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Chicago Public Schools is granting principals pay increases and more protections against harassment in their first ever tentative collective bargaining agreement, according to the union representing the district’s school leaders.
The historic contract, which the district and union tentatively reached Friday, needs to be approved by the union’s members and the school board. It includes a retroactive 4% cost-of-living increase for the 2024-25 school year and more due process protections for principals who face discipline, said Kia Banks, the president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.
It also includes cost-of-living and baseline pay increases for the coming school year, but the union is waiting to share information about them with its members before publicizing the amounts.
Banks said the union and the district will continue to negotiate on a number of issues, including benefits and a process for unsuccessful candidates for principal positions to appeal that outcome.
In a statement, Chicago Public Schools said the deal is an interim agreement that includes 4% raises for both this past year and the coming school year, which the district has already implemented. The school board will review that agreement at its regular meeting later this month.
“Our shared goal is to reach a comprehensive agreement that supports our school leaders and advances our mission to provide a rigorous, joyful and equitable learning experience for every student,” the district said.
Illinois lawmakers passed legislation in 2023 that allowed the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association to unionize the district’s principals for the first time, and the union officially formed later that year. It has been negotiating with the district since the spring of 2024, though highly contentious and protracted bargaining with the Chicago Teachers Union put the principals union contract on the backburner for much of that time.
The tentative agreement comes days before district leaders will unveil a 2025-26 budget whose approval was delayed almost two months past the fiscal year’s start amid a leadership transition and efforts to plug a $734 million deficit.
Banks said the new contract will also provide more professional development to school leaders and enshrine more protections against abuse and harassment they can face from staff, local school council members, parents, and others.
The retroactive 4% cost-of-living increase for the past school year is in line with what the teachers union negotiated in its own agreement. Principals have received raises comparable to those in the CTU contract in previous years, but those were never guaranteed until now, Banks said.
“This agreement will give school leaders the confidence and dignity to continue to do the work they do every day,” Banks said.
“In the midst of a leadership transition and a huge budget deficit, this process could have taken much longer,” she added. “There was a willingness from the district to consider our school leaders as partners, and that helped the process along.”
The average principal’s salary in CPS is about $161,000, based on a Chalkbeat analysis of district staffing data last spring. Assistant principals make roughly $131,000 on average.
Principals, who don’t get the summers off, can make less per hour than veteran educators they supervise — an issue that Banks hopes ongoing negotiations with the district will address.
Unlike teachers, principals cannot go on strike under state law though an amendment to legislation that green-lit unionization allows them to enlist an outside mediator to help with the negotiations. The union has not resorted to that option so far, Banks said.
Union leaders said they believe a collective bargaining agreement that more clearly spells out school leaders’ duties, workdays, and recourse they have if they experience harassment would improve principal retention. Roughly half of elementary principals and two-thirds of high schools principals in CPS leave their positions within five years, according to University of Chicago data.
“We have a long way to go; we’ve barely scratched the surface,” Banks said, adding that much credit for the agreement goes to the years-long advocacy of her predecessor in the president role, Troy LaRaviere. “District decisions have always been made for us and about us but never included us.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
