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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.
