in to cover the pension cost of non-teaching staff as it has in the past. The budget approved by the board Thursday included the pension expense, but also assumes there will be revenue from City Hall to cover the cost. It’s not clear if Johnson’s office will take it on when the city puts together its budget later this year.

Separately, after months of development, the board passed a new safety policy for schools that removes police officers staffed by the Chicago Police Department from campuses. The plan, known as Whole School Safety, pushes schools staff to implement alternatives to discipline, such as restorative justice practices.

The presentation to the board was almost celebratory. Students and advocates who worked with CPS to create the plan were asked to stand up as board members praised their advocacy over the past few years to revamp how the district approached school safety.

A recent study found that schools that had already removed officers saw a slight drop in high-level disciplinary violations.

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

Union members assail Chicago Public Schools budget plan ahead of board vote

2024-07-17T21:37:04+00:00

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Tensions are flaring over the approval of Chicago Public Schools’ $9.9 billion budget, with a looming school board vote on it next week.

The district held public hearings on the budget proposal at Jones College Prep High School on Tuesday amid unusual uncertainty over its prospects. Mayor Brandon Johnson has said he does not support the proposal, which includes some cuts to central office staff and other expenditures to close a $505 million deficit.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Teachers Union, which helped elect Johnson last year, has lambasted the budget since it was unveiled last week, and its members packed Tuesday’s hearing to demand that the district spend more to improve schools, rather than cut back.

The mayor-appointed school board is slated to vote on the budget a month later than usual. Notably, the proposal does not factor in raises for educators. The district is negotiating new contracts with its teachers and principals unions, and officials noted that the budget would need to be revised to account for the cost of these contracts once they are settled.

An internal CPS memo Chalkbeat obtained last week shows that Johnson pressed the board to cover those costs by borrowing money through what would likely be a high interest, short-term loan. But the board and district leaders pushed back, multiple sources said. The memo, prepared by district staff, argued that taking out a short-term loan would add to the district’s already significant debt burden, potentially weaken the district’s already poor bond rating, and merely defer its fiscal problems until next year.

Earlier on Tuesday, the teachers union also held an event calling on state lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to provide more funding for Chicago schools. That followed a spring trip to Springfield by Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and union leaders, who tried to make a joint case for more dollars. During that trip, they noted that though the state has markedly boosted funding for the district in recent years, CPS is still about $1 billion short of what would be considered adequate under Illinois’ own formula. But lawmakers granted only a fraction of the district’s request during the session they wrapped up in June.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Jackson Potter, the teachers union vice president, argued the district must budget more money as it steps up efforts to lobby state and federal officials for more funding, including during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. He said Chicago needs to invest more in schools so it can “get away from a choice district” and reinvigorate neighborhood schools.

“We won’t accept austerity when we need expansive, bold fiduciary advocacy,” he said.

Pavlyn Jankov, another union official, suggested the district should also push for higher taxes for corporations and high earners in the city, acknowledging that raising property taxes now would be a “political flashpoint.”

Jianan Shi, the school board president, said board members are aligned with the mayor’s push for more school funding, nodding to financial pressures that the city and state also face.

“That’s not just Mayor Johnson’s north star,” he said. “It’s all of our north star.”

On Wednesday, during a meeting for the board to review its agenda for next week, neither Shi nor other board members made any comments or asked any questions about the budget. A second budget hearing is scheduled at Jones College Prep at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

At Tuesday’s hearing, more than a dozen union members addressed the board to demand that the district back union proposals for smaller class sizes, a librarian in every school, more special education support staff, updated curriculums, substitute-teacher pay increases, and other investments.

Some members decried the layoffs this spring of teaching assistants and other support staff. The district has committed to reassigning those employees to other schools or covering their salaries for the coming school year, but the union argues that the process is nevertheless disruptive for students.

Several charter leaders also addressed the board, requesting that it increase their schools’ budgets. They said that as with district-run schools, their communities are seeing an influx of English learners and other students with high needs. Overall funding for charters is up slightly, but many campuses with declining enrollment will experience steep cuts.

“Charter schools are part of the CPS portfolio and deserve to be funded equitably,” said Joanne Tanner, CEO of Civitas Education Partners, which runs the CICS charter network.

Martinez’ budget proposal includes more money for district-run campuses, extending a period of adding school staff and other spending powered by federal COVID relief dollars since the start of the pandemic. The district said a proposed $149 million increase in funding for schools is largely driven by increased services for students with disabilities, as well as modest boosts for charter schools and bilingual services.

The district is spending the final $233 million of its $2.8 billion in pandemic recovery funds this fiscal year. It is adding about 800 school-based positions — including 500 teachers — while eliminating about 40 central office and citywide support positions and freezing 200 vacant jobs in its district office.

“Despite some of our budget pressures, we are still investing in people,” the district’s chief budget officer, Michael Sitkowski, said at the Tuesday hearing. “That’s what drives our success.”

Overall, this year’s budget is slightly larger than last year’s because of an increase in capital spending, which comes after the district froze most projects and repairs last year to craft a longer-term blueprint for facility spending.

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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

Amid anxiety about Chicago charters’ fate, CPS proposes a slight overall budget boost

2024-07-15T11:00:00+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

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Melina Pereyra, a mom at the Acero charter network’s Cisneros campus, heard earlier this summer that her child’s Southwest Side school might cut staff.

She’d heard talk of city leaders’ disenchantment with school choice and of looming fiscal deficits tied to the end of federal COVID relief dollars. She worried: Would the district balance its budget on the backs of its charter schools?

But in a $9.9 billion proposed budget for next year released this week, Chicago Public Schools has avoided this approach. The district increased funding at charter schools by about 2.5% — even as some charters with shrinking enrollments are in line for steep cuts in the new budget blueprint.

This year, CPS overhauled budgeting for traditional campuses to deemphasize enrollment size and prioritize student needs. But for now, the district is sticking with so-called student-based budgeting for charters, which is more closely tied to enrollment; CPS says state requirements make it trickier to change budgeting for charter campuses. Yet as the district prepares a strategic plan to revitalize neighborhood schools, anxiety about how that vision will impact charters persists.

With roughly 55,000 students, charters serve about a fifth of Chicago’s public school student population. State law requires districts to provide charter schools money proportionate to what it spends at district-run campuses.

On a per-pupil basis, proposed funding for Chicago charters in the budget released this week grew less than 1% over last year, with average spending at about $16,200 per pupil, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Charter parents such as Pereyra have packed recent public forums on the upcoming strategic plan and school board meetings. The board appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson — a charter school critic and former teachers union official — has increased its scrutiny of charters and has given them shorter contract renewals.

“We feel like we are in limbo,” Pereyra said of charter parents. “We want to know now what’s the plan for charter schools.”

A Chalkbeat analysis of preliminary charter budgets in the new CPS fiscal proposal shows they tracked closely with enrollment. As with district-run schools, there was a slight enrollment uptick at charters overall last fall. Generally, charter enrollment stayed more stable during the pandemic than at district-run schools, where there have been steep declines in the number of students.

While some charters that saw an influx of students this past school year are projected to get robust budget boosts, others with declining enrollment face steep cuts of 30% or more.

Andrew Broy of the advocacy group Illinois Network of Charter Schools said his organization is analyzing the budget plan to ensure charter funding complies with state requirements.

He said his group has fielded calls from some schools that question the adequacy of their special education and bilingual learner allocations. Generally, he said, campuses that don’t occupy district-owned buildings — and therefore receive facility dollars — fare better.

Broy noted that since CPS is still negotiating contracts with its unions for principals and teachers, the impact of labor costs on the budget is still in flux.

“These initial figures do show a slight per-pupil increase, but that masks a lot of variation among our members,” he said. “Until they vote on the budget, nothing is set in stone. We’re always concerned about financial pressures on CPS.”

Broy said he would like to see the district include charters, which primarily serve Black and Latino students from low-income backgrounds, in its new budgeting approach that focuses more on student needs.

In a statement, CPS said that the district stuck with its student-based budgeting approach for charters due to state law. But the district does plan to transition charters away from the method at some point, the district’s statement said.

Several charter schools declined to discuss the specifics of their proposed budgets or did not respond to requests for comment. One charter official who asked not to be identified in order to speak more freely said he was largely reassured by his school’s allocation. Though base funding from the district essentially remained flat, his school would get increases in special education and bilingual dollars as it has come to serve more students with those needs.

“It seems like this year the places where we saw increases were more need-based,” he said.

Pereyra, the mother of a third grader at Acero’s Cisneros campus, said she heard about likely staff cuts while volunteering at the school in June. Proposed funding data shows the school’s budget would be cut by more than 10% this year, to about $6 million. That comes on the heels of steep cuts the previous year as well.

Pereyra was especially distraught that last year the school lost its dean of students, whom she described as “the connection between parents and the school.”

Acero did not respond to requests for comment.

These possible cuts come in the wake of a 15% decline in enrollment last year to about 350 students at Acero’s Cisneros campus. The students at the Cisneros campus are overwhelmingly Latino and from low-income backgrounds. About 60% are learning English. Pereyra said the school’s supportive environment remains the best fit for her son — and she worries about its future.

“I don’t want other people making that choice for me,” she said.

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

Chicago’s Mayor Johnson suggests CPS borrow to cover pension, contract costs

2024-07-12T22:15:54+00:00

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Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration floated a plan for Chicago Public Schools to borrow up to $300 million to help pay for increased salary and some pension costs next year, Chalkbeat has learned.

But CPS leadership balked at the idea — calling it a “fictional or phantom revenue source” — and pushed back on City Hall’s request, according to an internal memo obtained by Chalkbeat and multiple sources familiar with their discussions.

The internal CPS memo, dated July 8, outlines the risks of borrowing to pay for hypothetical 4% raises for teachers and principals and cover a $175 million pension payment that was shifted to the school district by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

If the district covered those raises and pension payments, the district’s projected deficit would grow to $933 million for next fiscal year, the memo said. Borrowing $300 million to pay for expenses this year “only shifts the problem” to the following year and will mean higher costs to pay off debt down the line, the memo said.

The mayor’s office did not comment on the suggestion to borrow money, but said in a statement that the district has limited options to close its budget gap. It said the mayor supports the “cost-saving measures and operational efficiencies,” but is not supportive of cuts to critical staff and is having conversations to solve the district’s financial challenges.

Loan suggestion comes amid CPS budget challenges

CPS had roughly $9.3 billion in outstanding debt as of June 1, and its debt-service obligations already divert hundreds of millions of dollars away from classrooms every year. Officials included more than $800 million in debt payments in the district’s proposed $9.9 billion operating budget announced earlier this week. The proposal would close a $505 million shortfall — driven largely by the end of federal COVID money — through cuts at the district’s central office and staffing, as well through restructuring some existing debt and federal grants.

The proposed budget does not include any new borrowing, or factor in the costs of new bargaining agreements that are being negotiated now, including with the Chicago Teachers Union.

Johnson blasted that budget proposal Thursday. In a statement Friday, his office said he supported how the district proposed to close its budget deficit and called the new school funding formula “promising,” but said there is “still more work to be done.”

The teachers union called the budget proposal “an act of make-believe.” The Board of Education is expected to vote on the budget proposal later this month.

Johnson, the teachers union, and CPS had unsuccessfully pushed state lawmakers to provide more money to the district in order to help close its funding gap. While state funding for Chicago schools has increased since 2017, CPS would need another $1 billion to be considered “adequately funded” under the state’s school funding formula. However, the internal memo notes that in the past, CPS used deficit spending “as a strategy to increase pressure on the state for additional state funding, but it never worked.”

A district spokesperson declined to comment on the loan suggestion, except to say that CPS has not taken on a loan to balance its budget.

“We will continue to collaborate with City leaders, our labor, civic and community partners, to find solutions to the long-standing public education funding challenges so we can best support our students’ continued success,” CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said in a statement.

The union also took issue this week with the district’s overall proposed budget.

“As we review this budget proposal, it is clear that CPS leadership has failed to take steps to guarantee our students and their families what they need to dream, achieve and thrive,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said in a statement Wednesday.

Earlier in the month, the union decried layoffs of at least 330 of its members amid a new approach to how the district funds its schools. Those members will likely be rehired at other schools, but the layoffs caused disruption for teachers and school communities, CTU said.

The union did not comment specifically on the issue of a loan. In a statement, Vice President Jackson Potter said CPS CEO Pedro Martinez is “shirking his responsibility” to build a budget that provides a quality education, especially for families on the South and West sides, and the union expects CPS, the city, and state “to find real solutions and work together to craft a budget that provides stability, equity, and quality.”

The principals union said in a statement that City Hall’s suggestion for a loan “is not the answer.” The union also expressed concern that officials are estimating an $8 million cost for its contract, given that negotiations are ongoing.

The union said that the current budget is partly driven by the burden of previous borrowing, and that budget obligations “should not be satisfied on the backs of our students.”

Past pension cost shift at center of disagreement over borrowing

City Hall’s suggestion that CPS borrow money is tied in part to pension payments for the retirement of CPS staff that are not teachers through the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, according to the July 8 CPS memo. The city used to cover this cost through its own budget, but Lightfoot began shifting that cost to CPS, starting with a $60 million payment in 2020, a move that Johnson and the CTU criticized at the time.

Now, under Johnson as mayor, City Hall wants CPS to cover $175 million of the pension payments, the memo says. That’s the same amount the district contributed last year.

In addition to the pension payments, the suggested borrowing would help cover $120 million in increased costs associated with a new Chicago Teachers Union contract. Another $8 million would be for costs related to the first contract under Chicago’s new principals union, the memo says. Both contracts are still in negotiations.

In all, under City Hall’s proposed loan plan, the district would take on $284 million in new expenses to be covered with borrowed money that would be paid off over the next 20 years.

In the memo, which analyzes City Hall’s proposal for the Board of Education, district officials warned that while borrowing money could solve an immediate problem, the district is still projecting deficits in future fiscal years.

Taking out a loan could also damage the district’s already low bond ratings, the memo said. Even with recent rating upgrades, CPS is still “the largest junk bond issuer in the United States,” according to the memo.

A low bond rating is similar to a bad credit score. It makes it more expensive for the district to borrow money to fund its capital budget, which is used to improve or build new school facilities, the memo said.

“This could be thought of as putting your credit card payments that you can no longer afford on your mortgage payments,” the memo said. “It allows cash to be freed up for other expenses, but it seeds a costly legacy of future amounts of larger debt to be paid back and it does not solve the issue of being fiscally responsible.”

The memo is accurate about the impact of taking out a loan to cover operating costs, said Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization, who is also Chicago’s former inspector general.

Additionally, it’s not clear how CPS would balance its budget in future years, given the increased borrowing costs, Ferguson noted. The type of loan described in the memo is akin to a payday loan, where interest rates are very high, he said.

“One of the ironies here is that, CPS — long derided and criticized for irresponsible practices — in this moment is endeavoring to be the responsible actor,” by closing its deficit through various cuts and debt restructuring, Ferguson said.

Chicago Public Schools has a long history of borrowing to pay expenses, including risky bond deals during the 2000s that saddled the system with more long-term debt. The Chicago Teachers Union became a vocal critic of the district’s borrowing practices after the Chicago Tribune’s reporting on the issue in 2014.

When the district faced deficits between the 2014 and 2017 fiscal years, CPS borrowed money to cover operating expenses since administrations at the time didn’t want to cut costs. The district owes $3.7 billion in principal and interest payments for that borrowing, the memo said.

The recently proposed budget is about 75% larger than a decade ago, when CPS had a $5.6 billion operating budget. Johnson has lobbied board members to approve the loan plan, but the board “is remaining firm in their pushback,” according to one source with knowledge of the conversations.

Chalkbeat Chicago Bureau Chief Becky Vevea contributed.

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

Chicago Public Schools proposes $9.9 billion budget for next school year

2024-07-11T01:21:07+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is proposing a $9.9 billion budget for next school year that closes a roughly half-billion-dollar deficit mainly by cutting central office expenses — but does not yet include raises for teachers and principals whose unions are negotiating new contracts with the district.

The proposed budget includes a $149 million increase in funding for schools, driven by a $62 million increase for services for students with disabilities, as well as increases for charter schools and bilingual services, according to a district news release.

A spike in the capital spending plan — to $611 million — accounts for nearly all of the overall budget growth over last year’s $9.4 billion budget. In last year’s budget, district leaders budgeted an unusually low $155 million for buildings and put most projects on hold while they developed a long-term infrastructure blueprint.

CPS said it closed its budget gap by cutting $197 million at its central office departments, including for academic and operational costs. It also tapped additional federal and other grants, restructured its debt and reduced its short-term borrowing costs, and cut central office staff.

Budget data shows the district is proposing to eliminate 37 positions it describes as “citywide student support,” seven central office employees, and a school administrator. A central office hiring freeze will affect 200 positions, according to a spokesperson. Meanwhile, the district is adding another 800 school-based positions for the fall, including about 500 teachers.

“This budget very clearly puts teaching and learning front and center where it belongs,” said CPS CEO Pedro Martinez in a statement.

In a strongly worded statement, the Chicago Teachers Union criticized the draft budget, calling Martinez’s leadership “inadequate.” It faulted him for prioritizing a “fiscally responsible” image and for passing up on “opportunities for partnership and transformation presented by ongoing bargaining” with the union, though it did not specify what these opportunities might be. This past spring, Martinez and union leaders traveled to Springfield to jointly lobby state lawmakers for additional funding, but the push delivered only a fraction of the dollars CPS requested.

The details released by CPS Wednesday mark the first time the district has shared dollar amounts and comparisons to previous spending for its proposed budget. The proposal comes at a time when the district faces growing financial and political pressures. And it will likely need to be amended once district officials reach new contract agreements with the Chicago Teachers Union and the principals union, and the costs of educator salaries and benefits are finalized.

The district revised its deficit projection from nearly $400 million to $505 million due to rising health care costs and expenses on students with disabilities.

For the past four years, CPS benefited from $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief dollars. A Chalkbeat analysis earlier this year found roughly 7% of school budgets were supported by federal COVID dollars. The proposed budget released Wednesday spends the remaining $233 million in COVID aid.

And earlier this year, CPS unveiled a controversial new process for allocating money to each of its 500 campuses. It’s replacing the previous student-based budgeting system with one that focuses on baseline staffing positions. It used an Opportunity Index — a metric that combines student demographics, neighborhood characteristics, and other factors — to calculate these extra dollars.

Officials said that the approach resulted in more equitable budgets across the city. However, some magnet and selective enrollment programs said they ended up with tighter budgets that will make it hard to continue providing their distinctive programming.

The budget unveiled by the district Wednesday comes roughly a month later than usual in the cycle, and after the start of the fiscal year. Martinez has said that because of the new approach to budgeting for schools, officials wanted to take extra time to double-check their work and communicate with campuses and others.

The district said Wednesday that its student enrollment grew by more than 4,700 students during the course of this past school year to about 328,000 students. Enrollment grew slightly last fall amid the arrivals of thousands of migrant families after a decade of sharp declines.

The district noted Wednesday that compared with a year ago, it’s serving 12,000 more students who don’t have a stable place to live, 10,000 more English learners, and 4,000 additional students with disabilities.

The district released data on school budgets in late May, but it only included numbers of staff positions instead of dollar amounts as in previous years, making comparisons to the 2023-24 school year difficult.

District leaders had vowed to keep school funding steady or even increase it, saying that’s crucial to keep the momentum on a post-pandemic academic recovery, especially in reading, for which Chicago has gotten some national recognition.

The union negotiations mark another wrinkle for the budget proposal.

In the past, the school board has voted on an amended budget after a contract agreement was settled. Earlier this month, the union held a press conference to decry layoffs of about 330 support staffers it represents, even as the district vowed that it would rehire them and another 270 or so laid-off employees for positions on other campuses, or pay their salaries during the coming school year.

In an email update to parents this week, Martinez said CPS is reviewing more than 700 proposals submitted by the teachers union in April. But he pointed to no specific agreements so far, aside from a memorandum of understanding guaranteeing support staffer positions or pay. The district’s previous contract with educators expired at the end of June.

The district said Wednesday that it would adjust the budget to reflect added personnel costs after it reaches contract deals with the teachers union and a recently formed principals union.

The school board is slated to vote on the budget at its regular July 25 meeting. The district will host hearings on both its overall and capital budget next week.

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

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

Illinois revenue from a tax on corporate profits is projected to decline. Here’s what that means for school districts.

2024-07-09T19:04:48+00:00

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Illinois public school districts benefited from an uptick in a local tax on corporate profits in recent years. But the surge in revenue is expected to end, leaving school officials to grapple with tighter budgets.

The shift comes as federal COVID recovery money dries up, and local education advocates fear that the recent addition of $350 million to the state’s education budget isn’t enough to match the needs of schools.

The state’s evidence-based funding uses data from previous years, which means districts that saw unexpected gains from this unique tax on local businesses could receive fewer state dollars in the future. As districts finalize their budget for this upcoming school year, those receiving fewer state dollars will have to figure out how to fill in the gaps.

According to a new research brief by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, revenue from the tax — known as Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax, or CPPRT — more than doubled between 2020 and 2023 from $1.5 billion to more than $3 billion. The spike happened because more people were spending money, inflation was high, and many businesses raised prices, the report said.

The additional money meant more school districts came closer to what the state considers adequately funded. The report said revenue from the tax on corporate profits helped bridge the gap between state funding and local funding for districts by $1.9 billion.

Now, the state is projecting that revenue surge will end. But the state’s funding formula for K-12 schools will continue to report that districts are getting more local dollars than they actually are because CPPRT revenue is two calendar years behind the current fiscal year. For instance, the amount of revenue a district collected for fiscal year 2025 is calculated from calendar year 2023.

Elaine Gaberik, research associate at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and co-author of the report, said this is a major concern for districts. The lag time will throw off the state’s evidence-based funding formula calculation, making it seem as though many school districts are closer to being adequately funded when they may not be, she said.

“While those funds were great, they’re not expected to continue,” she said.

Chicago Public Schools was one of many school districts that got less additional state funding in recent years, in part, due to the boost in revenue from the tax on corporate profits. In 2022, the district was recategorized as having less need by the state’s funding formula and received fewer new state dollars for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

A spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools said in a recent statement to Chalkbeat that while the district is dealing with multiple budget challenges such as the end of COVID-19 relief funds and less local and state funding, the district is trying to keep cuts away from classrooms.

“The district has implemented a new school funding formula for school year 2024-25 with a focus on maintaining services and priority investments while identifying additional revenues and spending efficiencies throughout the district’s $9.4 billion budget,” the statement read.

Chicago has yet to release their overall district budget, which is usually announced in June. However, the district released school level budgets that show 150 schools are expected to have fewer staff members.

Rockford School District 205, located in Northern Illinois, also saw a jump in revenue from the tax on corporate profits and was reclassified by the state as needing fewer state dollars to fund schools.

In 2024, Rockford saw a drop in state funding when compared to 2023. The district had about 5% fewer low-income students and saw an increase of 102% in CPPRT revenue. The district received almost $5.9 million more than they expected in fiscal year 2024 when compared to 2023. Rockford got a roughly $8.8 million increase in 2023, but in 2024 state dollars only increased $2.9 million, according to state data.

Greg Brown, the district’s chief financial officer said his department had to really “sharpen their pencil” to figure out a balanced budget. The district will postpone buying new buses and will not be able to backfill school staff positions, he said.

Brown said due to some past planning, the district is in a stable financial position this year, but he worries about the 2025-26 school year.

“The state is already talking about potentially not having the same kind of funding levels going forward,” said Brown. He said Rockford officials will start preparing for what the 2025-26 school year budget might look like in the fall.

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.

Chicago’s Opportunity Index takes center stage in school budget drama

2024-06-17T10:00:00+00:00

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Cheryl Connor, the mother of three students at Sabin Dual Language Magnet School, first heard of Chicago Public Schools’ Opportunity Index this spring when she learned her Northwest Side campus faced a tighter budget for the coming school year.

The district overhauled its approach to budgeting this year, aiming to downplay enrollment size as a factor, provide all schools with certain base positions – and steer more dollars to schools serving the city’s most vulnerable students. The index, which factors student demographics, neighborhood metrics, and historical funding data into a single score, is the tool officials used to quantify each school’s level of need.

Giving more to schools that need more is a worthy goal, some experts said. But it comes at a complicated time, as the district faces enrollment instability and a deficit brought on by the end of federal COVID recovery money, meaning officials are taking from some campuses to give others a boost.

The budget shift is especially challenging to pull off in a district with both large campuses and a growing number of very small schools, experts said.

First designed in 2021, Chicago’s Opportunity Index came under newly intense scrutiny this spring after it took center stage in setting student-to-teacher ratios and discretionary funding in school budgets. District leaders and some principals have hailed the index as an innovative tool that is allowing Chicago to rectify long-standing campus funding inequities.

But some parents and school leaders have questioned whether their schools’ scores fairly reflect their needs — and argued district officials haven’t done enough to demystify the formula for families and even principals.

At Sabin, Connor applauded the district’s equity goal. But, she wondered, didn’t her own school have higher needs than its middle-of-the-pack Opportunity Index number would suggest? It’s in well-off Wicker Park, but it draws largely low-income students of color from outside the neighborhood, including a recent influx of migrant students.

“To figure out which schools have more needy families and need more support — that’s a great idea,” Connor said. “I don’t think it worked out for Sabin.”

Chicago Public Schools officials said this week the district, which faces an almost $400 million deficit, will delay the release of its full budget until after the start of the fiscal year in July. That will allow more time to “do further diligence since the budget model is new and being implemented for the first time.”

How was the Opportunity Index created?

Under former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, the district’s then-new Office of Equity set out to develop a way to capture gaps in access to opportunities for students. On the eve of the pandemic, the district used a neighborhood “hardship index” developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago to allocate so-called “equity grants” at campuses grappling with major enrollment declines.

But the district still wanted to come up with its own metric reflecting school demographics and needs.

So officials approached the University of Illinois Chicago for help. Timothy Imeokparia, the associate director of research and planning at UIC’s Great Cities Institute, said he and others did extensive research to weigh in on a list of metrics the district was considering. CPS officials incorporated some of that feedback into the new index, such as including a metric that gives extra points to racially segregated schools, where research shows students tend to do worse.

But officials didn’t take other suggestions. For instance, researchers didn’t think community life expectancy is particularly relevant to the experience of children, and they recommended considering other key factors such as parents’ education level, Imeokparia said.

In the end, CPS settled on 12 indicators. Schools get between one and five points for each indicator. Added together, each campus is given an index score between 12 and 60. Explore Opportunity Index data for all schools here.

The district unveiled the Opportunity Index in 2021 as part of its pandemic recovery plan dubbed “Moving Forward Together,” which spelled out how CPS would distribute $500 million of the $2.8 billion it got in federal COVID relief money.

When the district rolled out its new way of calculating school budgets this spring, it was clear the Opportunity Index would play a much higher-stakes role. For example, elementary schools with high scores would get one teacher for every 22 students while those with lower ones get an educator for every 26 students. A higher index also means more discretionary money principals can spend as they see fit and better odds of receiving an instructional coach, a restorative justice coordinator, and an additional counselor, among other support positions.

Is the Opportunity Index capturing all of a school’s needs?

Connor, the local school council head at Sabin Dual Language Magnet, says she feels the index didn’t adequately capture her campus’s needs.

Take the portion of students who qualify for Medicaid but are not enrolled in the program — the higher the number, the more points a school gets for its index. Connor said in recent years, parents and staff at the school went all-out in a bid to ensure eligible families enroll in the health coverage program. Now, Connor said it feels as though the district is penalizing the school for these efforts — and creating a disincentive to encourage more district families to enroll.

Or take the portion of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Connor says the district used a percentage captured before the school’s deadline for collecting income forms from families, when staffers were still scrambling to gather that information.

More generally, experts have said that the metric is becoming a less reliable measure of poverty, amid a growing number of universal lunch programs such as Chicago’s and immigrant concerns about providing income information.

All in all, Sabin’s index of 30 places the school in the same group as elementaries with much smaller portions of students of color, low-income, and homeless students, Connor said. Drummond, a nearby magnet school, has an only slightly lower index. With a student body that’s roughly half white, Drummond serves 14% low-income students compared to Sabin’s almost 90%, and 8% English learners compared to Sabin’s almost 30%.

Under the calculation, Connor said, Sabin was slated to receive six fewer teachers this year. The district provided another three educators after school leaders appealed to the budget office. That’s something the district did for dozens of other schools: The formula didn’t work for some campuses, sometimes failing to provide enough educators to staff all classrooms. Still, Sabin has to use all but $20,000 of its discretionary funds to save the other three positions. That means it might need to charge students to play sports, among other changes.

A Chalkbeat analysis of Opportunity Index and staffing allocations in the 2024-25 school budgets the district released in late May shows that for the schools with the highest and lowest indexes, the metric seemed predictive of staffing changes: Campuses with the highest indexes tended to get extra staff in next year’s budgets compared with staffing levels last summer, and those with the lowest indexes tended to gain fewer staff, or even lose positions.

When looking at schools in the middle of the pack, however, the relationship between a school’s Opportunity Index and staffing becomes less clear, especially at the high school level.

Across the board, there are numerous examples of high-index schools that will lose positions, and schools with lower indexes that will gain some, as enrollment continues to play a role in budgets.

One elementary principal said he felt the district was responsive to school leader concerns and generally rounded up staffing numbers when campuses were near the cutoff based on their opportunity indexes. His school got a second interventionist — an educator who works closely with struggling students — thanks to the formula.

“I’ve been on the negative side of budgets for a long time,” he said. “To me, it feels like a relief.”

Overall, at least 150 of Chicago’s more than 500 district-run public schools will see staffing cuts in the fall, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis.

A CPS spokesperson said comparing staffing levels to the previous year “does not properly reflect resources allocated to our schools,” because principals used to have much more discretion over staffing, and now schools get a set number of staff positions. The district has vowed that overall staff in schools and funding in school budgets won’t go down.

Has the district done enough to explain its index?

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said concerns about school budgets have come from a relatively small number of “outlier” campuses, often selective enrollment schools with a wide range of elective courses.

One principal said it doesn’t make sense that metrics shaping a school’s experience in a profound way, such as student poverty, are given the same weight in the Opportunity Index as other factors that seem a step removed, such as community life expectancy.

In a district with both tiny and packed schools, low-income students might represent a relatively small portion of all students on some large campuses but still be a fairly sizable group: “Poor students in a large richer school can end up with too few resources.”

Some say the district needs to do more communication and engagement around the index.

One school leader said they traveled to a national education conference in San Diego with roughly a dozen principals in April and attended a session with the district’s chief education officer, Bogdana Chkoumbova. She presented on Chicago’s equity efforts in a conversation with Nick Freeman, a former Chicago Public Schools data strategist who had gone on to co-found Innovare, a company the district enlisted to design an Opportunity Index dashboard.

Some of the principals were taken aback because they had never gotten the detailed look at how the index was calculated that the San Diego presentation offered.

“Principals had been asking these questions for a while,” the principal who spoke with Chalkbeat on a condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the district to talk with the press said. “It makes no sense that we are presenting this work to people outside the district when people within the district directly affected by it have never seen it.”

Kia Banks, the chief of staff of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association and the principal at Vanderpoel Humanities Academy, a magnet on Chicago’s South Side, said she wishes school leaders had gotten training on the index and a chance to review the metrics with district officials.

She feels her school’s index reflects the school’s wealthier Beverly neighborhood, even as it draws students from across the South Side. The school received points for serving an almost entirely Black student body, but it has no English learners and relatively small number of students with disabilities, which lowered its score.

Overall, the district’s budget shift left Banks with much less flexibility than in previous years and a tight discretionary pot after she dipped into it to preserve a dean of students position.

Those are concerns the association — the district’s school leader union — heard from its members more broadly, said Troy LaRaviere, the president of CPAA: “As we talk about which schools are getting more, we are missing the big picture that none of these schools are getting enough.”

District said it plans to continue using the index to improve funding equity.

“This strategic allocation helps create more equitable school budgets, ultimately fostering stronger and healthier school communities for all students,” the district said in a statement.

A number of other large urban districts, such as Boston and Los Angeles, have introduced their own indexes for capturing schools’ needs in recent years, though often used more narrowly, said Qubilah Huddleston, an expert on equitable school funding at the think tank Education Trust.

The nonprofit published a 2022 study showing that more often than not, districts across the country still budget in a way that doesn’t fully take into account diverging student needs, leaving high-need schools at a disadvantage.

But Huddleston said the shift can be challenging in this moment of financial instability. In Washington, D.C.,the district also tried out a budget model that provided a base number of staff for each school. But in a district that, like Chicago, has both severely underenrolled and large schools, the shift was rocky, and eventually, D.C. embraced a more hybrid budgeting formula.

“Districts are really hamstrung in pursuing multiple goals,” said Huddleston. “These formulas are designed to improve equity. The challenge is when you don’t have enough kids in the building.”

Huddleston said she also has concerns about private fundraising playing a larger part in closing budget gaps — traditionally, a symbol of funding inequities nationally. Chicago district officials have said campuses can lean on their “Friends of” groups and other fundraising to supplement budgets.

Imeokparia, the UIC professor who consulted on the index, said a flurry of efforts in some districts to push more resources to high-needs schools in the 1980s and ‘90s often fizzled out. They generated political backlash as better-off schools saw tighter budgets and as districts often struggled to show payoff, such as higher high school graduation rates, for campuses that got a boost.

Sticking with these efforts requires political will to weather pushback to taking from some schools to give more to others — and ideally an influx in funding to avoid doing that altogether, Imeokparia said.

“I think it’s a useful tool,” he said. “But the index is just a number. It’s up to the political system to come up with solutions to problems.”

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

Could ‘newcomer liaisons’ help migrant students struggling in Chicago schools?

2024-06-11T11:00:00+00:00

This story was co-published with Block Club Chicago.

A couple months after enrolling, a few dozen migrant students were struggling to adjust to life at Kenwood Academy on the South Side.

The teens had landed in a school where few people speak Spanish, their native language, and the classrooms they were put in were “a mess,” teacher Maggie Ritthaler said.

“Kids were throwing things, punching each other, playing around — and the teacher was barely speaking Spanish,” Ritthaler said.

Ritthaler and another teacher, Zachary Hill, made it their mission to help: The two Spanish-speakers moved their schedules around to teach classes of migrant kids and got their principal to hire part-time student teachers.

Still, about 85% of Kenwood’s students are Black, and the school hasn’t historically served many students whose first language isn’t English. So the newcomers still aren’t getting the language help and emotional support they need, the teachers said.

“We provide a safe home base for them in school, but at the same time, the needs they come in with are more than we are prepared for or licensed for, or that we have resources for,” Ritthaler said.

In May, a Block Club and Chalkbeat investigation found many migrant students are landing in segregated schools like Kenwood with few if any bilingual resources. The so-called “language deserts,” concentrated on the city’s South and West sides, have left many migrant kids feeling lost in school while teachers scramble to meet their needs.

Gabriela Ruiz, 12, — from Venezuela — sets off for school from her South Shore apartment in April. She and her family were featured in a Block Club and Chalkbeat investigation into challenges faced by migrant students and their families.

But experts and teachers union leaders say the district could help the migrant students with a different approach: hiring “newcomer liaisons.” As envisioned by the Chicago Teachers Union, the liaisons would help ease the burden on teachers and other school employees who, in addition to their regular duties, are managing newcomer students’ behavioral and emotional needs while also helping them find health care and clothes.

The liaisons would also provide language support to migrant students who are enrolled in schools where few people speak Spanish, such as Laura S. Ward Elementary School in West Humboldt Park, where a kindergarten teacher and two custodians are translating for the whole building, Block Club and Chalkbeat found.

School districts across the country have been able to help migrant students with liaisons, said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, who leads the National Newcomer Network, a coalition of educators, researchers, and advocates that works to address newcomer student inequity.

While it will take a lot more to overcome the Chicago Public Schools’ long history of failing English learner and immigrant students, the liaisons would be a step in the right direction, she said.

“You get these newcomer liaisons in sooner rather than later and they can help,” Vázquez Baur said. “Students can at least get in the best programs for them, [they can be] aware of their options, their rights are upheld, things are translated and interpreted for them so they can make the best decisions for their futures.”

A go-between for migrant families and schools

Under the Chicago Teachers Union proposal, “newcomer liaisons” would be in charge of migrant student enrollment, programming, communication between families and teachers, and other duties that require bilingual services, like translating Local School Council meetings, union leaders said.

Those duties currently fall to teachers like Ritthaler and Hill who have a myriad of other responsibilities. Ritthaler is a Spanish teacher who chairs Kenwood’s world language department, while Hill is the school’s English language program teacher.

“What usually happens is [those teachers] are trying to do that either in their off time or they’re not providing the required services to kids because they’re doing those things,” said Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 Education Research at the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy.

A class at Erie Elementary Charter School in Humboldt Park, a dual-language school with nearly 50 newcomer students.

In other school districts that use the approach, liaisons are “local folks, maybe parents, maybe community advocates” who can communicate with new families and explain their rights, but don’t necessarily need teacher certifications, Vázquez Baur said.

Other districts have used a patchwork of funding — local, state, and federal dollars — to cover the program, experts said.

Union leaders didn’t answer specific questions about their proposal.

CPS officials also didn’t respond to questions, saying only that the district has received the union’s proposals and is reviewing them.

A list of the district’s initial proposals does not include “newcomer liaisons.”

The district needs ‘more bilingual support on every level’

“Liaisons” alone won’t be able to fix all the problems faced by under-resourced schools serving newcomers.

As of April, nearly 9,000 migrant students — many of them fleeing turmoil in South and Central American countries — had enrolled with the Chicago Public Schools. The vast majority of the new students don’t speak English and are living in temporary housing. Many have spent limited time in school and are grade levels behind for their ages.

Thousands of migrant families are getting apartments in historically Black neighborhoods like South Shore and Austin through a state rental assistance program. From there, children are enrolling at schools that haven’t historically served students whose first language isn’t English.

In addition to a lack of language support, many families are struggling with long commutes and are unaware of their rights and options, Block Club and Chalkbeat found.

All of this comes after the district has struggled for years to fully comply with state and federal laws around bilingual education.

Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates said newcomer families are experiencing “what it feels like to be a Black family in Chicago public schools.”

Segregated Black schools on the South and West Sides, where many migrant students have landed, have for years faced declining enrollment and a dearth of resources, the union said in a written statement. Meanwhile, some Latino schools have seen their budgets slashed in recent years as a lack of affordable housing has led to declines in enrollment.

“This is the context for the influx of newcomer students — a reflection of how CPS has lacked funding and support for Black and Brown students, and why this is so key to our contract negotiations,” union leaders said in their statement.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates introduces Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson after he won the mayoral runoff on April 4, 2023.

Those negotiations are the CTU’s first since the election of Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former organizer for the union. Adding resources for migrant students is one of the union’s key demands.

The union is asking for “more bilingual support on every level,” the union statement said.

On top of “newcomer liaisons,” the union is pushing for more bilingual and multilingual teachers; more dual-language programs, which offer English learners and native English speakers instruction in Spanish and English; and an expansion of the district’s Sustainable Community Schools model.

Launched in 2018, that initiative enlists community organizations to bring programs and services to high-poverty schools struggling with low enrollment.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez speaks at a press conference at Roberto Clemente Community Academy before the opening of a pilot CPS welcome center for newly arriving families on July 17, 2023.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said the district wants to expand dual-language programs, and Mayor Brandon Johnson named growing sustainable community schools as a top priority for his administration.

The union also wants “staffing and support for language access needs around early education, IEPs, guest teachers, clinicians, access to Pre-K and other high-needs areas,” along with “training and support from the Board of Education for migrant students on a yearly basis, including funding for immigration support,” according to a list provided by the union.

Union leaders didn’t respond to questions asking for more information about these proposals. The union’s current contract expires at the end of June.

‘The most traumatic journey they’ll ever go through’

Calls for more support for migrant students come as the district faces a large budget shortfall for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

With pandemic relief dollars drying up, the district is facing a nearly $400 million budget deficit while the state has its own financial challenges.

Lawmakers recently approved a state budget with an increase of $350 million for K-12 funding, the minimum under the law and $200 million less than education advocates had asked for. And the General Assembly didn’t approve a proposal that would’ve sent more money to school districts that have received an influx of migrant students.

CPS officials have said they’re trying to cut expenses at the district’s central office, but Martinez recently told reporters they’re still figuring out how to close the deficit.

Kenwood Academy on April 24, 2024.

At Kenwood, Ritthaler and Hill are wrapping up the school year exhausted and demoralized.

They spent the year “in survival mode,” scrambling to find Spanish-language activities and assignments, distributing donated clothes and food and providing counseling.

“We’re receiving these kids who’ve just gone through the most traumatic journey they’ll ever go through, and we’re kinda just plopping them into biology class,” Ritthaler said.

“This isn’t just getting 30 new students. This is 30 new students who are coming from a completely new world … and we’re not equipped to serve them the best way they need to be served.”

Mina Bloom is an investigative reporter for Block Club Chicago. Contact Mina at mina@blockclubchi.org.

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

At least 150 Chicago schools set to lose staff next school year

2024-05-28T23:40:25+00:00

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At least 150 Chicago Public Schools will have fewer staff positions next school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of school budget documents released by the district Tuesday.

The shifts in school staff are coming despite a new funding formula meant to more equitably fund schools and provide set staffing levels, as district leaders work to close a major budget deficit and grapple with the end of federal COVID relief money.

Still, district leaders said Tuesday that they’re optimistic about the new budget formula, and that CPS will guarantee a job elsewhere in the district for teachers who are losing their current positions due to budget cuts.

“The new budget model accomplishes what we set out to do: To provide more to our high needs schools with foundational resources that they haven’t had before,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters during a press briefing on school budgets.

Officials have said the new formula is meant to support schools with more needs and those that have suffered for years from a vicious cycle of dwindling enrollment leading to less money and support.

The changes come as the district is projecting a $391 million deficit next fiscal year, which begins July 1. District officials had hoped for more money from the state. But a state budget deal passed by the Illinois Senate over the weekend does not provide the windfall to CPS that Mayor Brandon Johnson, district officials, and the teachers union lobbied for.

District officials have cautioned against comparing budgets year over year because of the new changed formula. They did not share dollar amounts associated with each budget.

Instead, the district released data showing how many staffers each school would get next year under the new formula, which provides a guaranteed number of staff — such as core teachers, principals, and assistant principals — and discretionary funding for all schools. The new formula then increases those resources based on a school’s need depending on multiple factors, such as the number of students from low-income backgrounds or the surrounding community’s characteristics.

District officials said they could not yet confirm Chalkbeat’s analysis. Mary Ann Fergus, a CPS spokesperson, said final spending amounts at schools will depend on who schools are able to hire and how staffing will change throughout the year. She added that the district expects to add a total of 200 more teachers next school year and will add several new positions, such as restorative justice coordinators for high-needs schools.

New budget formula’s impact on schools varies

The formula’s impact on school budgets depends on how you look at the data.

When comparing the new budget information for next year to staffing levels from last June, when the current school year budget was approved, 68% of district schools — or 339 — would see an increase of at least one part-time staffer. Another 32% — or close to 160 schools — would lose at least one part-time position.

But when comparing the newly proposed budgets to the latest staffing rosters as of March 30, more than half of district schools — 269 schools — would lose at least one part-time staffer, while another 41% — or 207 — would gain staffing. Another 27 schools would experience no change.

Martinez said budgets can change throughout the year as schools add and subtract positions.

When looking at March staffing levels — the most recent numbers available — Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School on the city’s Near West Side would lose the most. Crane, which enrolled 264 students at the start of the school year, would lose about 14 of its nearly 60 staffers next year compared to this past March, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis.

On the flip side, Douglass High School in the west side neighborhood of Austin — where just 35 students were enrolled this year — would get the largest increase. It’s slated to add nine people to its staff of 23.

The budgets have been made public one month before the Chicago Board of Education is scheduled to vote to approve them. It also comes almost two months after Local School Councils started voting on individual school budgets — and after CPS denied multiple open records requests from Chalkbeat and other news outlets for school-by-school budget information.

The budget numbers the district released on Tuesday did not include information about the city’s roughly 120 charter schools, which serve about 50,000 students. It’s not clear how the district’s new approach to budgeting will affect those campuses and their staffing levels. Charters have long been funded through a per-student allocation.

The district’s shift to a new funding formula is “years” in the making, officials said. The old student-based budgeting formula was more squarely focused on student enrollment, with some increases for schools serving more students with high needs. Under that formula, schools received funding that principals could use flexibly to hire staff or pay for extra programming.

Now, schools will instead be allocated specific staff positions, plus additional discretionary funding that principals can use flexibly.

Martinez said the budgets for schools with “very low poverty rates” that have had many elective classes are “definitely tighter.” He said some of those schools had “very small class sizes” that were scrutinized sizes in order to “be responsible to our taxpayers.”

“It is those schools that have higher poverty, higher needs, they are definitely getting a lot more resources, but it’s not even just more resources,” Martinez said. “It’s actually frankly, finally setting the next best standard and a foundation that we have never had before.”

William Klee, CPS’s deputy chief of schools, said he’s heard from several principals at schools with “historic enrollment declines” that can “for the first time in recent memory” avoid cuts and increase programming. Klee added that principals “like that they can hire the best teacher for any position without worrying if they can afford the salary.”

School leaders share new formula’s pros and cons

Schools, including those in higher income neighborhoods, have reported losing staff for next school year. Others are anticipating more teachers and smaller class sizes, but are also seeing cuts to support staff, such as additional clerks. Thirty-seven schools that appealed their budgets ultimately received more teachers, district data shows.

One principal, who serves on a district school leader advisory group, said the district’s new formula left that leader’s school a few educators short of the number needed to avoid excessively large classes in some grades. But the principal, who spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously because the district had not authorized the interview, also said district officials provided extra positions once the school alerted them to the issue.

The principal said overall the new formula brings more clarity to the budgeting process. For instance, the approach clearly spells out the amount of discretionary dollars from a federal fund schools can use to recruit teachers and reduce class sizes — and how the district arrived at it. In previous years, the principal said that number sometimes wildly fluctuated from year to year.

“No one knew where that number came from,” the school leader said. “There was no rhyme or reason to it.”

But the proposed budgets have also come under criticism from some school leaders who say a loss of funding and positions will hurt distinctive programming.

In a letter sent to Martinez and other district leaders last week and shared with Chalkbeat, Kathleen Murphy, the head of the local school council at LaSalle II Magnet School, said the campus is slated to lose four out of its six foreign language teachers even as the school is still expected to offer four different language programs. That means the campus has to either significantly increase language class sizes, Murphy said, curtail its language offerings, or steer resources away from core classes such as math and reading.

“Decimating those language programs now, by taking away two-thirds of their funding, is doing untold damage to the educational programs LaSalle II and the other magnet world language academies have developed over the last 15-20 years,” Murphy wrote.

Correction: May 29, 2024: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of CPS’s deputy chief of schools. His name is William Klee.

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 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.

Chicago Public Schools CEO defends new budget formula as schools consider next year’s funding

2024-04-26T02:27:04+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools officials defended the district’s new school funding formula Thursday night after some school communities raised concerns about losing staff next year.

The new formula allocates staff and funding based on need and replaces a system that relied more heavily on raw student enrollment. It represents an “important milestone in a long and broad struggle to improve quality of education for all of Chicago’s children, especially those farthest from opportunity,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said during a Board of Education meeting held at Chicago Vocational Career Academy High School that drew at least 100 people.

Martinez noted that the change is the product of long-term advocacy from the community for equitable funding to all schools. Advocates for a needs-based formula, which includes the Chicago Teachers Union, argue that such a formula can provide more support for schools that have high needs and are in need of support as they lose enrollment.

But Martinez also acknowledged that CPS is not “going to get everything 100 percent perfect” and is working through budget concerns at some individual schools.

In recent weeks, some educators and parents at selective enrollment and magnet schools have said that their schools’ proposed budgets would include fewer staffers next year under the new formula, which provides at least 10 teachers at every school and increases staff and discretionary funding based on the school’s needs.

Some have also pushed for more transparency around the new formula, asking the district to release each school’s preliminary budget proposal to the public. School budgets are not yet final and must be approved by their Local School Councils. Martinez said the district will release school budgets in late May.

Some schools have reported seeing an increase in their discretionary funding, which can be used to fund more staff and other programs, under the new formula.

But even the Chicago Teachers Union, which supported eliminating the student-based budgeting formula, has concerns.

Christel Williams, the union’s recording secretary, told the board Thursday that the union is concerned the new formula doesn’t specifically guarantee schools certain paraprofessional positions, such as teacher assistants.

WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times also reported this week that two-thirds of selective enrollment and magnet schools appear to be seeing cuts in their initial budgets.

Martinez said that no one school type will be disproportionately impacted by the budget changes. Some in the crowd of at least 100 people yelled, “That’s not true.”

Martinez asked the crowd to let him finish, then said: “By far overall what we’re seeing is more equity, especially for our schools with the highest needs, while we’re still protecting our strongest schools,” Martinez said.

But Martinez also said there are “a few outliers,” suggesting that the formula may not have provided adequate staffing for all schools, which the district is working to address.

Board president Jianan Shi asked Martinez to provide the board with an assessment of how staffing changes will impact schools.

“This board acknowledges the uncertainty, the uneasiness some communities are feeling right now, and we hear that,” Shi said.

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

From ‘winning the lottery’ to ‘leaner schools’: How the end of federal COVID money could impact Chicago schools

2024-04-10T21:06:27+00:00

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For principals in Chicago, putting together a school budget has always involved difficult choices.

Then three years ago, a $2.8 billion windfall of federal COVID money for Chicago Public Schools, meant to help students recover from the pandemic, suddenly changed the equation.

At one school, where nearly all of the students came from low-income households, the additional money meant more after-school programs for everyone, tutoring for struggling students, open gym, and even a staff-created crafting class where students could get additional social-emotional support. Test scores went up and staff noticed fewer fights, said a former school administrator who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.

“Winning the lottery is what it felt like,” she said. “Everything your kid ever asked for, you could give them.”

Research shows Chicago students are rebounding faster than other districts, particularly in reading, efforts such as tutoring are paying off, and the number of school social workers in CPS has doubled.

But the extra federal money that helped make that progress possible, known formally as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief or ESSER, is running out, meaning some of those programs could be curtailed or cut.

A Chalkbeat analysis of school budgets for the past three years found that federal COVID relief made up 7% of all the money that went to schools. And while officials said Monday they will not reduce the total amount of money dedicated to schools, they said some campuses’ “funding levels may change,” as they shift to a new funding formula that guarantees a minimum number of staff for all schools, according to a letter district officials sent to families and staff.

Next year, CPS plans to spend the last $300 million of its $2.8 billion allocation of federal COVID money, but will still face a $391 million deficit. CEO Pedro Martinez signaled recently that hard cuts, such as for critical building repairs, could be ahead but he wants to protect classrooms from losing resources.

Looking back, more than half of Chicago’s federal COVID money went to staff salaries and benefits. In an interview with Chalkbeat, Martinez said the federal COVID dollars helped the district avoid cuts because of a longstanding structural deficit – when expenses exceed revenue.

That deficit was a problem even before the pandemic for many reasons, he said, including the 2019 CTU contract, which committed to hiring more staff and increasing salaries and benefits. The district is once again negotiating new contracts with the Chicago Teachers Union and the union representing school support staff. Both will impact future school years when federal COVID money is gone.

Chalkbeat’s analysis of budget records and expenditure data from the past three years found the largest uses of COVID money at the school level were for reducing class sizes, supporting middle school programs, and expanding pre-K.

District officials said they want to preserve programs they believe have helped students, such as tutoring, professional development for teachers, after-school and summer programs, and investments in social-emotional learning. But some schools will be hit by changes next year.

For example, according to a presentation given last week to Local School Council members, some schools may lose their interventionists. These positions were created with federal COVID dollars to provide extra support to struggling students.

Next year, only Title I schools, which enroll large shares of students from low-income families, will be guaranteed interventionists.

Principals received their budgets Monday for next school year and could decide to pay for certain positions or programs using discretionary money. By early May, Local School Councils must vote on the budgets. Simultaneously, district officials are reviewing non-school spending and central office budgets before presenting a full budget to the school board for a vote in June.

“Literally every day, I kid you not, we’re going through all of our central office budgets, all of our operations, and seeing, ‘Where do we need to scale back?,’” Martinez said. “Our intention is going to be that as schools finish their budgets, we’re going to be able to protect those resources at the school level.”

How federal COVID money was spent at schools

At one Chicago school, which also serves many students from low-income families, having more adults in the building has made a big difference.

The school’s principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said the districtwide tutoring effort, known as Tutor Corps, allowed her to hire a handful of tutors who have “had a profound impact” on children who were struggling in reading and math and are now showing signs of improvement in those subjects.

The principal was also able to shrink class sizes by hiring more teachers. That was possible because the district decided to cover the salaries of two teachers the principal tapped to become interventionists. Because they were some of her most veteran teachers with high salaries, the principal said, that freed up a good chunk of money to hire other staff.

But the principal didn’t know that the district used federal COVID money to help pay for her school’s pre-K teachers, or that her school’s budget was covered by millions in relief dollars over the past three years.

“Wow, it didn’t feel like that,” she said, referring to the amount of money her school received.

The disconnect might stem from complicated budgeting practices. CPS must first spend money, then submit claims to the state to get reimbursed with federal COVID dollars, said Mike Sitkowski, budget director for CPS. In order to collect that money, which helped keep school budgets afloat, officials were “shifting expenses throughout the year” – which did not impact school operations, he said, but may have gone unnoticed by school communities.

Between July 2020 and June 30, 2023, Chicago Public Schools budgeted a total $1.4 billion in federal COVID dollars directly to schools. Another $1.2 billion was budgeted for centrally funded programs, including those rooted at schools, such as tutoring, one-on-one academic intervention for students who fell behind, and summer school.

Multiple educators were surprised to hear how much of the COVID relief dollars had been budgeted for their schools. Some parents and students have also felt in the dark about how the money got spent.

Hal Woods, chief of policy for advocacy organization Kids First Chicago, said without that knowledge or a tracker detailing where the money is going for each school, parents and schools aren’t able to “be in lockstep” if they want to advocate for more funding or raise questions about how funds are being spent.

Wallace Wilbourn Jr., a teacher at Oscar DePriest Elementary School on the West Side and a member of the school’s Local School Council, said he doesn’t know how most of the money was spent. He joined the LSC last year, but wasn’t aware of any conversations the school had with staff about how the money was being spent, even though the LSC votes on a school’s budget.

Between 2021 and 2023, nearly $2.2 million in federal COVID dollars was budgeted for DePriest. Expenditure data obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request found slightly more than that – about $2.5 million – was spent.

DePriest had Tutor Corps tutors, Wilbourn said, an expense he supports because he felt many students needed the extra help as they returned to in-person school. Still, he wishes there was more transparency early on about the money.

“It’s nice to know what those dollars are being used for so then it gives you the power to advocate for those funds,” Wilbourn said.

Martinez said the district has been “very transparent” about how it was spending the federal dollars in multiple public presentations. However, Martinez said “it gets very technical, so I can understand why it’s confusing for folks.”

Asked how the COVID money was distributed, a spokesperson did not share an exact formula in time for this story. A spokesperson said schools received federal COVID dollars based on “stakeholder meetings” that focused on what schools’ needs were, such as class sizes and limited split classrooms, access to arts and other “specialty” classes, intervention supports, social and emotional supports, resuming in-person school, and professional development.

Chicago schools have uncertain financial future

The district has not yet detailed how it will fill its looming $391 million deficit. That’s the shortfall after using roughly $300 million in federal COVID money still left to spend.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said the district shouldn’t have plugged the federal money into operating costs, such as salaries, because that created a cliff – a sudden loss of money that could mean the loss of programs and staff that directly impacts students.

“It’s very disruptive, right?” Martire said. “What message does that send to the kids? It creates a lot of unintended and hard-to-anticipate issues.”

Martire argues the district should have used the money to pay for one-time costs, such as critical building repairs. The district might have to delay such repairs in response to budget challenges, Martinez said at a recent event about the district’s Latino students.

Martinez told Chalkbeat he is proud of the choices the district made in spending federal COVID money, pointing to the recent research around student growth in Chicago and crediting the “amazing work” of principals, teachers, and students.

“What the evidence is telling me right now is that we used the resources in a way that our students are doing even better today than they were prior to me coming here,” he said.

Officials have vowed to push state lawmakers to give the district more money. The state has increased the district’s funding by about $1 billion since Illinois overhauled its funding formula in 2017. But the state’s formula, which aims to allocate new money to districts based on need, indicates CPS would still need $1.1 billion to be considered adequately funded.

State lawmakers typically finalize a budget in late May or early June. The Chicago Board of Education usually votes on the district’s overall budget in late June. CPS is planning to fund schools differently this year, using a formula that allocates staff positions and prioritizes student and community needs instead of doling out a set number of dollars per student.

Two principals said they’ll be able to keep some of the extra programming, such as Tutor Corps, because they oversee high-needs schools. But even that will come with some changes: The tutors will use a different, less expensive curriculum, they said.

The administrator who launched more after-school programs said losing the federal COVID money could limit what a school can do. Instead of hosting programs for most of the school year, for example, her former school may have to go back to 10 or 20 weeks out of the year.

“The altruistic ones of us wish the lesson will be learned that extra money really makes a difference, and the city and state will keep providing additional funds for these sorts of investments,” said one principal. “But I am imagining that we are going to be trimming to be leaner schools with less programming.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@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 Public Schools ending student-based budgeting in favor of set staffing levels at all campuses

2024-03-21T22:08:53+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools plans to do away with a decade-old system in which school funding was largely based on student enrollment. Instead, starting next year, each school will get a set number of staff and additional funding based on need.

The change, announced Thursday at a Chicago Board of Education meeting, is part of a revamp of the district’s funding formula and delivers on a promise Mayor Brandon Johnson made during his mayoral campaign to end student-based budgeting.

The district had already started to move away from a student-based approach in the previous two budget cycles, as it funded more positions – such as social workers – centrally. The current formula also accounts for student needs, such as how many students with disabilities need additional support.

Under the new formula, every school will have certain guaranteed staff, including an assistant principal, a counselor, and core classroom teachers. It would guarantee “a baseline level of resources for every school, regardless of enrollment,” then add more based on need, according to a district presentation.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, welcomed the move away from student-based budgeting, calling it an inequitable approach “because not every student has the same needs and doesn’t generate the same resources.”

It will, however, likely be challenging for the district to roll out a new funding model when schools already have “a certain funding expectation” they rely on to pay for contracts or programming. The district should try to hold schools harmless, meaning schools shouldn’t lose money under the new formula, Martire said.

In 2013, Chicago Public Schools switched from using a budgeting system that funded a set number of staff at each school to one that allocated money per student. As schools lost enrollment, their budgets often tightened. But budgets have also grown over the past few years with the influx of $2.4 billion, so far, in federal COVID relief funding.

The district’s enrollment declined significantly over the past decade, losing more than 75,000 students since 2013. Enrollment stabilized this year with about 323,000 students enrolled. At the same time, the number of employees has grown. District staffing data shows CPS employed roughly 43,500 people as of the end December, up from around 37,000 as of December 2018.

District officials and school board members did not immediately share more details about the formula. It remains unclear exactly how funding will be allocated to campuses or how much autonomy a principal and Local School Council would have over their school’s budgets.

Schools will also receive discretionary funding, but it is not clear how that will be calculated.

A school’s need will be determined by something called the “opportunity index,” which considers several factors, such as the percentage of students with disabilities, those who are homeless, those learning English as a new language, those who come from low-income families, the number of teachers a school was able to retain, and whether a school is segregated by race or ethnicity. The index also considers data about the surrounding community and how a school has been funded historically.

“Maybe it’s just more striking because I’ve been here for a while now, but this is a major shift and it’s important,” said Elizabeth Todd-Breland, vice president of the Chicago Board of Education.

The funding formula shift comes as the district is also facing a projected $391 million deficit, as federal COVID relief funding runs out. That gap must be filled by revenue that has not yet been identified, Mike Sitkowski, the district’s budget director, told the board Thursday.

District officials are projecting an additional roughly $25 million in K-12 funding next year under the state’s Evidence-Based Funding formula, or EBF, which makes up the largest portion of state funding for CPS. That would bring total EBF funding for Chicago to nearly $1.8 billion. State officials have gradually provided more funding to Illinois school districts under the formula, but CPS officials are advocating for a larger increase, arguing that the district is still owed more than $1 billion.

When accounting for all state funding, Illinois gave Chicago Public Schools nearly $2.5 billion for this current fiscal year, up from $1.5 billion in 2017, the year before the state reformed how it was funding school districts.

Even with the budget challenges, the district is working to keep several of the new investments it made using federal COVID dollars, including high-dosage tutoring, additional counselors, and extended learning time, such as the expansion of summer school, as well as before- and after-school programming.

Officials defended those investments by highlighting a recent study that showed Chicago’s reading scores have bounced back from the pandemic at a greater rate than most big school districts.

“It should not take a crisis for us to fully fund our schools,” Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s chief education officer, said during her presentation Thursday.

In an interview earlier this week, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said the district may also have to make “hard decisions” this year. That could include pausing “critical” repairs for buildings, he said.

Becky Vevea contributed.

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

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2025 budget plan continues to boost early childhood education in Illinois

2024-02-21T20:19:32+00:00

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pushing for another boost in early childhood funding that would keep the state on track to have universal preschool for 3- and 4- year-olds by 2027.

In his sixth budget address to state lawmakers, Pritzker laid out his $52.7 billion spending plan, which includes increasing funding for early childhood education by $150 million. The move would fuel the second year of his Smart Start Illinois initiative, which seeks to expand preschool across Illinois.

The investment in public preschool programs has already helped families like Heather Andrade, a Rochester parent whose child, Natalia, had speech delays, the governor said Wednesday. Pritzker noted that Natalia was able to get into a full-day preschool program with early intervention services, including speech therapy. Smart Start funding, he said, helped the program expand to full-day.

“Since Natalia’s first day in the program, her progress has been nothing short of remarkable. She can spell and write her name,” said Pritzker. “Natalia is on track to thrive when she enters kindergarten and her path ahead couldn’t be brighter.”

Pritzker’s proposals include $75 million for the state board’s early childhood education block grant to add 5,000 more seats for preschool students. Under the state Department of Human Services, Pritzker recommended an additional $5 million to home visiting programs and $36.5 million more for the child care assistance program that helps low-income families access child care services.

Pritzker has been a proponent of early childhood education before becoming governor. When he entered office in 2019, he promised to create universal preschool within four years. However, his plans were thrown off track by the coronavirus pandemic. After he was re-elected in 2022 for a second term in office, Pritzker moved to get universal preschool back on track with his Smart Start Illinois Initiative.

Smart Start Illinois, which is currently entering its second year, seeks to provide public preschool to 20,000 more 3- and 4-year olds throughout the state. The state allocated $250 million for early childhood education for the first year of the program and added 5,800 more preschool seats for Illinois children.

Pritzker announced in October that he wants to house early childhood education and child care programs under one department. He asked the state’s general assembly on Wednesday to provide $13 million for the creation of the department, which would bring together programs from the state Department of Human Services, the state Department of Child and Family services, and the State Board of Education.

K-12 education sees smaller increase this year

Pritzker also asked the general assembly to increase the state’s K-12 education budget by $450 million to a total of $10.8 billion for the Illinois State Board of Education.

Pritzker plans to increase funding for K-12 schools by $350 million, which will be distributed through the evidence-based funding formula — continuing the state’s bipartisan promise to increase funding by at least that much annually.

Illinois education advocates have been pushing for a $550 million increase to the evidence-based funding formula. Advocates argue a larger increase is needed in order to “adequately fund” schools by 2027, a date set by the state’s general assembly in 2017 when the funding formula passed.

Pritzker’s proposal also included an additional $45 million for the second year of the Teacher Vacancy Grant Pilot Programs.

The K-12 education budget proposal is less than the State Board of Education requested earlier this year. At its monthly meeting in January, the state board proposed a $653 million increase, for an overall budget of $11 billion, to the state’s education budget for fiscal year 2025. The request from State Superintendent Tony Sanders included a $350 million increase to public schools through the state’s evidence-based funding formula.

Across the state, school districts will likely be hit hard by a funding cliff as federal COVID relief funding dries up at the end of September. The state received over $7 billion in funding to help schools deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Many schools spent money on facilities, salary, and benefits for school employees.

More scholarship funds to help students go to college

Pritzker’s proposal also includes more funding for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission’s Monetary Award Grant — a program to help support students from low-income families to attend college — by $10 million for a total of $711 million.

Pritzker also asked for an additional $8 million for the commission’s Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship, which provides scholarships to students of color and bilingual students who want to pursue a career in education.

State lawmakers will negotiate the budget until May, when the session is expected to end. Once approved, the new budget goes into effect on July 1.

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.

Chicago’s pre-K expansion fueled by federal COVID recovery money

2024-01-29T23:23:50+00:00

Public preschool has been a lifeline for Kristen Larson.

Larson and her husband couldn’t afford private day care for both their daughters, who are 4 and 1. So last fall, when Larson was able to get a preschool seat just four blocks from their Bridgeport home for her 4-year-old, she was relieved.

Without that, she said, “I probably would have had to quit my job.”

Thousands of Chicago parents like Larson depend on the district’s free public preschool program, which has been expanding over the past five years. This year, the district has 16,062 full-day seats for 4-year-olds and another 7,300 half-day seats for both 3- and 4-year-olds, a spokesperson said. That expansion was possible in part because of tens of millions of dollars in temporary federal COVID relief money, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat through a Freedom of Information Act request.

But the federal relief funds will run out next school year, raising a critical question: How will the district continue funding universal preschool?

Since July 1, 2020, Chicago Public Schools had spent close to $700 million on pre-K programs through the end of last school year, including new summer initiatives and programs for children under the age of 3, according to district budget records. It has budgeted another $262.7 million for this fiscal year, which covers the current school year. Of all of that funding, COVID relief dollars have so far covered about 14% of those costs, or $137 million, most of which went toward employee salaries, according to expense data obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request.

Chicago is slated to receive a total $2.8 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER, dollars which districts could use broadly to help students and schools recover from the pandemic, and had spent $2.4 billion as of mid-November. The district has used the bulk of the money to fund existing costs, such as employee salaries. It has also launched new programs, such as TutorCorps, expanded summer school, and purchased new technology.

CPS officials said it used federal dollars to help expand pre-K — and sustain it — because it didn’t have enough state funding to do so, and creating more seats was a district priority.

Studies have found that kids who attended preschool are more likely to have higher test scores, were less likely to be disciplined, have better employment outcomes, and are less likely to be involved with crime.

CPS has steadily reduced its reliance on COVID relief dollars for pre-K over the past four years, increasing spending of district dollars on early childhood programs by $6 million this year, officials said. And observers are expecting the state to increase funding for early childhood education. Last week the Illinois State Board of Education proposed a budget that would increase the state’s Early Childhood Block Grant – which helps cover the district’s pre-K program – by $75 million.

But as federal funds dry up, the district is grappling with how to avoid cuts while also plugging a projected $391 million budget deficit next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That includes figuring out how to cover the cost of pre-K with local or more state dollars.

Asked if the district is considering cutting pre-K seats or laying off teachers in order to save money, district officials said they were not ready to comment on that. But neither is their first choice; the district is pushing the state for more money.

“Chicago Public Schools is committed to ensuring that every 4-year-old in Chicago has the opportunity to attend free preschool to develop valuable academic and social-emotional skills and experiences,” said Sylvia Barragan, a spokesperson for the district, in a statement.

Preschool expansion plan predates pandemic

In 2018, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to open a pre-K seat for every 4-year-old in Chicago before announcing he would not seek a third term. It would mean big shifts for the city’s preschool system, which included a mix of half- and full-day programs at public schools and in community-based programs that served 3- and 4-year-olds.

Emanuel’s promise was picked up by his successor, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who set a goal to make pre-K for 4-year-olds universal by this year.

Since 2019, CPS has added 1,950 new preschool spots, district officials said.

But even as the district has expanded pre-K, enrollment has been fluctuating amid the COVID pandemic and as Chicago continues to see birth rates decline.

Enrollment initially grew – from 12,900 4-year-olds in the 2018-19 school year to 14,300 the fall before the pandemic – and then plummeted by 34%, to about 9,500 students in the 2020-21 school year.

This school year, just over 13,000 4-year-olds were in pre-K at CPS schools.

The district has reached universal demand in nearly all Chicago communities, said Leslie McKinily, the district’s chief of early childhood education.

As of September, when the district officially counted enrollment, 75% of all pre-K seats were filled, according to the district. That has grown to 81% as of last week, McKinily said. The district’s goal is 85% because officials want to have spots available for new families throughout the year, McKinily said.

CPS does not have plans to open more pre-K spots, but McKinily’s team is looking to see where they need to “right-size.” For example, she said, the city has not met the demand for pre-K seats in the North Side neighborhood of West Ridge. But there are other parts of the city where pre-K seats are going unfilled.

“We’re really thinking about right now, do we have our programs in the right spaces? And how do we ensure that the programming meets the needs of the community?” McKinily said.

Chicago shrinks reliance on federal COVID dollars for pre-K

Over the past four years, pre-K instruction accounted for the third largest use of the district’s COVID relief dollars, behind reducing class sizes for grades K-3 and spending on administrative costs related to federal relief funding, according to the data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Nearly all of the spending of COVID relief dollars on pre-K – about $130 million – went towards employee salaries, pensions, and benefits, according to the data. When looking at all expenses related to pre-K, including separate line items for pre-K students with disabilities, the district spent a total $137 million in the relief funds.

Pre-K programs in Chicago are mostly funded through state dollars as part of Illinois’ Early Childhood Block Grant. The program is also funded by some local taxpayer dollars and other federal money unrelated to COVID relief funding.

District officials said a portion of the federal COVID recovery money went toward early childhood programs outside of the regular school day, including a new summer program called Preview to Pre-K.

A spokesperson provided an additional breakdown of budget figures to show how much was being spent directly on daily preschool instruction during the school year. It showed the district spent nearly $590 million from the fall of 2020 through the 2022-23 school year and about 13% came from ESSER dollars, according to CPS. In that time period, state funding grew by just $3 million.

The data show the district has cut down on its use of ESSER funding in that time period while boosting local dollars.

Theresa Hawley, executive director of the Center for Early Learning Funding Equity at Northern Illinois University who previously worked on early childhood education initiatives in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration, said Chicago officials assumed “with decent enough reason” before the pandemic that the state would pump more money into the block grant and allow them to continue opening more pre-K seats.

Pritzker is a longtime champion of early childhood education and has promised to make universal preschool more accessible across Illinois.

But in 2020, the pandemic put “a wrench in that plan” when Pritzker decided not to increase block grant funding, Hawley said. Illinois, as well as state governments across the country, worried about how the public health crisis would impact local resources as the economy slowed down.

When the federal government sent billions of COVID relief dollars to school districts, CPS decided to spend a chunk of its share to expand pre-K in absence of more state dollars, district officials said. Officials continued to invest in expansion efforts even after enrollment dropped in 2020.

“We did monitor and adjust our enrollment expansion throughout the pandemic,” McKinily said.

Still, district officials said that pre-K expansion was one of several priorities that “couldn’t wait.” The federal dollars have also helped CPS pay for existing pre-K costs, staving off budget deficits.

As the district used federal funds on pre-K in recent years, one Logan Square mother enrolled both of her sons in preschool at their neighborhood school. The program saved the family from shelling out tens of thousands of dollars in day care costs, said the mother, whose name Chalkbeat is withholding because of concerns over immigration status.

She’s currently seeing pre-K’s impact on her younger son, who is 4. For example, he used to try to snatch toys from his older brother because he couldn’t wait to play with them. But after learning how to take turns in pre-K, her son now says to his brother, “When you’re done, can I play with it?”

The mother was surprised to learn that the district used emergency funding toward pre-K. But she thinks it was the right decision.

“They have to allocate money to keep the program going,” she said, saying she is concerned about what will happen if the district can’t find extra money.

“Day care is very expensive in Chicago, and I see how important it is to have early childhood education,” she said. “And if it’s only available to people who can afford to send your child to fee-based preschool, then it’s not equitable to children.”

What lies ahead for pre-K?

Fiscal watchdogs have warned districts against using temporary federal dollars for a program they want to keep permanently, such as pre-K. Doing so can result in painful cuts that can affect children and families, so such spending decisions should come alongside lots of planning for the future, said Joe Ferguson, Chicago’s former inspector general who is now the executive director of Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.

“Obviously, no one’s going to say pre-K education [or] early childhood support is not an important priority,” Ferguson said. “But if it’s an important priority, then the work should have been done already – certainly needs to be done now – to identify where the revenue stream is going to come [from] to maintain it.”

Chicago isn’t alone. In New York City, former Mayor Bill de Blasio used COVID relief funds to expand his signature universal pre-K program for 3-year-olds without a plan for how to pay for those seats once the federal funds ran out. His successor, Mayor Eric Adams, halted the program’s expansion and recently proposed slashing $170 million in early childhood programming, which includes preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has signaled an opposite approach, saying on the campaign trail that he wanted “child care for all” and would lobby Pritzker to increase early childhood education funding.

Last year, Pritzker proposed a four-year plan that aims to expand early childhood.

The state increased the Early Childhood Block Grant this year by $75 million, of which nearly $28 million went straight to Chicago Public Schools, as required by state law. Pritzker has not yet proposed a budget for next fiscal year, but the Illinois State Board of Education is proposing another $75 million increase.

District officials have said that more state funding for K-12 would also help. CPS, like other districts, is on a ramp toward “adequate” state funding and is $1.4 billion short of that goal, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

Elliot Regenstein, partner at law firm Foresight Law and Policy and an advocate for early childhood education who helped launch the state’s Preschool for All program under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said maintaining pre-K funding in the future depends on leadership.

“To some degree, all of those sustainability plans are just a hope and a guess that when the one-time funding runs out, that whoever is in charge at that moment will make decisions that carry on the momentum of those one-time funds,” Regenstein said.

He said Chicago’s decision to invest in pre-K, even with temporary dollars, is backed by research that shows it’s beneficial for children.

“The pandemic has had an impact on all children,” Regenstein said. “I think it’s great that CPS looked at its data and said ….we can’t ignore the kids who haven’t even entered kindergarten yet and we believe that if we invest in those kids it will help set them on a positive trajectory.”

Larson, the mother from Bridgeport, agreed. She said much of her daughter’s first years were during the pandemic and in social isolation. Pre-K has helped her make new friends, on top of learning about letters and numbers.

“Sometimes you need to be investing in a program to make it a program that you want people to send their children to,” she said.

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

Illinois Board of Education asks for an additional $653 million for state education budget next year

2024-01-25T01:22:42+00:00

The Illinois State Board of Education is proposing a $653 million increase to the state’s education budget, bringing the overall budget for next school year to $11 billion. The proposal — less than what advocates pushed for during hearings in the fall — is ultimately voted on by state lawmakers.

The state board unanimously approved the budget proposal — Tony Sanders’ first as state superintendent — at its board meeting on Wednesday.

Sanders’ recommendation includes an increase of $350 million for the state’s evidence-based funding formula for K-12 public schools, which distributes state money to under-resourced schools that serve a majority of students from low-income households, English learners, and students with disabilities. His proposal also asks for an additional $75 million increase for the state’s early childhood block grant.

Illinois’ portion of federal pandemic funding, over $7 billion, is set to run out by the end of September 2024. Schools could see a cut in staff and programs, especially since it is unlikely that state dollars will make up the difference. State budget officials told the state board of education that they are seeing a drop in state revenue.

State education advocates have pushed the state to increase the evidence-based funding formula by $550 million annually to help the state fully fund schools by 2027. The state has approved an additional $350 million each year except for 2020, during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic — keeping in line with a bipartisan promise made by lawmakers in 2017.

Gerson Ramirez, senior government relations associate for Advance Illinois, a nonprofit organization that advocates for education, told the board Wednesday that the evidence-based funding formula has done a good job at directing more funds to school districts with high needs. However, he estimates that more than 1.5 million students in underfunded school districts are from low-income households and are students of color.

“We, and many others, believe we should put an additional $550 million into the formula to make up for the skip budget year, to address inflation, and to meet ongoing needs,” said Ramirez.

Other advocates asked for more funding to support students experiencing homelessness throughout the state. The federal government set aside $800 million in COVID relief funding for students experiencing homelessness. Illinois received $33 million to help families pay for clothing, temporary housing, and transportation, among other assistance.

Niya K. Kelly, director of state legislative policy, equity, and transformation at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, asked the state to increase funding for students experiencing homelessness. At a time when federal funds are set to expire and there isn’t a clear number on how many students are actually homeless, Kelly said, state funding is needed more than ever.

“It is imperative that the state step in. I know, oftentimes, people say that if we’ve made do with funding levels that we have then we should continue on that path,” said Kelly. “For homeless families and for the folks who are supporting them, it’s not enough at this moment.”

According to the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, homelessness has grown 12% nationwide since 2022. However, Kelly said HUD’s reported numbers might only be a fraction of what the actual numbers are.

Kelly also said she believes there could be an undercounting of students in Illinois. In the state’s report card, Illinois has identified over 42,000 students as experiencing homelessness during the 2022-23 school year.

State budget and financial officials signaled at the state board’s monthly meeting in December that Illinois’ education budget could see some belt-tightening in the future. The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget predicted that the state board could expect to receive an additional $425 million in state dollars for the next fiscal year.

The approved budget proposal will head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office for consideration. Pritzker is set to announce his proposed budget to state lawmakers on Feb. 21.

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.

Illinois’ education budget might be tighter over the next several years, say officials

2023-12-14T00:23:17+00:00

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The budget for public schools in Illinois might see some belt-tightening, officials signaled at the Illinois State Board of Education’s meeting Wednesday.

That’s because local revenue projections are modest and federal COVID relief dollars are set to run out, state finance and budget officials told board members.

The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget has predicted the Illinois State Board of Education can expect to receive an additional $425 million in revenue next year.

With $350 million of that funding going toward the evidence-based funding formula, “that leaves very little meat on the bone left to appropriate to other areas,” said Matt Seaton, the state board’s chief financial officer. “As we think about our budget for the next several years, I think we’re going to be thinking in terms of a conservative budget.”

The state board will likely have less funding for items such as transportation, private school tuition for students with disabilities, and Illinois’ free breakfast and lunch program.

Officials said it is possible that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker or the state legislature could allocate more than the board asks for, as happened this past year. The board asked for $510 million for fiscal year 2024, but received $601 million from the state.

The State Board of Education is expected to vote on a budget recommendation to send to the governor during its Jan. 24, 2024 meeting.

Many school districts will face a new financial reality during fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1, 2024 and ends June 30, 2025. Since the start of the pandemic, school districts across the district were flush with federal COVID-19 relief funds to help schools recover. Illinois received over $7 billion in funding. The largest pot of money that came under the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan is set to expire Sept. 30, 2024.

A data dashboard from the state board says districts have spent 74.5% of their emergency federal dollars as of Dec. 7, 2023. A majority of funding went to after-school programs to help students recover learning loss, tutoring, transportation, and existing staff. Out of the $7 billion, the state board kept $440 million for statewide recovery efforts including the Illinois Tutoring Initiative and professional development for educators. According to the dashboard, the state has only spent 66.5% of the money so far.

Illinois school districts are already bracing themselves for budget cuts. Chicago Public Schools, the state’s largest district, says it is expecting a $391 million budget shortfall next year.

The budget outlook isn’t an encouraging sign for education advocates, educators, and families who want to see more money going to schools. Those who testified at the state board’s budget hearings in October want to see an increase in funding in early childhood education, K-12 public schools, and social-emotional learning hubs among other issues, according to state officials on Wednesday.

Pritzker kept the education budget flat during the first year of the pandemic. Afterwards, Pritzker approved an increase of $350 million toward the evidence-based funding formula to support K-12 public schools — keeping the bipartisan promise made in 2017 when the formula was created. However, advocates have been pushing the state to increase funding by $550 million a year to fully fund schools by 2027.

Pritzker is pushing to expand early childhood education across the state during his second term. Most recently, he announced an effort to create a new agency that would bring together several departments that currently provide services for families with young children. Last year, he increased early childhood spending by $250 million, including a $75 million increase toward that state board’s early childhood block grant. Advocates hope the state will again increase funding by $75 million in next year’s budget.

In previous years, Pritzker has given his State of the State address and budget proposal in February before Illinois lawmakers go into the spring legislative session to negotiate what the final budget will be. It must be approved before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1.

Chicago Public Schools could see a $391M budget deficit next school year, official says

2023-10-25T21:59:31+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is expecting a $391 million budget shortfall next year as federal COVID relief money runs out, officials said Wednesday.

The district has received $2.8 billion in COVID relief since the onset of the pandemic. The last $300 million of that will be spent in 2025, according to Mike Sitkowski, chief budget officer for CPS, who shared the figures during a Board of Education meeting. The current budget is $9.4 billion. Next year’s budget starts July 1, 2024 and will cover the 2024-25 school year.

By law, the school district must balance its budget, Sitkowski noted. That means district officials will either have to cut expenses or find a way to boost revenue. Board President Jianan Shi called for the latter.

“Our district needs more revenue, and this is a moment for all of us at every level to stand up and advocate for our teachers, our students, our families, for this board to advocate for more revenue at the state, local, and federal levels,” Shi said after the presentation.

The financial update comes as the City Council holds budget hearings for the city’s next budget, which is due by the end of the year but is typically finalized by Thanksgiving. The district’s budget operates on a different timeline, more closely matching the school year. The district will also hold budget community roundtables for the public throughout November. (Dates can be found here.)

Districts across the nation have been bracing for financial challenges as their pandemic relief dollars run out. Chicago officials have directed their relief dollars toward employee salaries, hiring more instructional staff and creating several new programs. About $670 million of federal relief was included in this year’s budget — representing about 7% of the current budget set to end June 30, 2024.

Asked on previous occasions about what CPS will do once the federal money runs out, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said district officials plan to ask the state for more support.

The $391 million deficit is the result of complicated collection of revenues and costs the district is projecting for next year: First, the district will have a $670 million hole in next year’s budget due to the loss of federal pandemic aid, according to Sitkowski’s presentation. That gap will be partially filled by the last bit of federal relief — about $300 million. However, the district is also expecting $123 million more in expenses it says it can’t control, including for teacher pension costs, debt service, health care costs, and inflation, Sitkowski said.

Those costs will be partially offset by rising revenues of $102 million, which include $23 million more from the state, as well as some rising tax collections, and more state support for pensions, according to Sitkowski.

The projections shared on Wednesday seem to outpace what a previous analysis warned of. A report issued under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned of a potential $628 million deficit by 2026 and predicted a neutral outlook for 2025. The report also noted that as the city has shifted more costs onto the district, it could shoulder more expenses as the board goes from mayoral control to an elected body.

District officials have been ratcheting up pressure for more money from state officials. This school year, CPS is projected to see a $23 million increase in state funding, for a total of about $1.77 billion this school year.

But on Wednesday, Sitkowski said that if the state fully funded districts under the Evidence-Based Funding Formula, CPS would have an additional $1.1 billion in funding.

Last month, the board highlighted the need for $3.1 billion to address critical repairs at school facilities over the next five years.

Sitkowski said direct funding at the school level has also increased by $1 billion since fiscal year 2019, even as enrollment dipped. More than 2,300 teachers were hired in that time, including classroom teachers, interventionists, and educators for the arts and physical education, he noted.

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

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first city budget plan includes $76 million for youth jobs

2023-10-11T18:15:18+00:00

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson put forward a $16.6 billion city budget proposal for 2024 that includes $76 million for youth jobs, the reopening of two public mental health clinics, and a push for a one-time tax on expensive homes to fund affordable housing.

The spending plan Johnson shared Wednesday is his first since taking office in May. The former organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union dashed former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hope of a second term in February and defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in an April runoff.

Johnson, a former middle school teacher, got elected on a progressive platform embraced by the CTU and other community activists over the past decade that aimed to improve education by tackling issues beyond the classroom, such as affordable housing, environmental justice, and alternatives to policing.

The budget blueprint provides the first glimpse at how he might deliver on those promises. In a speech inside City Hall, he emphasized that the 2024 spending proposal is meant to uplift families like those he served as a teacher in Cabrini Green and as an organizer fighting the closure of public schools and mental health clinics.

“As we begin this work, I’m thinking about my family — especially my father. He was a pastor and a union laborer, raising 10 children and taking in foster children, working multiple jobs to keep us fed and sheltered,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s city budget proposal does not undo a cost shift implemented by Lightfoot in 2020 to have CPS pay for crossing guards and the pensions of non-teaching staff — two things long paid for by the city. The move angered the CTU at the time. The district’s portion of that pension payment grew to $170 million in 2022. The school district’s most recent budget did not list an amount.

Though the city’s budget is separate from the school district’s budget, it’s possible that the school district could take on additional costs traditionally included in the city’s budget in future years as the school board moves to being elected, rather than appointed by the mayor.

The proposed $78 million for youth jobs is an $11 million increase from last year. The additional money comes after the Johnson administration worked to boost the city’s longstanding summer jobs program, One Summer Chicago. It also comes as Chicago grapples with how to re-engage an estimated 45,000 youth who are neither in school nor working.

“We know that unemployment among young Chicagoans, in particular young Black women, rose during the pandemic and is lagging behind in the pandemic rebound,” Johnson said.

Ald. Maria Hadden, who represents Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood along the north lakefront, said she was happy to see the expansion in youth employment.

“It’s a number one thing, year after year,” Hadden said. “Our high school age youth and those who are just out of high school are looking for entry to careers, they’re looking for employment, they’re looking for activities, and things to do.”

Hadden noted that many young people are working to help contribute to their household income.

The Chicago Teachers Union issued a statement applauding Johnson’s 2024 budget proposal and said it “starkly contrasts with other mayors who have utilized austerity and privatization to shape policy, limit democracy and balance budgets at the expense of our city’s most vulnerable residents.”

One win for Johnson’s progressive base in his first budget proposal is the plan to reopen two of the city’s public mental health clinics that were shuttered in 2012 by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The decision preceded Emanuel’s decision to close 50 public schools, but was met with similar outrage. Activists have been pushing to reopen the six facilities ever since.

The 2024 budget plan also re-establishes the city’s Department of Environment, which was closed early in Emanuel’s first term. On the campaign trail, Johnson talked about the need to create green school buildings and update schools so they’re accessible for people with physical disabilities according to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. But the city budget does not does not spell out specific funding for school construction and upgrades.

The $9.4 billion budget for CPS includes a pared-down $155 million capital budget for school repairs and construction. It doesn’t include a controversial plan to build a $120 million high school on the Near South Side.

But school district officials indicated over the summer that they would release a supplemental capital plan later this year. Late last month, CPS debuted a new Education Facilities Master Plan that said the district would need more than $3 billion in the next five years to address critical facility needs.

The mayor and City Council frequently allocate money from special taxing districts known as TIFs to help repair schools. The city will also declare a TIF surplus and return unallocated funds collected in those districts to the taxing bodies, including the school district. This year, CPS will get $226 million from the TIF surplus.

Johnson’s budget plan does not appear to include significant increases for child care, which Johnson argued for on the campaign trail. Advocates recently pushed for a dedicated revenue stream to help fund child care providers, which are regulated and supported by the city’s Department of Family and Support Services.

During the campaign, Johnson also promised to make bus and train rides on the Chicago Transit Authority free for students. (Like CPS, the CTA has a budget that’s separate from the city’s.) Amid a bus driver shortage and ongoing transportation troubles, the school district has offered CTA passes to roughly 5,500 students, mostly those attending magnet schools.

Only about 1,600 have taken advantage of the free transit passes, district officials said last month.

The City Council will hold budget hearings over the next month and is expected to vote on a final budget for 2024 before Thanksgiving. By law, it must approve a balanced budget by Dec. 31.

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

With federal COVID money running out, advocates urge state education officials to boost 2025 budget

2023-10-06T01:22:00+00:00

The Illinois State Board of Education kicked off the process of crafting budget recommendations for the 2024-25 school year at the first of two virtual meetings Thursday night.

With the deadline to spend federal COVID relief money approaching, lobbyists, superintendents, school teachers, and advocates made the case for board members to ask Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the state legislature to beef up the education budget with at least a $550 million increase in what’s called “evidence-based funding” — a way of allocating additional state money that’s supposed to take into account student needs and lessen the disparity between districts that have affluent tax bases and those that don’t.

The state is supposed to increase evidence-based funding by $350 million each year with the goal of getting all school districts adequately funded by 2027. Lawmakers have done so every year since 2018, but the pandemic derailed one such increase in 2020. As a result, advocates argue that lawmakers need to boost that number to $550 million in order to meet the same funding level at a time of increasing costs for school districts and as federal pandemic relief dollars run out.

Chicago Public Schools already forecast a $628 million deficit by 2026, and district officials have called on the state to ramp up the amount of money it puts into K-12 education.

Vanessa Espinoza, a parent of three CPS students and a member of Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit advocacy group, argued that Illinois’ current education system shows deep disparities between affluent and low-income districts. But the quality of a public education “should not be determined by their zip code,” Espinoza said, advocating for the extra funding boost. “I have seen teachers struggling to make ends meet. You can make a profound difference in the lives of countless children and families across the state.”

The virtual meeting on Thursday evening was the second gathering this week, coming after ISBE held its first in-person meeting in Springfield. Christine Benson, chair of ISBE’s Finance and Audit Committee explained that testimony during the public hearings helps inform the budget recommendation it will make to the governor and state lawmakers in January 2024.

“We want to know what investments would make the biggest difference for the students and educators in each community,” said State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders in a statement last month. “Advocacy matters and truly makes a difference in how state funds are allocated.”

Advocates at the hearing also called for funding boosts to early child education, after school programs, career and technical education programs, and agricultural programs in K-12 schools. Last year, Pritzker added $75 million to early childhood education as part of a four-year plan called Smart Start Illinois to expand preschool and child care. Some who spoke Thursday supported the continued increases.

In May, state lawmakers passed a $50.6 billion state budget that allocated $10.3 billion to education. That included a $350 million increase to be distributed to K-12 school districts through evidence-based funding.

Chicago was expecting to get $27 million of that increase. But new calculations posted on the Illinois State Board of Education website show that the state is allocating $23.3 million of the increase to CPS. The drop in Chicago’s share of new state education money is partly due to a loss of low-income students and an increased property tax base.

Although state education funding has been increasing since 2017, many argue that Illinois still has a long way to go to make school funding more equitable.

Diana Zaleski, a lobbyist for the Illinois Education Association, lauded efforts so far to close the gap between the wealthiest and poorest districts in the state.

“We still have more work to do,” Zaleski said, as she urged board members to recommend a roughly $800 million increase per year in evidence-based funding to meet state goals of bringing all districts to a level of “adequacy” that would dispel an old image of Illinois ranking toward the bottom of public education funding.

Jill Griffin, superintendent of the Bethalto School District about an hour’s drive south of Springfield, said she remembers a time when the district was facing “catastrophic cuts” with only 28 days of cash on hand “in large part because of inadequate funding from our state.”

Since Illinois adopted the evidence-based formula in 2017, Bethalto is at 71% adequacy and “back on solid financial footing,” Griffin said. But with more money going to minimum wage increases for school staff, higher wages for teachers, and other state mandates, “this progress is inadequate.”

ISBE will hold another virtual public budget hearing on Oct. 30.

Michael Gerstein is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

Chicago Public Schools says $3.1 billion for ‘critical’ building repairs needed

2023-09-29T02:30:03+00:00

Chicago Public Schools facilities need $3.1 billion in “critical” repairs that must be addressed in the next five years, according to a district plan released Thursday.

The cost is part of a total of $14.4 billion in updates that the district identified in its Facilities Master Plan, which CPS is required by state law to produce every five years.

“In a district as large as ours, and with a building portfolio as old as ours, this is the investment it would take to repair and modernize each and every one of our current facilities and give our students the learning environment we know they deserve,” CEO Pedro Martinez wrote in the plan’s introduction.

The $3.1 billion in costs identified as the most urgent work includes repairs to windows, roofs, masonry, and heating and cooling systems. Another $5.5 billion would go toward repairs in the next six to 10 years, according to the facilities plan. Beyond that, the district wants money to build labs “to support STEM education,” accommodations for students with disabilities, new auditoriums, new fields for sports, and classrooms “outfitted” for career and technical education — programming that Martinez wants to expand, according to the plan.

The district released the plan during Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, which was held in the auditorium of Austin Career and College Academy High School on the West Side and drew at least 200 observers. The changed location was the board’s attempt to address the longstanding criticism that the meetings, which are typically held during the day downtown, are inaccessible for many families and teachers who work during the day. (The last meeting held outside of district headquarters was in 2019, according to a district spokesperson.)

District officials said this summer that they had budgeted $155 million for facilities projects this fiscal year — roughly $600 million less than the previous year — and planned to ask for more capital funding this year.

Martinez used the plan to make another plea for more funding and “partnerships” from the city, state, and federal government. Martinez plans to press the state for more money as a way to address costs once COVID relief dollars run out in 2024.

“This plan will take coalitions and partnerships with our fellow officials at the city, state, and federal levels,” he wrote in his introduction to the plan. “It will take administrators, teachers, parents, students, and advocates pushing for the changes we need.”

Martinez said the facilities plan is a “critical” early part of its process to create a five-year strategic plan for CPS. That plan — which will build on Martinez’s three-year blueprint released last year to help the district recover from the pandemic — will be finalized next summer.

The district will also launch an advisory team that would make recommendations to Martinez on how to narrow academic disparities of Black students compared to their peers. Those recommendations would also inform a “Black Student Success Plan” and be part of the strategic plan, according to CPS.

Some advocates, however, immediately rejected that idea Thursday night. They had previously pressed officials to create a Board of Education committee that focused on Black student achievement.

“To have a strategic plan is not enough to say, ‘Oh, we hear you,’” said Valerie Leonard, a longtime West Side education advocate and the co-founder of Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting. “I want to know that you see me; I want to know there is some action. At what point will Black children be prioritized?”

District officials are asking for community feedback as they develop the strategic plan. The public meetings to gather that input will be on:

6-7:30 p.m. October 17 at Kelvyn Park High School, 4343 W. Wrightwood Ave.
6 - 7:30 p.m. October 18 at Westinghouse College Prep, 3223 W. Franklin Blvd.
10 a.m. - noon October 21, virtual meeting
6 - 7 p.m. October 23, Little Village high school campus, 3120 S. Kostner Ave.
6 - 7:30 p.m. Julian High School, 10330 S. Elizabeth St.

Those wishing to attend should register here.

The facilities plan includes information like enrollment trends to highlight the district’s needs. District officials offered more analysis Thursday of enrollment this year.

Chicago Public Schools enrollment grows by nearly 1,200

Preliminary data on the 20th day of school — when district officials tally up students for the year — indicated that enrollment, at just over 322,500 students, is essentially flat compared to last year, Chalkbeat reported last week. On Thursday, officials revealed that 323,291 students were enrolled, or nearly 1,200 more students than last year.

It’s the first time since 2011 that the district’s enrollment has not dipped. Since that year, enrollment declines were driven by several factors, including population changes and dipping birth rates. Last year’s decline cost CPS’ title as the nation’s third largest school district.

The small enrollment bump was due to fewer students leaving and more new students, including a 7% increase in preschool students, officials said. Additionally, the number of students living in temporary housing increased by 47%, which could be one sign of an increase in migrant students who are living in shelters or other temporary circumstances.

The district does not track students’ immigration status. But another sign that the population of newly enrolled migrant students is growing is the increasing number of English language learners. About 7,800 more English learners enrolled this year than last year, officials said. CPS typically enrolls an average of 3,000 new English learners a year.

English language learners now make up nearly a quarter of the district’s students, up from 22% last year, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis.

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

Chicago Public Schools enrollment is stable for first time in more than a decade

2023-09-20T02:26:40+00:00

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Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools is flat for the first time in more than a decade, according to preliminary data obtained by Chalkbeat.

New preliminary numbers for this school year show just over 322,500 students are registered at CPS schools. The data represents enrollment as of the end of the day Monday, the 20th day of the school year, when the district traditionally takes its official count. On the 20th day of last school year, 322,106 students were enrolled according to official data.

CPS enrollment has been in decline for 12 years, so this year’s shift is significant.

In the past decade, the district’s student body shrunk by 20%, with the district seeing multiple year-over-year declines of roughly 10,000 students. The dramatic contraction began after the 2011-12 school year, which was the last year CPS saw a bump in enrollment, from 402,681 to 404,151 students. Last year, Chicago lost its standing as the nation’s third largest district.

Enrollment now appears to be leveling off in Chicago. In the past year, the city has welcomed thousands of migrant families from the southern border and in July, a top mayoral aide suggested that newcomers were boosting enrollment in schools.

A district spokesperson, however, said enrollment changes are due to multiple reasons and cautioned against attributing the shifts to “any one group of students.”

“We will offer more analysis and context to our enrollment figures later this month,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said in a statement. “We are honored and privileged to serve each and every student.”

It’s too early to tell if this is the start of a new trend, said Elaine Allensworth, who studies education policy and is Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

“If it’s just a one-time pause in the trends of declining enrollment, it might not have a big overall long-term effect, but it’s really just hard to say right now since we don’t know what will happen in the future,” Allensworth said.

Thinning enrollment was driven by factors such as dipping birth rates and other population changes. With the onset of the pandemic, districts across the country enrolled fewer students, with more than 33,000 students falling off Chicago’s rolls since the fall of 2020.

Shrinking schools have left CPS officials and mayors to contend with how to best fund classrooms, especially as student needs grew during the pandemic. Enrollment has long been a determining factor for how much state and federal money a district gets. Mayor Brandon Johnson has been an outspoken critic of tying enrollment to funding, but past mayors have funded schools within CPS based on how many kids they serve.

Even with fewer students, the district’s budget has grown to $9.4 billion. That’s roughly flat compared to last year’s budget, but up from a decade ago when it hovered around $6 billion. A new state funding formula and a wave of pandemic recovery money have helped offset enrollment declines. Though state money is increasing, the district has recently seen fewer dollars than expected due to lower enrollment and increased property wealth.

According to preliminary enrollment data analyzed by Chalkbeat, there are 5,767 more students learning English as a new language this school year than last year. That’s a sizable jump: CPS has historically enrolled an average of 3,000 new English learners annually, a district spokesperson said.

CPS officials said they do not track immigration status of students. They have pointed to the growth in English language learners as one sign of newcomers, but emphasized that not all English language learners are newcomers.

The district enrolls migrant students in three ways. First, like any student, migrant children can enroll directly at schools. They can also make an appointment at the city’s new welcome center housed inside Roberto Clemente Community Academy High School on the West Side.

Finally, enrollment teams are going to families’ homes, after receiving information from the city’s Department of Family and Support Services about those in need of help who can’t make it to the welcome center, said Karime Asaf, chief of the district’s Office of Language and Cultural Education.

Schools across the district have historically struggled to meet state regulations for providing proper support for English learners. When finding a school with the right program for English learners, officials try to stay within a two-mile radius of the child’s home, Asaf said.

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which provides extra support for kids and families at a handful of Southwest Side schools as part of the district’s sustainable community schools initiative, said they’ve noticed an increase in migrant families among the parents they serve who don’t have stable housing.

Last year, the organization placed a case manager part-time at a high school in Back of the Yards that needed extra help with parents as they enrolled more migrant students, said Sara Reschly, deputy director of the group’s community services division.

At Brighton Park Elementary School, case manager Lupe Fernandez said newcomer families currently have very basic needs, such as undergarments and help navigating the CTA. The school is planning to create a free “closet” where families can pick up things they need for free.

“If there are schools that have those strong community partnerships, you know, like that would be a place to start because then you can wrap services around the whole family,” Reschly said.

Asaf, with the district, said they are processing more school transfers among newcomers as those families find new homes or more permanent housing.

Preliminary data analyzed by Chalkbeat show this school year, nearly a quarter of Chicago Public Schools students are learning English as a new language — a figure that trumps other large districts. For example, 14% of students in New York City public schools, the nation’s largest district, were English learners last school year.

The preliminary data signals the continuation of another trend over the past decade: a decline in the share of students from low-income households. Preliminary data indicate that number is 67%, down from 73% last school year.

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

Chicago Public Schools is becoming less low-income. Here’s why that matters.

2023-09-06T22:09:52+00:00

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About six years ago, Lori Zaimi’s daughter told her mom that another longtime friend was leaving their elementary school in Edgewater on the North Side. The friend’s apartment building, she explained, had been sold to someone who was going to renovate it.

Zaimi recognized the familiar story of gentrification, when higher-income families move into a working class neighborhood and drive up property values. She’d seen property demolitions and pricey single family housing go up across Edgewater, the formerly working class neighborhood where she grew up.

She has also seen the impact in her daughter’s school, where Zaimi became principal in 2015. These days, she said, rent is “unaffordable for many of our families.”

A decade ago, nearly 73% of students at the school, Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies, came from low-income households, according to district data. Last school year, that figure was just over 34%.

Zaimi’s school is not alone. Ten years ago, 85% of Chicago Public Schools students came from low-income households. Now, that figure is 73% — a 12 percentage point drop — according to district data from the 2022-23 school year. Chicago Public Schools considers a student “economically disadvantaged” if their family’s income is within 185% of the federal poverty line. This year, that threshold is $55,500 or less for a family of four.

The drop, experts say, is driven by several factors, including gentrification, population and enrollment shifts, as well as a potential dissatisfaction with district schools.

Even though the number of students from low-income families has dropped, nearly three-quarters of the district’s student body is still considered “economically disadvantaged.” But if the downward trend continues, Chicago schools could continue to see fewer dollars than expected from the state, which funds districts in part by considering how many students from low-income families are enrolled.

For individual schools, such as Peirce, the decline has led to the loss of Title I money, federal dollars sent to schools with high shares of low-income students. But as the school has become more mixed-income, it has also become more racially diverse: Last school year, Peirce was 47% white and 32% Hispanic, compared to 17% white and 62% Hispanic 10 years ago.

As the district enrolls a smaller share of students from low-income households, Chicago’s schools continue to look different from how they did a decade ago, especially in rapidly changing neighborhoods. That shift raises questions about who schools are serving, how they should be resourced, and what the district — and the city — can do as it continues to lose students.

Low-income drops happening across Chicago, but steeper in some neighborhoods

Peirce is one of more than 200 schools that have seen their share of students from low-income families drop by more than the districtwide decline of 12 percentage points, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the district’s public school enrollment data from the 2022-23 school year.

The analysis of the past decade also found:

While overall enrollment has also fallen, it’s still outpaced by the loss of students from low-income families. The district enrolled 31% fewer students from low-income families than in 2013, as the district’s overall enrollment dipped by 20%.
When looking at neighborhoods, schools in Lincoln Square and Irving Park, on the North Side, and West Elsdon, on the Southwest Side, saw a median 20 percentage point drop or more in students from low-income households since 2013. That’s more than any other community area.
Nine of the top 10 schools that lost the largest shares of students from low-income households were located on the North Side, across gentrifying neighborhoods.
Half of them enrolled more children last school year than they did 10 years ago, bucking citywide trends.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, 73 schools saw increases in their share of students from low-income families. One-third are on the South and West sides — regions that have also lost the most residents between 1999 and 2020, according to a 2022 report from UIC.

CPS officials use two methods to find out which students are from low-income households. They automatically count students who receive certain government aid meant for low-income families, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. And they collect forms handed out at the start of the school year that ask families to report their income, which in the past helped the district determine students who qualified for free or reduced price lunch.

In 2014, CPS became eligible for the federal universal free meals program for districts that serve at least 40% students from low-income families. With less pressure on schools to collect the forms, which are not mandatory, some have suggested that the district may be collecting fewer of them, potentially skewing the data about low-income families.

A CPS spokesperson said it could be “one of several reasons” behind the drop in the district’s share of low-income students. However, district officials declined to share the rate at which forms have been returned over the past decade, instead asking Chalkbeat to file an open records request for that information.

There’s some evidence that those forms do not get filled out, particularly among new students, said Elaine Allensworth, who studies education policy and is Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

In the 2014-15 school year, 86% of preschoolers and 81% of kindergartners were listed as coming from low-income families, on par with children in other grades, district data show. The next school year, after the district became federally eligible for universal free lunch, around 62% of preschool and kindergarten students came from low-income families, while figures in older grades shifted just a couple percentage points from the previous year.

“That says to me new families that are coming into CPS are not signing up for free lunch,” Allensworth said, who added that population shifts are also a likely contributing factor.

The current data for early grades could also signal that CPS is likely to see its low-income population decline further. Last school year, nearly one-quarter of preschoolers and close to half of kindergarteners were from low-income families, compared to more than three-quarters of students in nearly all of the older grades.

Multiple principals told Chalkbeat they don’t believe missing paperwork is a big contributor — or that it is a factor at all — since their funding heavily relies on collecting those forms.

Another factor in the drop of low-income students could be a slight uptick in families seeking out private schools. Of Chicago’s low-income families, 10% were enrolled in private school in 2021 — an increase of 3 percentage points from 2019, according to an analysis of Census data by Jose Pacas, chief of data science and research at Kids First Chicago. That’s after little change since 2012, the last time there was a similar increase.

That coincides with the COVID pandemic when CPS switched to virtual learning, as well as the launch of Illinois’ tax credit scholarship program, which began in the 2018-19 school year. The program grants tax credits to people who fund scholarships for low-income students who want to attend private schools. That program is expected to sunset this year.

Some low-income parents, like Blaire Flowers, say they’re frustrated with the lack of good school options available in the neighborhoods they can afford to live in. Her daughter takes two buses to a charter high school miles away from their home in Austin on the West Side because Flowers wasn’t able to find a school she liked in their own neighborhood.

West Side parent Blaire Flowers, pictured in the center, is surrounded by four of her five children.

The mother of five also fears that CPS won’t provide her 4-year-old son who has autism with an adequate education. She’s already struggled to secure bus transportation for him this year, and she’s heard frustrations from parents of older students with disabilities who have had trouble securing services they’re entitled to.

If Flowers left Chicago, she’d follow in the footsteps of many friends and family members, some who found the city too expensive, she said.

“Everyone I know, that I was close to, has left the city,” Flowers said.

As neighborhoods gentrify, schools face stark choices

The demographic changes in Chicago Public Schools are largely a reflection of a changing city, experts said.

From 2010 to 2020, Chicago’s population grew by 2%. The median household income also grew by more than $20,000, according to U.S. Census estimates. But during that time, the school district saw enrollment decline by 60,000 students. In recent years, the city’s population has dipped by 3%, driven in part by an exodus of working class families.

“The share of working class families in Chicago is decreasing with time, as its industry and economy shifts toward white collar jobs that skew upper class, college educated,” said William Scarborough, the lead author of the UIC report, who is now an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Texas.

School closings, including the mass closures under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, may have also pushed some working-class families to leave the city if they lost a beloved neighborhood school, Scarborough added. More people left the majority Black census tracts that experienced those 2013 school closures versus similar areas that did not, according to a WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times investigation.

As schools lost students, some principals doubled down on enrolling the kids who lived in their neighborhood.

That’s what happened at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Lake View on the North Side, which saw one of the biggest drops in the share of students from low-income families. In 2013, Hamilton enrolled nearly 40% of children from low-income households, according to district data. That dropped to roughly 9% last school year.

James Gray, who was the principal from 2009-17, inherited an enrollment crisis when he took over Hamilton, which had narrowly escaped closure. The school enrolled 243 students when he arrived – roughly half of the almost 500 it served in 1999. He set out on what he called a “guerrilla effort” to sign up more neighborhood children, offering tours of the school, hosting weekend events and open houses, and even venturing to the park to chat up parents of toddlers — or potential future students.

Gray was successful. By the time he left, enrollment had jumped back up to about 480 students. He noticed that his students were increasingly coming from wealthier families. They were also more white. But that’s who lived in the neighborhood.

In 2013, the school was 47% white, 12% Black, 30% Hispanic and 4% Asian. Last school year, 73% of students were white — on par with the racial makeup of Lake View — while just 3% were Black, just under 13% were Hispanic, and nearly 4% were Asian American. (Hamilton’s current principal did not respond to a request for an interview.)

Though the shifts at individual schools can be stark, the racial breakdown districtwide has only changed slightly. As of last school year, the district’s students were 4% Asian American, 11% white, 36% Black, and 46.5% Hispanic. Ten years ago, 3% were Asian American, 9% were white, 40.5% were Black, and close to 45% were Hispanic.

Research has shown that students in diverse schools, both socioeconomically and racially, perform better academically than schools that are not integrated.

At the same time, families who become the minority may not feel as included or even shut out from their schools. As more neighborhood white families enrolled at Hamilton, Gray said, he received an anonymous note that said he had “driven Black and brown families away.”

It also stung when former students would visit and notice improvements at the school — bankrolled, in part, by parent fundraising efforts — such as new hoops and backboards in the gym and a new science lab.

They would say some version of, “Oh Mr. Gray, I wish you could have done this while I was here,” he recalled.

“They realized their experience was different from the kindergarteners or first graders’ experience over time,” Gray said.

While the demographic shifts have led to more income and racial diversity at some schools, that diversity could be fleeting as gentrification continues to push longtime neighborhood families out.

John-Jairo Betancur, professor of urban planning and policy at UIC, said as property values “dramatically” increase, families — and their children — leave for other neighborhoods or the suburbs, causing enrollment in the local schools to drop. At the same time, birth rates are declining in Chicago and more households do not include children, Betancur noted.

That has happened in Logan Square, home to Lorenz Brentano Math & Science Academy elementary school.

Similar to Hamilton, Brentano was at risk of closure due to low enrollment in 2013. Principal Seth Lavin’s priority when he became principal in 2015 was to bring in more students. He, too, was successful through various efforts, giving more than 100 school tours his first year, he said.

Today, the school enrolls almost 700 children, a 62% increase from a decade ago. But the school looks different. Roughly 39% of students come from low-income households, a nearly 50 percentage point drop from 2013 when 88% did. The school has also become more diverse: Half of Brentano’s students are Hispanic, just over a third are white, and about 5% are Black. A decade ago, 85% of students were Hispanic, while 5% were white, and 4% were Black.

Lavin said he is worried that gentrification has already “pushed out a lot of families” and will continue to do so, leading to a “great sense of loss” for families who have long called Logan Square home, and believe Brentano is at the heart of their community.

“It’s heartbreaking that even as we grow, and there’s expansion and the programming and things we didn’t have before that we’re able to get because of enrollment growth, that we’re losing families that should have those things, too,” Lavin said.

‘We have to keep kids in neighborhoods’

Lavin can spot six buildings outside of Brentano that have been renovated and hiked up rent prices in the last several years. He said the city “desperately” needs affordable housing and a pathway to home ownership.

“If we want to keep kids in neighborhood schools, we have to keep kids in neighborhoods,” he said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that building more affordable housing and boosting neighborhood schools are priorities for his administration. Specifically, the mayor wants to grow the district’s Sustainable Community Schools model, which provides extra money for wraparound support and programming.

Separately, Johnson’s vision for school funding would alleviate pressure on principals to enroll more children in order to have a well-resourced school, or even to avoid closure. Though in the past more students meant more funding, CPS officials have been shifting toward funding schools based on need, not just enrollment. But that comes as the district stares down financial challenges, including a fiscal cliff as COVID relief dollars are set to run out.

If the city does nothing to address issues such as affordable housing, Chicago will shift toward “a city that primarily serves elites,” said Scarborough, the author of the UIC report.

District officials have not yet researched the trend around losing students from low-income families, a spokesperson said.

But many principals have noticed these shifts for years.

Even with how her community has changed, Zaimi’s school has two counselors and more staff focused on academic intervention. Still, she wishes she had more funding to hire a parent resource coordinator who could work with families, as well as instructional coaches who could help new teachers or those using new strategies in the classroom.

After all, she emphasized, her students have a lot of needs, regardless of their income. And, last year, more than one-third — about 370 — came from low-income families. That’s larger than the enrollment of entire schools in Chicago.

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

Thomas Wilburn is the senior data editor for Chalkbeat. Reach Thomas at twilburn@chalkbeat.org.

Free meals for all Illinois students won’t be a reality this school year. Here’s why.

2023-08-31T23:34:00+00:00

McHenry School District 15, a northwest suburb of Chicago located 50 miles away, is feeling the financial strain of feeding students throughout the school day.

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the school was able to provide thousands of school meals to its 4,000 students thanks to federal waivers. This year, students who are not eligible for free or reduced lunch have to pay full price for meals — $1.60 for breakfast and $2.95 for lunch.

Kevin Harris, McHenry’s director of food services, said the district has kept the meal price the same since last year because the school board did not want to charge families more. According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2022 report card, 38% of students in the district are eligible for free or reduced lunch. The district is subsidizing the cost of meals without federal waivers or an increase in state funding.

In early August, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law creating the “Healthy School Meals for All Program” to help local school districts pay for the cost of school meals to all students. State lawmakers and school officials say getting the bill signed into law was a step in the right direction, but the state did not allocate any additional money to make the program a reality for districts like McHenry.

Harris, a supporter of the bill, had hoped the law would help his school district receive more state funding for school meals, so it could feed more students.

But, Harris said, “without funding, it’s a worthless law.”

For some students, school is the only place where they can access breakfast or lunch throughout the day. The Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit that advocates for solutions to hunger, has pushed for free meals in schools because studies show it improves students’ overall health and increases their academic performance in class and on standardized tests.

When COVID-19 closed school buildings around the country, the federal government gave waivers to school districts that allowed them to feed students at their homes, provide school meals to all students for free, and have flexibility on what was served to students. Illinois school districts saw a bump in their reimbursement from the State Board of Education at the time.

But the federal school meal waivers lapsed at the end of June 2022. Now families have to prove that they need subsidized school meals by filling out paperwork regarding their income.

Illinois is one of the latest states to move toward universal free meals for all students. Eight other states, including California, Colorado, Michigan, and Massachusetts, have increased funding and passed into law free meals for all students plans.

State Rep. Maurice West II, who represents Rockford and was lead sponsor of the “Healthy School Meals for All Program” bill, said it was important to take on the issue because it will reduce stigma for students who need assistance to afford school meals.

Under the new law, West said, school districts must first seek money from the federal government’s Community Eligibility Program, a federal program that helps schools that serve a majority of students from low-income households offer free meals to all enrolled students. Then Illinois will help school districts make up the difference after federal funding.

But West says when it came time to increase the budget to do just that, lawmakers didn’t add any money. In fact, the reimbursement funding level has been flat since the 2008 recession, he said.

With just $9 million going towards school meals, West said, “we need more for this to be school meals for all.”

Michael Jacoby, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials, said his organization estimates the Illinois program could cost the state around $200 million a year to fill in the gap after federal funding, when compared to other states that have a similar program. But without data from other states, he said, it is hard to estimate the exact cost.

The state will need to do a study to see how much it needs, Jacoby said.

Emily Warnecke, director of public policy at the Illinois Association of School Administrators, hopes the federal government will increase what they give to states.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering changing its rules for the Community Eligibility Program. Currently, school districts are eligible for the program if 40% of the student population can receive subsidized meals. Now, the federal government is looking to decrease that threshold to 25%.

If that happens, more federal money will come in for the program, ”which would lessen the amount of money that the state would need to fully fund the program,” Warnecke said “That’s kind of an outstanding variable.”

Warnecke expects the federal government to act on that change in April 2024.

When it comes to the state’s “Healthy Meals for All Program,’’ Illinois lawmakers could allocate money for fiscal year 2025 during next spring’s legislative session. If that happens, school districts would be able to offer free meals next school year.

As for this year, students at school districts like McHenry will have to fork over almost $5 for breakfast and lunch every day.

Correction: Sept. 1, 2023: A previous version of this story identified Michael Jacoby as the executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards. Jacoby is the executive director of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials.

Chicago’s first day of school is almost here. Here are five things we’re watching this year.

2023-08-18T20:42:43+00:00

Chicago Public Schools’ estimated 320,000 students will head back to class Monday for a school year that will be marked by old issues — and some new concerns.

The district’s enrollment has been dwindling for at least a decade, raising questions about how to best fund schools still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

Funding overall has become more complicated as the city’s federal COVID relief dollars dry up. Much of that money has been used for supporting existing and additional staff, many of them providing extra academic support for students.

As the district decides on how, if at all, to continue funding some of those programs, it must also contend with the continued enrollment of incoming immigrant students.

Here are five issues Chalkbeat Chicago will be watching this school year:

A fiscal cliff is approaching

This is the last full school year before Chicago must earmark how to spend what’s left of nearly $3 billion it received in COVID relief aid from the federal government. The deadline is September 2024.

That means the district will soon be staring down a financial hole that has been filled by that influx of federal funds since the pandemic.

The district spent a large share of pandemic relief money on staff salaries and benefits. The district also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on academic recovery efforts, including after-school programs, an in-house tutor corps, and more counselors, social workers, and other support staff.

District officials have projected a budget shortfall of $628 million by the 2025-26 school year, raising questions about how Chicago will sustain any programs and services supported by the federal dollars.

A financial analysis released under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot noted that CPS “will not have a funding source” to keep up these academic recovery and social-emotional learning efforts.

As the district’s financial picture is becoming more precarious, Mayor Brandon Johnson has shared lofty plans for schools, including expanding the Community Schools model — leaving complicated financial decisions ahead.

The district’s state funding could also be in jeopardy if it fails to comply with a state law requiring that at least two staffers at each school are trained on the use of student restraint and timeout. The deadline for that, coincidentally, is the first day of school.

Student academic needs persist

Three years since the onset of the COVID pandemic, there are still signs Chicago students need extra help in the classroom. Students appear to be improving in reading achievement, but they’re gaining less ground in math, according to recent state test scores obtained by Chalkbeat.

As the district’s COVID dollars fade out, questions remain about how district officials will approach academic recovery, and whether there will be efforts to keep any of the extra support CPS has funded with the federal dollars.

Some of those COVID dollars went toward the creation of a $135 million universal curriculum called Skyline, which has received mixed reviews. The district has pressed schools not yet using the curriculum to prove they’re using another high-quality option, so it’s possible more campuses will use Skyline this year.

Additionally, Illinois’ General Assembly passed a new law requiring the State Board of Education to create a literacy plan for schools, which is due by the end of January 2024.

District grapples with continued dipping enrollment

Chicago’s public school enrollment has dipped by 9% since the pandemic began — a trend also seen among other big-city school districts — and is almost one-fifth smaller than it was a decade ago. Last year’s enrollment dip of 9,000 students was enough to push the district’s ranking from the country’s third largest public school system to the number 4 spot.

This year’s enrollment figures won’t be publicly released until later this fall.

As the district’s student body has thinned out, funding has grown — to $9.4 billion for the upcoming school year. Still, as the district has logged fewer students — including those from low-income families — CPS has in recent years received less state funding than it has projected. And with COVID aid running out, officials must grapple with how to fund schools serving a fraction of the kids they used to. (There is a citywide moratorium on school closures until 2025.)

Some advocacy and interest groups, including the teachers union, believe funding should be divorced from enrollment, in part because investing fewer dollars will only encourage more families to leave or to never enroll in public schools. Just over 40% of new budgets for schools this year was determined by student enrollment, with the rest accounting for other factors, such as student demographics.

Still, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has emphasized that the district can’t factor out enrollment.

“In a large school district where schools serve 40 students, 400 students, and even 4,000 students, enrollment simply has to play a role in our funding formula,” Martinez previously told reporters.

Increase in migrant students poses new challenges

Last year, Texas officials began busing newly arrived migrants to Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. Since then, an estimated 12,000 migrants, many of whom are fleeing economic and political turmoil from South and Central American countries, have arrived in Chicago, While the district won’t say how many such students have enrolled, CPS saw roughly 5,400 new English learners last school year, Chalkbeat found.

Most Chicago schools have previously struggled with providing adequate language instruction for English learners. And with the city expecting more newcomers, educators and immigrant advocates recently told Chalkbeat that schools are not adequately resourced to serve these new students.

Some of these children may arrive without years of formal education and, if they’re learning English as a new language, are legally required to receive extra support.

The district’s number of bilingual teachers has dropped since 2015 even as the English learner population has grown, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. More teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements, which allows them to teach, but it’s unclear whether any of those educators are using those endorsements in the classroom.

District officials will be tasked with how to properly support these students. Officials had previously promised to release a formal plan by the first day of school but have not done so yet.

No district maps yet for the elected school board

As Chicago prepares to begin electing school board members next fall over the next two years, lawmakers have yet to approve maps that would designate which districts each board member would be elected from in the first round of elections. Ten members will be elected in November 2024, while the rest will be elected in November 2026, for a total of 21 members.

Illinois state lawmakers are in charge of approving those maps. In May, they extended their deadline to April 1, 2024, after concerns over whether the maps would match the makeup of the district’s student body or the city’s overall demographics.

Some observers cheered the extension. However, the delay presents new complications. If maps are not approved until April, the campaign season for the first set of districts would last just seven months, making it potentially challenging for candidates to prepare and for voters to have enough information ahead of Election Day.

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

Chicago will get smaller share of state’s increased K-12 education budget for second year in a row

2023-08-09T19:28:21+00:00

Chicago Public Schools will once again get less state education money than officials anticipated, according to new data released by the state on Tuesday.

Although Chicago will still see an increase in state education funding, a drop in the percentage of students considered low-income and a bump in property wealth in the city means the district is not getting the largest share of the new money.

The largest share of the state’s new K-12 funding – $35 million – will go to Elgin U-46, Illinois’ second largest district. Plainfield School District 202, the state’s fifth largest district, will receive $13.1 million of the increase.

In all, Chicago will get $1.77 billion in K-12 funding, up from $1.75 billion last year. The amount doesn’t include millions it gets for things such as pre-K and transportation. The new state data indicates CPS is now getting more than $17,000 per student from the state and is considered 80% of the way to “adequately funded.”

A district spokesperson did not say how the change might impact the already-approved $9.4 billion budget. In a statement, they said the district is “eager to work with the General Assembly toward increased and targeted State funding that more equitably supports the students most in need in Chicago and across Illinois.”

Last year, Chicago Public Schools planned on getting $50 million in new state money, but instead received a little more than $27 million after losing 10,000 students and seeing an increase in property wealth.

Funding for public education has been steadily increasing in Illinois since 2017, when state lawmakers overhauled the formula used to distribute tax dollars to school districts. The goal was to add more money over time to bring all districts to a level of “adequacy” and shed Illinois’ reputation as a state that ranked near the bottom when it came to support for public education.

“When you consider how much progress Illinois has made in the last five years, it’s nothing short of remarkable,” said Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, a nonprofit advocacy and policy organization based in Chicago that focuses on public school education. “But that does not mean our work is done.”

Steans said the latest calculations make her hopeful that the state can fully fund schools in the next five years, but there is still a need to increase state funding for schools by at least $550 million a year to reach that goal.

Lawmakers have increased education funding every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

State education officials calculate how much each school district gets based on a number of factors, including the needs of the students enrolled and a local district’s ability to fund schools using local resources such as property taxes. For example, districts that serve more students from low-income families or English language learners get more state money.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a looming deficit when federal COVID recovery money runs out next fall. District officials and school board members have said they hope for more state funding to fill the gap.

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