Chalkbeat

Chicago Public Schools enrollment climbs as more migrant families arrive

2024-02-08T23:43:51+00:00

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More than 5,700 newly arrived immigrant students have enrolled in Chicago Public Schools since the beginning of the school year, district officials said Thursday.

Preliminary school enrollment data updated daily on the city data portal and analyzed by Chalkbeat shows overall enrollment increased by 4,500 students since the official count on the 20th day of school in September. After more than a decade of decline, CPS saw its enrollment stabilize this school year.

“The number is fluid and evolving,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said Thursday. “Our principals and teachers and school communities have been incredibly welcoming to the students and their families.”

His comments came during a virtual press conference about a new volunteer coordination effort launched by the City of Chicago aimed at supporting migrant families. It also comes after city officials once again delayed its plan to enforce a 60-day shelter stay limit on migrant families.

Publicly available data does not reveal how many CPS students are migrants or how many are living in city shelters. District officials said they do not collect information about the immigration status of students or their families “to support the City of Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance.”

Preliminary enrollment data analyzed by Chalkbeat indicates nearly 7,000 more students have been identified as English language learners since the end of September, when the district officially counted enrollment. English language learners can include both newly arrived immigrants, as well as students already living in Chicago.

Last school year, English language learners made up about one-fifth of all students; a decade ago, these students made up roughly 16% of CPS.

Last month, educators, union officials, and some local lawmakers raised concerns about schools without enough bilingual staff and other resources struggling to meet those students’ language and mental health needs.

District officials said Thursday that just under 6% of schools are lacking teachers with necessary ESL or bilingual credentials. Karime Asaf, the district’s chief of language and cultural education, said officials are prioritizing those roughly 30 schools — which officials did not identify — “for any kind of services or resources.”

Asaf said schools are working to get more teachers certified to teach English learners. District officials said they’ve allocated a total of $8 million to schools that saw increases in English learners since the 20th day of school.

Martinez said around 600 teachers are currently working toward getting bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsements.

Martinez said currently 7,200 teachers have these qualifications, up from about 5,100 teachers in 2018. However, bilingual staffing can vary by school, and often support staff, such as social workers, are not bilingual. CPS does provide a 24/7 language interpretation hotline that schools can call to get assistance communicating with families, but some parents have said they’ve struggled to communicate with schools or understand their school options when it’s time to move.

Students who are homeless — those in shelters, living doubled up somewhere, or living in a public place — have a right to remain at their school even if they move out of the school’s boundary and are entitled to transportation provided by the district, such as free CTA passes. By state law, if a school enrolls 20 or more students who speak a language other than English, the school must set up a bilingual education program with qualified staff. Asaf said this is “a multi-year process.”

“Generally, the challenge we have is when families just walk up to our buildings and we always tell our schools: Enroll the families. And then we have a process to work with those families to make sure we find the nearest program,” Martinez said.

The district also has bi-weekly meetings with staff at the city’s largest temporary shelters that are housing migrants, to “make sure that our families understand that there’s always a way to connect with the Chicago Public Schools … to make sure all their questions are answered,” Asaf said. She added that most school leaders attend these meetings.

Martinez said CPS is planning to hire newcomer adults who have received work authorization for “critical needs” at schools, including as custodians, as well as positions in transportation, nutrition, and classroom support.

Many of Chicago’s migrant families have been searching for work but need authorization to obtain jobs legally. Axios reported that about 1,000 newcomers have received work permits as of late January, four months after the federal government expanded eligibility to nearly half a million immigrants from Venezuela, where political and economic turmoil has pushed many residents to leave.

“We were proactive working with the city to say, since we know we have these families who are looking for jobs, we have many openings,” Martinez told reporters on Thursday. “We are now just trying to make it easier for our families to be able to apply for these different jobs.”

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.

Illinois high school juniors must take the ACT to fulfill graduation requirements starting next spring

2024-05-15T22:51:06+00:00

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Illinois high school juniors will take the ACT instead of the SAT to graduate starting next school year.

The Illinois State Board of Education was updated on the switch during its monthly meeting on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the school board says the ACT was awarded a $53 million contract over the course of six years. The state requires students to take a college entrance exam in order to graduate.

“At the end of the day, it came down to price,” said Stephen Isoye, chairman of the State Board of Education, noting that state law requires assessment vendors to go through a competitive procurement process.

State Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote in a weekly message to school administrators on Tuesday that the ACT “aligns with the Illinois Learning Standards, provides a secure online testing experience for students, reduces administrative burden on districts,” and will give “actionable reporting for educators and families.”

The procurement office evaluated bids from the College Board, which administers the SAT, and ACT Inc. on “technical specifications, commitment to diversity, and price.” Overall, the ACT received more points.

School districts in the state have given high school juniors the SAT for almost a decade. Illinois switched from ACT to the SAT in 2016 and has renewed the contract with the College Board several times.

However, Sanders said the state board will work with ACT to support schools through the transition.

“We will help you prepare teachers for the transition and help you communicate with students and families, so you can continue doing your best work in teaching and learning,” Sanders wrote in his weekly message.

Many colleges and universities stopped requiring entrance exams during the pandemic but are moving back to requiring the tests for admissions.

The state board’s contract with the College Board to administer the SAT for 11th graders and the PSAT for 9th and 10th grades will expire on June 30. Illinois, like all states, is required by federal law to administer accountability assessment to high school students. State law says the exam must be a nationally recognized college entrance exam, leaving the state with two choices: the ACT or SAT.

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.

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

Organizers of Democratic National Convention in Chicago launch student art competition

2024-05-15T12:00:00+00:00

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Keiana Barrett still has the button she wore at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The event, held in Denver, ended with former President Barack Obama, then a U.S. Senator from Chicago, becoming the party’s nominee.

Barrett, now a senior advisor for the Chicago 2024 Host Committee, is helping launch an art competition for high school students to design buttons, posters, and other art to be displayed during the Democratic National Convention in late August.

“We want to make sure that throughout the convention experience, the delegates, the visitors, our allied groups will have an inescapable opportunity to see the beauty of Chicago through the eyes of our young people and to give them a platform to continue to sharpen their creative pencils,” Barrett said.

Earlier this year, Chicago Public Schools announced it would begin the 2024-25 school year on Aug. 26, slightly later than usual to accommodate traffic and an expected 75,000 additional visitors during the week of the convention, Aug. 19 - 22.

Students and graduating seniors from public and private high schools across the Chicago area have until June 10 at 5 p.m. to submit their designs. Original artwork can include drawings, paintings, photography or other two-dimensional media, but must be created by hand and without the help of artificial intelligence.

One winner will have their design featured on a commemorative button and poster, and will get a $200 Visa gift card and two one-day passes to the convention. Other finalists will be selected to have their art displayed at the convention, which is taking place primarily at the United Center on Chicago’s West Side.

More information about the competition and how to submit is available here.

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

Chicago school board candidates gather virtually for first debate

2024-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

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Thirteen people running in Chicago’s first school board elections participated in a virtual debate late Sunday night and answered questions about equity, community voice, and bus transportation for students.

The Zoom session — organized by the group CPS Parents for Buses — marked the first time candidates fielded questions as a group in a public forum for the city’s historic upcoming school board elections.

Chicago voters will elect 10 school board members for the first time this November to govern Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s fourth largest school district, alongside 11 members appointed by the mayor. In 2026, all 21 members will be elected, ending 30 years of mayoral control.

Chicago has been divided into 10 districts for the 2024 election (You can find what district you live in here.) In order to get on the ballot, candidates have until June 24 to collect 1,000 signatures from voters in their districts.

While the ballot is not yet set, those who attended the forum Sunday night were:

Jennifer Custer and Michelle Pierre, who are both running in District 1 covering the city’s northwest side out to O’Hare.
Kate Doyle, Daniel Steven Kleinman, and Maggie Cullerton Hooper, all running in District 2, which covers the far north lakefront, including Rogers Park, Edgewater, and Lincoln Square.
Jason Dones, who is running in District 3, which spans across Humboldt Park, Irving Park, and Belmont Cragin.
Kimberly Brown and Thomas Day, both running in District 4, which covers Lakeview and Lincoln Park, as well as Angel Alvarez, who said he is considering a run in District 4.
Jesus Ayala Jr., running in District 7 which stretches from the University of Illinois Chicago campus to Gage Park.
Lanetta Thomas, who is running in District 9 to represent the far south side from Englewood to Beverly.
Adam Parrott-Sheffer and Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who are both running in District 10 to represent the south lakefront to the Indiana border.

The group that organized the candidate forum has been advocating since the start of the school year around restoring busing for roughly 5,500 general education students who lost transportation service at the start of this school year. Most of those students travel to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

CPS stopped busing general education students as it worked to ensure students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs require transportation were getting it and that their ride times were not longer than an hour.

All 13 candidates answered yes when asked if CPS should be responsible for busing general education students to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

Most of the questions candidates fielded went beyond bus transportation and covered the topics of equity, transparency, budgeting, and parent voice. Unlike many political debates, candidates often agreed with each other’s answers and ideas and traded compliments.

J.B. Mantz, with CPS Parents for Buses, said the group invited the current seven appointed school board members and the board’s chief of staff, but did not hear back.

Five possible Chicago school board candidates did not attend, but filed paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections to raise campaign cash to run for Chicago school board. They include: Ebony DeBerry, District 2; Carlos Rivas, District 3; Andy Davis, District 4; Danielle Wallace, District 6; and Katie Marciniak, District 7.

Another candidate from District 7 — Yesenia López — did not attend the virtual forum and has not filed campaign finance paperwork, but got an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia earlier this year.

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

Here’s how to vote in Chicago’s Local School Council elections

2024-04-24T15:57:00+00:00

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There’s a uniquely Chicago election happening this week: Local School Councils.

Every resident of the city is able to vote — either as a community member or at the school where they work, attend, or have a child enrolled. (More on that below.)

The elections take place at all Chicago Public Schools from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Voting at elementary schools takes place Wednesday, April 10 and at high schools on Thursday, April 11.

Elementary schools also have parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday and kindergarten through eighth grade students are off. High school parent-teacher conferences are Thursday, and there’s no school for high school students.

Originally established in 1988, each district-run school in Chicago Public Schools has a Local School Council, or LSC, traditionally made up of six parents, two teachers, two community members, a student, and the school’s principal.

LSCs can be an important vehicle for parent and community voice and power. Their primary duties are approving school budgets, crafting school improvement plans, and selecting and evaluating the principal. In recent years, they’ve also had the power to decide whether or not to staff police officers at schools — a decision that the school board is now planning to make unilaterally.

More than 17,000 candidates ran in the first LSC elections in 1989, but those numbers have declined to just over 6,000 applicants in 2022. Turnout in 2022 rebounded, reaching its highest level since 2010 and after a slump in 2020 amid the COVID pandemic.

But in many cases, LSCs suffer from persistent vacancies. For several years, LSCs at low-performing schools lost much of their decision-making power.

The looming shift to an elected Chicago Board of Education with 21 members has the potential to overshadow LSCs or reinvigorate them.

Here’s more on how to participate in these hyperlocal elections:

Who can vote?

Anyone in Chicago can vote for up to five candidates at their local schools. In order to vote, you just need to live within a school’s attendance boundary or voting district. Schools without a neighborhood boundary – such as magnet and selective enrollment schools — do have a boundary drawn for the purposes of LSC voting.

There may be multiple schools where you can cast a vote, and you can search your address using this tool to find out where you are eligible to vote. A CPS spokesperson said to double check with the school if you’re unsure.

All students, parents, and guardians of students enrolled at a school may vote at that school, even if it’s outside their neighborhood.

All staff who work more than part time at a school can also vote at the campus where they work. Teachers and staff can vote for up to two candidates for teacher or staff representative.

Students are eligible to vote for their school’s student representative.

How do I vote?

Voting takes place at school buildings all day on Wednesday at elementary schools and Thursday at high schools. If you’re a parent or school staff member, you can cast a ballot while you’re at the school for parent-teacher conferences, which are also taking place on those respective days. Many schools do offer virtual conferences, but LSC elections could serve as an incentive to go in person.

If you’re a community member interested in voting, you can look up where you’re eligible to vote and cast a ballot at any of the schools that show up.

Erykah Nava is running for parent representative at Lloyd Elementary in Belmont-Cragin where her daughter is in third grade. She’s been reminding people to make sure they mark an X on the ballot by the names of the candidates they want to elect. District officials say any other mark will not be counted as a vote and will result in your entire ballot being thrown out.

Two forms of identification are needed. For parents, one must establish you are the parent or legal guardian of a student enrolled.

Why vote for the Local School Council?

Local School Councils were created to empower communities and parents to improve their schools. They “represent bottom up democracy, participatory grassroots democracy,” said Michael Brunson, a community representative at Harlan High School, member of the district’s LSC Advisory Board, and former recording secretary for the teachers union.

“I can’t think of a better introduction to politics than the Local School Council,” Brunson said, adding that a handful of the city’s current aldermen once served on an LSC.

Chicago will soon begin electing people to the Chicago Board of Education, which will expand to 21 members in 2025. But Brunson said “an elected school board is not the answer to all problems.”

Nava said she sees LSCs as complementary to the soon-to-be elected school board.

“I think having the super hyper local accountability and then having more wider citywide accountability, I think those can work very well hand in hand,” Nava said.

Even though some LSCs struggle to fill all their seats, there are competitive races at many schools.

Josh Levin is running for re-election as a community representative at Brentano Elementary, which has more candidates than seats this year. Levin attended Brentano as a child and his dad served on the LSC at Whitney Young Magnet High School in the 1990s.

“It’s always been a funny little governing body,” Levin said. “The ones that work, I think, help contribute to their schools and make a difference.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when Levin’s father served on the LSC at Whitney Young Magnet High School. It was during the early 1990s, not the inaugural LSC in 1989.

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

Illinois lawmakers propose extending Chicago’s moratorium on school closures to 2027

2024-04-17T16:22:44+00:00

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Illinois lawmakers want to extend a moratorium on school closures in Chicago and prevent changes at selective enrollment and magnet schools until 2027, when a fully elected school board is sworn in.

The proposal moving through the legislature first emerged in response to a resolution passed by the Chicago school board in December to develop a new strategic plan that would move away from school choice and invest more in neighborhood schools. That sparked concerns Chicago Public Schools could close or change admissions at dozens of sought-after selective and magnet schools, though board members continue to reiterate they do not intend to close those schools.

The initial bill sought to prevent the district from closing or changing admissions policies at any selective or magnet schools. Now, lawmakers are now also proposing to extend an existing moratorium on any school closures to Feb. 1, 2027. Currently, state law prevents Chicago from closing schools until January 15, 2025, when a partially elected school board is set to be sworn in.

State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Democrat serving neighborhoods on the city’s northern lakefront and sponsor of the bill, said in a committee hearing Tuesday the legislation is meant to delay any big changes until an elected school board is in place.

“These huge decisions, I believe, should be made by an elected school board because we, as a general assembly, voted for an elected school board,” Croke said.

However, Croke said district officials approached her about not extending the moratorium.

“They do have concerns about what their budget is going to look like and whether or not they’re going to start having conversations about some of the schools that they need to have consolidated,” Croke said.

CPS last closed schools in 2018, when it consolidated four high schools in Englewood and built a new state-of-the-art neighborhood high school. Prior to that, the district closed 50 schools all at once in 2013, sparking months of protests and propelled political organizing within the Chicago Teachers Union that eventually helped elect current Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The school district has lost roughly 80,000 students in the past decade, and many schools once again struggle with low enrollment. For example, one high school on the West Side has just 33 students enrolled. Still, enrollment stabilized this school year and is climbing as new immigrant students enroll.

During a committee hearing Tuesday, State Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., who represents neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side, said the district does need to provide more support to neighborhood schools to make them more attractive to families.

“Parents are crying because they can’t get their kid into a selective enrollment school,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of schools where people don’t want to send their kids. That means we got to fix those schools. The focus has to be on neighborhood schools.”

Evans added that CPS has “serious issues” with race and class that need to be addressed, noting that he hears from well-resourced Black and white constituents who won’t send their children to neighborhood public high schools in his ward.

Many of Chicago’s most sought-after selective schools are more diverse than the rest of the school district, but also are disproportionately less low-income and more white and Asian American than the rest of CPS.

“I think the new leadership – under the mayor, the new board – they want to do something different and I think it’s making people uncomfortable,” Evans said.

Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi said there is no plan or intent to close or change selective schools, but rather an attempt to fix inequities across the district.

“I am committed to working with everyone here on whether it’s budget, whether it’s selective enrollment and all the ways we can strengthen our school types,” Shi said.

Selective enrollment and magnet schools used to admit students based on race when Chicago was under a federal desegregation consent decree. That changed after a 2006 Supreme Court ruling curtailed the use of race as a factor in high school admissions. Now students are admitted based on the socioeconomic status of their home neighborhood.

Shi noted that since then, some of the district’s top high schools, such as Walter Payton, have become less Black and Latino and less low-income.

“Our Latine student population in CPS is 47%. That is no nowhere close to where our selective enrollments are and it’s even worse for our low-income students,” Shi said.

In 2022, there were discussions about changing selective enrollment admissions, but those mostly did not materialize. CPS did shorten the length of the High School Admissions Test from more than three hours to one hour and now tests all eighth graders during the school day in order to make it accessible to all students.

Croke did adjust some language in the bill since she introduced it, including that selective schools can’t see their budgets “disproportionately” decreased compared to other schools.

CPS schools got their preliminary budgets last week. District officials said the total amount of funding dedicated to all schools won’t be cut, but individual campuses could see fluctuations up or down.

Next school year, the district is doing away with student-based budgeting and switching to a formula that allocates set staffing levels and provides additional money based on need.

CPS has not publicly shared all schools’ preliminary budgets and a spokesperson did not provide information about how many selective schools are seeing changes to their budgets next year.

Shi said during a committee hearing in Springfield that 22 of 36 selective schools will maintain funding or see an increase next school year.

Stephen Mitchell, the Local School Council chair at Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, said their budget appears to be reduced, even though it’s difficult to compare year to year numbers.

“You hear CPS say‚ ’Oh, nothing’s gonna change,”' Mitchell said. “But then when we look, we see something different. So it’s definitely making us you know, raise an eyebrow and say, hey, you know what’s going on here? You’re telling us one thing, but it looks like you’re doing something else.”

Chicago school board vice president Elizabeth Todd-Breland said Wednesday morning that the bill looks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

“The small number of selective enrollment schools in the district are well enrolled. They are well resourced and Chicago Public Schools and this board of education will continue to support these schools,” she said.

Todd-Breland said the district is facing a “serious structural deficit” and the board is required to pass a balanced budget annually.

“We are worried about the very real possibility that as an unintended consequence of this bill, we in the out years will be forced to balance our budget on the backs of neighborhood schools that disproportionately serve students with disabilities, black students, Latinx students, students in temporary living situations, and low income students,” she said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

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

Illinois lawmakers push back deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board maps

2023-05-26T20:50:13+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are giving themselves more time to divide Chicago into districts ahead of the city’s first school board elections.

Under a measure passed late Thursday night, the deadline for drawing the maps for the city’s school board moves to April 1, 2024 — seven months before the first elections are scheduled to be held. Chicago will move from a seven-member board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board, with 10 members elected Nov. 5, 2024 and the rest elected in November 2026.

In a statement, Rep. Ann Willliams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs the state House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, said conversations have been “extremely productive.” But, “in order to create the strongest possible map and ensure all Chicagaons are able to elect the candidates that best represent their values, our work must continue.”

The delay comes after Chicagoans voiced concerns over whether voting districts would reflect CPS enrollment or the city’s overall population.

They also criticized legislators for rushing to create districts that will determine representation for the next several years before adjourning their spring session to meet a previous July 1 deadline.

Several advocates applauded the decision to delay.

“I’m very glad that the voice of reason prevailed and they did not just ram a flawed map down our throats,” said Valerie Leonard, the leader of the Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map based largely on existing City Council Ward boundaries.

Leonard urged lawmakers to use the time wisely. So did Miriam Bhimani, a Chicago Public Schools parent who is part of The FOIA Bakery, a group of parents and data advocates pushing for a transparent map-making process.

“The extra time means that we can engage honestly and transparently with communities across the city about what an elected school board should look like and what their responsibilities are,” Bhimani said.

In an effort to spur more public engagement and conversation, The FOIA Bakery published 2,000 computer-generated maps earlier this month they say comply with the Voting Rights Act, and maximize minority representation, as well as take into account where public school students live.

Drawing a representative map in a segregated city, school district

Lawmakers released two drafts in recent weeks. The most recent draft has seven Black majority districts, five majority Latino, two with a Latino plurality, five majority white, and one with a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality. Currently, one of seven appointed school board members is white.

Typically, electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. In Chicago, the population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the public school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. The city is also one of the country’s most segregated, making that dissonance even more of a challenge to those trying to draw representative maps.

“It’s a segregated city, the North Side doesn’t know what’s going on in the South Side; a parent who doesn’t have a kid in CPS, they don’t know their needs,” said Vanessa Espinoza, a public school parent who’s part of Kids First Chicago, which submitted a map and testimony to state lawmakers. “Even if you have a good intention, you don’t have the knowledge and experience.”

Espinoza said lawmakers should try to draw a map that considers the public school student population.

Leonard, with African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said she also wants to see a responsive, representative school board with members who have “lived experience with our schools versus people in ivory towers who have never experienced poverty.”

But she said that giving neighborhoods where more Chicago Public School students live more weight could violate the constitution’s equal protection clause.

“It could fly in the face of the one man, one vote, equal protection under the law, even though it’s a noble idea.” Leonard said.

Jianan Shi, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, a parent group that was part of a coalition of community groups that submitted maps in partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union, said he hopes the extended deadline will allow everyone to “get to the table” to find a compromise.

“There’s no perfect map,” Shi said. “How do we take in as much feedback as possible and keep making versions until we get closer?”

New deadline could shorten school board campaign season

The first-ever Chicago school board elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 5, 2024. So when lawmakers approved the measure to give themselves a new April 1, 2024 deadline, Shi initially thought: “Shoot. I wish I was going to get out this information as soon as possible to our parents.”

“I want as much time as possible to educate people about the maps and where the boundaries are,” Shi said. Raise Your Hand is one of a few community groups that help train parents and community members to run for and serve on Local School Councils in Chicago. The councils are like mini-school boards serving individual campuses that make decisions over school improvement, principal selection, and parts of the budget.

Max Bever, a Chicago Board of Elections spokesman, said Friday the board had been planning to notify voters of their new school board districts through mailers around Labor Day this year, but will now face “a time crunch to get that all done.”

“Our team will be ready, but it’s more just having enough time for people to have awareness of: What’s your district? Who is running?” Bever said. “This also might be a very quick period for candidates.”

Bever said the timeline for candidates to collect the 250 signatures needed to get on the ballot will likely be during summer 2024. Because Chicago’s school board elections are nonpartisan, they will not be on the ballot in the March 2024 primary.

Rep. Ann Williams said the election is still on target for November 2024. The legislature will wrap up their spring session this week, but members are due back for a veto session in the fall when they could take action on a school board map. They could also wait until the next spring session begins in early 2024 to finalize how the city will be divided.

Lawmakers could also decide in the next session to clarify or tweak the law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago. There have been questions about whether board members should be compensated or if there should be campaign spending limits that are stricter than Illinois’ broader election limits. Neither exist in the law as it’s currently written.

“I think some of the campaign spending limits that people have talked about would be really helpful to ensure that the everyday Chicago mom and dad could run for the board without having to have either wealth or special interests backing them,” said Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago.

Another concern raised by Kids First Chicago and others is that noncitizens will not be allowed to vote or serve on Chicago’s school board. However, the existing law requires a noncitizen advisory committee be created. Leonard said she would like to see something similar for Black families. Her group is proposing the creation of an African American Affairs Committee.

“If, for some reason, we end up with representation that doesn’t necessarily reflect the school population, at least you’ll have those permanent committees in place to make sure the interests of minorities are represented,” she said.

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

Illinois lawmakers to hold hearing on revised draft map for Chicago elected school board ahead of possible vote

2023-05-18T15:57:34+00:00

Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected school board at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday ahead of a hearing scheduled for this evening.

Their initial proposal for dividing Chicago into 20 districts for the city’s school board elections that begin in 2024 was met with criticism for underrepresenting Latino families, who make up 46.5% of Chicago Public Schools student population.

The new draft tinkers with three districts where no racial or ethnic group has a 50% majority, tilting two of those in favor of Latinos.

In the latest iteration, seven districts have a population that is 50% or more Black, five where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts have a Latino plurality, where roughly 40% of the population is Latino, and one has a white plurality. Previously, two districts had a white plurality and one had a Latino plurality.

Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

The Senate Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board will hold a virtual hearing regarding the updated map at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 18, where a vote could take place. The House will hold one on Friday, May 19.

Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to pass a map for Chicago’s elected school board, but their spring session is currently scheduled to wrap up this weekend.

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

Illinois lawmakers release third draft map for Chicago elected school board

2023-11-01T22:00:04+00:00

As trick-or-treating got underway Tuesday night, Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected Board of Education.

It’s their third attempt at drawing districts future school board members will represent.

The new map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts — one representing Rogers Park on the North Side and the other representing Portage Park and Old Irving Park on the North West side — are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

Chicago’s Board of Education holds significant power over public schools. School board members approve the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determine how schools are measured and held accountable, authorize contracts with third parties to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

The board has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. After former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools in 2013, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union began fighting for an elected school board.

Valerie Leonard, with the Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said under mayoral control, school board members were perceived to be not connected to the community.

“People felt — and I was one of them — like they were out of touch with what the community wanted, and they were only responsive to what the mayor wanted,” Leonard said. “It matters to have someone [on the school board] from your community who understands what people in your community are experiencing.”

After many years of advocacy and lobbying, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in 2021 to create a 21-member elected school board with phased-in elections.

Under state law, Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members from 10 districts in November 2024. The mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, and will also appoint a school board president. A 21-member hybrid board will be sworn in January 2025.

Then in November 2026, the 10 appointed members and school board president will be up for election, while the 10 elected in 2024 will continue serving their four-year terms. Going forward, all members will serve four-year terms and elections will be staggered, with half of the seats up for election every two years.

However, the law does not spell out how the map will move from 10 to 20 districts. Lawmakers continue to draw a map with 20 districts and have not made clear how they plan to divide the city into 10 districts for the 2024 election.

Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat representing the North West side of Chicago and west suburbs, said that figuring out how to create 10 districts for the 2024 elections and 20 districts for the 2026 elections has been difficult for legislators.

“The original idea was that we would draw ten districts and then after the election we would split them into 20 districts,” Martwick said. “Another variation on that would be to draw 20 districts and combine them for the purposes of the first election. The idea there was that everyone in the city of Chicago would get to pass a vote on this new elected school board.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats working on drawing school board districts, said the transition from 10 districts to 20 is “still under discussion,” but the goal is to vote on a map during next week’s veto session.

“At some point we have to get a map so that people can start looking at the districts and prepare to run for office,” Williams said.

“No map is ever going to be perfect. No map is ever going to make every single person happy,” she added. “But we really truly felt like this is the product that most incorporated the feedback that we got from the communities during all those hearings.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has been a longtime supporter of an elected school board. But when asked through a spokesperson Wednesday if he supported the latest draft or would weigh in on how school board districts are drawn, the spokesperson wrote back: No comment.

Lawmakers were supposed to draw a map of Chicago school board districts by July 1, 2023, but extended the deadline to April 1, 2024 after pushback from the public for not drawing districts that would be reflective of student enrollment.

That’s a difficult task in a city whose population does not mirror the public school enrollment. Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, 29% Black, and 7% Asian, but the school district’s student population is 47% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

School board seats are non-partisan so there will be no primary. According to the Chicago Board of Elections calendar, the first day candidates running for nonpartisan school board seats can circulate nominating petitions is March 26, 2024. They must collect 250 signatures from voters in their districts by June 24, 2024, in order to be on the ballot.

Last week, Martwick and state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat, put forward a proposal that would also allow school board members to be compensated.

Mixed reactions to new draft map roll in

Legislators held two public hearings last month to gather additional feedback on their proposed school board districts. On Wednesday, several of the groups who have repeatedly testified and submitted public comment on previous maps reacted to the latest iteration.

Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit education advocacy organization that supports Black and Latino families and has an Elected School Board Task Force, called the latest proposal “more trick than treat.” The group took lawmakers to task for dropping a new draft map on Halloween when “most Chicago families were out celebrating with their children.”

Hal Woods, director of policy for Kids First Chicago, said the map continues to give white Chicagoans “substantial voting power” over a school district that serves just over 10% white students. He said parents see “more work that could be done.”

“Even with redlining, even with segregation, even with discriminatory housing policies that have forced many Chicago neighborhoods to be segregated … we have put forward prototypes that even with those historical inequities still adhere to all relevant election law,” Woods said.

A group of parents and data advocates called The FOIA Bakery released an analysis of the third draft map that looks at the proposed districts through the lens of the 2023 municipal election results. They say only seven districts in the new draft map would have elected a “minority-preferred candidate.”

But others say the new draft districts are much better than previous versions.

Jeff Fielder, executive director of the Chicago Republican Party, previously raised concerns about gerrymandering and argued for an independent commission to draw the maps. He said the third draft is better than the previous two because it has less gerrymandering.

“I’m sure there’s going to be lawsuits as it is but of their efforts, this is probably the best one,” Fielder said.

Cassie Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, said she’s mostly concerned about not having a map solidified yet.

“The shorter the time between a final map and next year’s election, the worse it is for genuinely grassroots candidates who are trying to decide whether or not to run and then mustering the resources to do so,” Creswell said.

Political consultant Eli Brottman said the new map is “1,000 times better” and called six solid Latino districts a “huge win for our schools and our kids.” He said it took him multiple attempts to draw a map that would have six Latino majority districts.

Brottman said he suspects the lawmakers’ latest draft map has a “significant chance” of passing next week. Whenever that happens, he encourages people to get up to speed on what district they live in and who is running.

“Whoever we elect in these first couple rounds, helps to set a precedent for the future,” Brottman said.

Leonard, whose group Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting put out a 10-district map that tries to align school board districts with City Council wards, said lawmakers are getting closer with this latest iteration. But they need to figure out how their 20 districts become 10 for the 2024 elections, she said.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence Chicago that supports the map Leonard’s group proposed, raised concerns that lawmakers could propose residents in only 10 of the 20 districts would vote in 2024, meaning “only half of Chicago will have the privilege to vote … while the other half will lack a voice.”

“We need Illinois lawmakers to get the maps right, for the sake of the 323,000 students that are depending on it,” Demma said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

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

Illinois lawmakers propose having half of Chicago voters select school board members in 2024

2023-11-03T23:45:00+00:00

Roughly half of Chicago voters would get to elect school board members in 2024 and the other half would vote in 2026, according to new language proposed by state lawmakers late Friday.

Earlier this week, legislators released a new draft map that divides the city into 20 districts. Each district has roughly 137,000 people in it. The new proposal assigns each district a number and says odd-numbered districts would vote in 2024. The state legislature could vote on the proposal during next week’s veto session.

In addition to outlining how Chicagoans would vote in the 2024 and 2026 election, the proposal includes ethics requirements for elected members and a conflict of interest provision that falls in line with state law.

The proposal also calls for the board of education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee to address the needs of Black students throughout the district and create a strategic plan to close the gap in academic achievement between Black students and their peers.

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, has pushed during public hearings for the Senate’s committee on the elected school board to create a Black Student Achievement Committee.

According to state law passed in 2021, 10 members of the school board are to be elected and 10 are to be appointed by the mayor in 2024. The mayor will also appoint a school board president. In 2026, the districts with appointed members will vote and the entire city will vote for a school board president.

People interested in running for Chicago’s Board of Education must collect 250 signatures from their districts and can begin circulating petitions on March 26, 2024. To get on the ballot, petitions must be filed by June 24, 2024.

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

Chicago’s transition to elected school board up in the air as disagreements remain among state lawmakers

2023-11-10T01:30:46+00:00

How Chicago school board members will be elected one year from now is still in limbo after Illinois lawmakers couldn’t agree on the details of the transition this week.

But lawmakers in both chambers appeared to agree on the third draft of an electoral map dividing Chicago into 20 districts. That map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white.

However, they could not agree before adjourning their fall veto session on how elections would happen in 2024 and 2026 in order to transition to a fully-elected school board.

The state legislature is scheduled to meet again in mid-January.

According to a 2021 law — and its subsequent trailer bill — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor would appoint a school board president and 10 members from those same districts. In November 2026, the appointed seats would be elected and a school board president would be chosen by all Chicago voters.

By January 2027, Chicago will have a 21-member fully-elected school board. The shift comes after three decades of mayoral control over Chicago Public Schools.

Lawmakers were supposed to divide the city into electoral districts by July 1, 2023, but gave themselves an extension in May to get the maps drawn by April 1, 2024. Many lawmakers and advocates hoped to define the map and how school board elections would roll out during this week’s veto session.

“By Senate standards, we are years ahead of schedule by being months ahead of schedule,” said Senate President Don Harmon, before the chamber voted 38-12 to approve a plan he put forward earlier this week to have all 20 districts vote right away, leaving only the board president up for mayoral appointment.

Under that plan, Mayor Brandon Johnson would lose the power to appoint 10 members and keep control via a hybrid Board of Education with 11 mayoral appointees.

“I am very hopeful that when all is said and done, this will be the law in Illinois, and we will have a fully elected school board after November of 2024,” Harmon said.

But lawmakers in the House passed a different proposal that would more closely aligns with the current law. It would pair up the 20 districts and result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would be appointed by the mayor in 2024 and elected at-large in 2026.

“This has been a decade-long project, and is the product of years of advocacy and quite literally years of negotiation discussion with stakeholders, community members, leadership, elected officials, so it’s not surprising that it’s not an easy thing to implement,” said State Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group.

Williams said Harmon’s proposal to go to a fully-elected board and eliminate the hybrid period when the mayor would still maintain control by appointing 11 of 21 members was a surprise Wednesday.

“Opening up the bill again with only a day or so left in the veto session was a difficult prospect and created a lot of complications in the conversation,” Williams said. “I don’t think it’s something we could have done in just one day.”

Johnson said he was “very much committed” to the bill that passed in 2021 that would allow him to appoint half the school board in 2024. He also noted there are financial entanglements between the city and CPS that need to be “worked through.”

“This is going to be a tremendous adjustment for the people of Chicago and adjusting in a way that provides confidence in a new body of government is something that we have to take into real serious consideration,” Johnson said. “What we don’t want is to set individuals up with expectations that cannot be met.”

Harmon said Wednesday he would not call the House version for a vote in the Senate because it had “woefully inadequate ethical provisions” and “opens the door for corruption” by exempting future Chicago school board members from state law governing conflicts of interest for public officials, including school board members, throughout the rest of the state. The House, however, passed a bill Thursday afternoon agreeing to the Senate’s ethics provisions.

Senate Democrats initially proposed having voters in only 10 of 20 districts cast a ballot for a school board representative in 2024. That was met with criticism from advocates who said it would disenfranchise half of the city by making them wait until 2026 to have a say in who is elected to the school board.

In a statement Wednesday night, the Chicago Teachers Union said Harmon’s proposed changes could “delay and deny the democracy Chicago so desperately needs and deserves.” The union has been fighting for an elected school board in Chicago since 2013 and supports the House version.

Hal Woods, chief of policy for Kids First Chicago, said waiting until January or the April 1 deadline to finalize the details of school board elections will leave potential candidates less time to run and voters less time to decide on who to support.

Corrina Demma, an organizer for the nonprofit Educators for Excellence-Chicago, echoed those concerns.

“It gives us so little time to learn anything about these candidates, and get to know them,” Demma said.

“We’re on a budget cliff with the COVID funds running out,” she added. “There’s a lot of big decisions that are gonna have to be made that will affect all Chicago’s children and families. And who’s going to be making those decisions? How do we know if they’re gonna be qualified, if they have any lived experience, and can make choices that are best for the communities that they’re a part of?”

Demma said she wished lawmakers had also taken up the issue of compensating board members. State law currently prohibits school board members from being paid.

Lawmakers did also appear to agree on requiring the Chicago Board of Education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee that would focus on improving academic achievement for Black students.

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

Who will vote in Chicago’s first school board elections in 2024? Lawmakers are trying to decide.

2023-11-08T00:39:39+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are debating competing proposals that would allow all Chicago voters to cast a ballot in the city’s first school board elections in 2024.

A new proposal put forward by House Democrats pairs up the 20 districts the city is currently divided into under a third draft map released last week.

That plan, filed by Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, would result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would also be appointed by the mayor.

Meanwhile, following a Senate executive committee meeting, Senate President Don Harmon put forward a plan to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 and let the mayor appoint only the school board president. That came shortly after a senate committee passed an amendment that suggested only 10 of 20 districts vote in 2024.

Harmon said creating an elected school board for Chicago has been “a long journey.”

“Hopefully, we are in the closing chapter in Springfield,” he said.

According to state law passed in 2021, Chicago will move from having a seven-member school board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member elected school board by 2027.

But the transition from an appointed board to a hybrid one to one that’s fully-elected has puzzled lawmakers tasked with dividing the city into electoral districts.

According to the law — and its subsequent trailer bill passed in 2021 — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor is to appoint 10 members from those same districts and a school board president at-large. In November 2026, the appointed members would then switch to being elected, including the school board president who would be elected at-large.

By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected. Going forward, elections will be staggered, with half the board up for election every two years.

The senate’s previous proposal to assign each district a number and only have people living in odd-numbered districts vote in 2024 was met with criticism by advocates who spoke during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

Kurt Hilgendorf, special assistant to Chicago Teachers Union’s president Stacy Davis-Gates, said that while the senate’s plan proposes a more representative map and addresses concerns around candidate eligibility and ethics, the union has decided not to take a position because of the proposal to only allow roughly half of the city to vote in 2024.

“That creates a disenfranchisement lawsuit risk and that we think that maximum participation should be done in the first election,” said Hilgendorf. “We think that all the voters in the city of Chicago should have the right to vote in that first year election.”

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, expressed the same concerns as Hilgendorf and suggested all 20 districts vote immediately.

“All districts should be up for election with half the terms being two-year terms and the other half being four years and that would create your stagger,” Leonard said.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Harmon said having only 10 districts vote was the “Achilles’ heel” of the proposal Senate Democrats put forward late last week.

Shortly after the meeting ended, Harmon filed the amendment that would have residents in all 20 districts vote. Members elected in odd-numbered districts would serve four-year terms and members elected in even-numbered districts would serve two-year terms. The mayor would only appoint the school board president and in 2026, that position would be elected at-large by all Chicago voters.

If the House passes its new proposal to pair districts, it would need Senate approval. Similarly, the Senate’s proposal to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 would need House approval. Lawmakers are scheduled to be in session until Thursday.

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

Seis cosas que hay que saber sobre las elecciones a la junta de educación de Chicago

2024-04-19T20:44:05+00:00

Read in English.

Algunas de las cuestiones sobre las que se preguntan los habitantes de Chicago en cuanto a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar tienen que ver con el tema del dinero en las campañas, los distritos electorales, y la compensación de los miembros de la junta escolar.

A partir del 15 de enero de 2025, la Junta de Educación de Chicago cambiará de siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde a una junta de 21 miembros con 10 miembros elegidos por votación y 11 nombrados por el alcalde Brandon Johnson. La temporada de campaña está oficialmente en marcha y los candidatos están surgiendo.

El martes fue el primer día en que se pudieron recoger firmas para participar en las elecciones del 5 de noviembre. Hasta el miércoles, seis candidatos han presentado documentos de financiación de campaña ante la Junta Estatal de Elecciones de Illinois.

El mes pasado, Chalkbeat preguntó a sus lectores qué preguntas tenían sobre el cambio de Chicago a una junta escolar elegida por votación. Las contestaremos en los próximos meses, empezando con estas seis que se centran en el proceso electoral.

¿En el pasado, cómo se elegían los miembros de la Junta de Educación de Chicago?

La Junta escolar de Chicago está formada actualmente por siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde, que tiene poder para elegir a quien desee. En el pasado, estos nombramientos eran secretos hasta que el alcalde los anunciaba, a menudo en una rueda o comunicado de prensa. Tanto la ex alcaldesa Lori Lightfoot como el ex alcalde Rahm Emanuel reemplazaron a toda la junta escolar tras ser elegidos.

El estado otorgó al alcalde de Chicago el poder de nombrar a los miembros del consejo escolar en 1995, cuando el entonces alcalde Richard M. Daley estaba en el cargo. Antes de eso, el alcalde seleccionaba a los miembros del consejo escolar a través de un proceso de nominación comunitario.

En las elecciones de noviembre, ¿habrá elecciones en todos los distritos? ¿Por cuánto tiempo serán miembros de la junta?

Sí. Los legisladores de Illinois dividieron a Chicago en 10 distritos para las elecciones de 2024. El 5 de noviembre habitantes de cada distrito elegirán un miembro para representarlos por dos años. Antes del 16 de diciembre de 2024, el alcalde Brandon Johnson nombrará a 10 miembros - uno de cada distrito - y un presidente para servir en términos de dos años.

Así es como funcionará.

Cada distrito también se subdivide en dos regiones. Por ejemplo, el Distrito 1 se compone de dos partes: 1A y una 1B. Si el candidato ganador en el Distrito 1 vive en la zona 1A, el alcalde tiene que nombrar a alguien que viva en la 1B. Si el ganador en el Distrito 2 vive en 2B, el alcalde debe nombrar a alguien que viva en 2A, y así por el estilo.

En 2026, los habitantes de Chicago votarán por candidatos para un mandato de dos o cuatro años. El presidente de la junta escolar será elegido ese mismo año para un mandato de cuatro años, que comenzará el 15 de enero de 2027.

¿Qué cualificaciones se necesitan para ser miembro del consejo escolar de Chicago?

La ley estatal dice que para servir en la junta escolar de CPS, usted debe ser:

ciudadano estadounidense.
votante registrado.
tener al menos 18 años.
ser residente de la ciudad, distrito o subdistrito durante al menos un año inmediatamente antes de la elección o nombramiento.

Además, los miembros de la junta no deben ser delincuentes sexuales registrados ni contratistas o proveedores que trabajen con el distrito. Los candidatos también deben conseguir al menos 1,000 firmas en una petición electoral, entre otras normas.

¿Habrá algún tipo de supervisión con respecto a las finanzas de campaña de los miembros de la junta escolar? ¿Cómo se puede comprobar quién hace donaciones a las campañas?

La Junta de Educación de Chicago exige a sus miembros que presenten una declaración de intereses económicos y recomienda a los miembros de la junta que lleven una lista de los donantes de la campaña. Los interesados pueden comprobar quién financia la campaña de un candidato consultando el sitio web de la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois o la base de datos Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine.

¿Serán compensados los miembros de la junta escolar?

La respuesta corta es no. Los miembros de juntas escolares en Chicago y el resto de Illinois sólo pueden ser reembolsados por gastos relacionados con sus deberes.

Sin embargo, el otoño pasado, los legisladores estatales propusieron un proyecto de ley con el fin de eliminar la prohibición de compensar a los miembros de las juntas escolares. Este proyecto de ley no obligaría al distrito escolar a proporcionar un salario ni establecería unos mínimos sobre cuánto se pagaría a los miembros de la junta escolar. Simplemente permitiría a los consejos locales decidir. Este proyecto de ley está estancado en la comisión de Asignaciones del Senado desde octubre.

¿Recibirá la nueva junta escolar formación de la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois?

No necesariamente. Según el código escolar del estado y una norma de la Junta de Educación de Chicago, todos los miembros de la junta escolar, nombrados o elegidos, deben recibir entrenamiento. Sin embargo, los miembros de la junta escolar no tienen que ser entrenados por la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois.

El estado exige que los miembros de la junta reciban entrenamiento en leyes educativas, leyes laborales, supervisión financiera, y rendición de cuentas, responsabilidad financiera de los miembros de la junta escolar y entrenamientos sobre la importancia de los traumas en los estudiantes y el personal. La Junta de Educación de Chicago dice que los miembros deben ser entrenados en la Ley de Reuniones Abiertas, el Código de Ética, y la ley de Illinois Mandated Reporter, entre otros temas.

¿Aún tiene preguntas? Háganos saber en el siguiente formulario.

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Samantha Smylie es la reportera de educación estatal de Chalkbeat Chicago y cubre los distritos escolares de todo el estado, la legislación, la educación especial y la junta estatal de educación. Póngase en contacto con Samantha en ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea es la jefa de redacción de Chalkbeat Chicago. Póngase en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Six things to know about Chicago’s board of education election

2024-03-27T23:10:38+00:00

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Leer en español.

Campaign money, voting districts, and school board member compensation are some of the issues Chicagoans have questions about as the city’s first school board elections loom.

Starting Jan. 15, 2025, Chicago’s Board of Education will go from seven members appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board with 10 elected members and 11 appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Campaign season is officially underway and candidates are surfacing.

Tuesday was the first day people could collect signatures to get on the ballot for the Nov. 5 election. As of Wednesday, six candidates have filed campaign finance paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Last month, Chalkbeat asked readers what questions they had about Chicago’s shift to an elected school board. We got dozens of responses. We’ll be answering them over the coming months, starting with these six focused on the electoral process.

How were Chicago Board of Education members chosen in the past?

Chicago’s school board is currently made up of seven members appointed by the mayor, who has unilateral power to pick anyone to serve. In the past, those appointments have been secret until the mayor announced them, often in a press conference or press release. Both former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel replaced the entire school board after being elected.

The state gave Chicago’s mayor the power to appoint school board members in 1995, when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was in office. Prior to that, the mayor would select school board members through a community nominating process.

During November’s elections, will all districts be up for election? How long will board members serve?

Yes. Illinois lawmakers divided Chicago into 10 districts for the 2024 election. On Nov. 5, residents of each district will elect a school board member to represent them for two years. On or before Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson will appoint 10 school board members — one from each district — and a board president to serve two-year terms.

Here’s how it will work.

Each district is also subdivided into two regions. For example, District 1 is made up of two parts: 1A and a 1B. If the winning candidate in District 1 lives in 1A, the mayor has to appoint someone who lives in 1B. If the winner in District 2 lives in 2B, the mayor must appoint someone who lives in 2A, and so on.

In 2026, Chicagoans will vote for candidates in all 20 subdistricts to serve either a two-year or four-year term. The school board president will be elected that same year citywide to a four-year term, which will start on Jan. 15, 2027.

What qualifications does someone need to be a Chicago school board member?

State law says that to serve on the CPS school board, you must be:

a U.S. citizen.
a registered voter.
at least 18 years old.
a resident of the city, district, or subdistrict for at least one year immediately before election or appointment.

In addition, board members must not be registered sex offenders or contractors or vendors working with the district. Candidates must also get at least 1,000 signatures on an election petition, among other rules.

Will there be any oversight into school board members’ campaign finances? How can citizens check who is donating to campaigns?

The Chicago Board of Education requires its members to file a statement of economic interests and recommends that board members keep a list of campaign donors. Citizens can check who is financing a candidate’s campaign by searching the Illinois State Board of Elections website or Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine Database.

Will school board members be compensated?

The short answer is no. Currently, school board members in Chicago and the rest of Illinois can be reimbursed for expenses related to their duties.

However, last fall, state lawmakers proposed a bill to lift a ban on compensation for school board members from being compensated. This bill would not mandate the school district to provide a salary or set minimums for how much school board members would be paid. It would simply allow local boards to decide. This bill has been stuck in the Senate’s Assignments committee since October.

Will Chicago’s elected school board be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards?

Not necessarily. According to the state’s school code and a Chicago Board of Education rule, all school board members, appointed or elected, must be trained. However, school board members do not have to be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards.

The state requires board members to be trained in education law, labor law, financial oversight and accountability, financial responsibility of school board members, and trauma-informed practices for students and staff. Chicago’s Board of Education says that members must be trained in the Opening Meetings Act, the Code of Ethics, and the Illinois Mandated Reporter law, among other topics.

Still have questions? Let us know in the form below.

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

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson visits West Side high school to advocate for more Sustainable Community Schools

2024-04-19T18:15:00+00:00

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Sitting in a circle with dozens of students at Collins Academy on Chicago’s west side, Mayor Brandon Johnson asked a straightforward question: “What do you need?”

Melvin Hines, a soft-spoken junior in purple track pants and a black zip-up jacket, chimed in: “More resources, better opportunities, and more exposure.”

Answers from other students ricocheted around the room like a pinball: a law program, more connections to businesses, a grocery store in their neighborhood.

“Sometimes it feels like the only thing that’s available for us are leftovers, right?” Johnson said, nodding.

The roundtable discussion — organized with the local, state, and national teachers union, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, as well as district leaders — gave the mayor and his allies a moment to advocate for expanding Sustainable Community Schools. The concept provides up to $500,000 a year to a school to partner with a local nonprofit on before- and after-school programming, community outreach, parent engagement, and other wraparound services.

Johnson has promised to grow the number of Sustainable Community Schools from 20 to as many as 200, possibly including Collins. It’s one of the ways he wants to invest more in neighborhood schools.

“This is about making sure that every single child has a library or librarian, wraparound services, class sizes that are manageable,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but unfortunately, because of a long history of systemic racism, disinvestment has left our communities in despair.”

But Chicago Public Schools faces a $391 million shortfall in its $9 billion-plus budget next school year. The district is about to begin contract negotiations with the teachers union and officials recently sent principals individual school budgets using a new formula that provides set staffing levels and extra money based on need. Officials say the total amount distributed to schools is not decreasing, but individual campuses could see cuts.

Stephen Mitchell, the local school council chair at Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, a selective enrollment school that opened in 2018, said their budget is seeing reductions. He said it’s possible the school has to either let staff go or cut other resources.

“I think this is kind of pitting one against the other, which I don’t think is right,” Mitchell said. “I think we need to adequately fund our neighborhood schools and continue to fund selective enrollment schools.”

State lawmakers are moving legislation to block Johnson and his hand-picked school board from making “disproportionate” budget cuts at selective enrollment schools and also extend a moratorium on any school closures until 2027, when a fully elected school board is in place.

The bill passed out of the House late Thursday and is headed to the Senate.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates characterized the bill with a handful of strong words — racist, disengaged, silly, an abomination — because it targets an issue “that does not exist.”

“There was a resolution that said that the Chicago Board of Education was going to finally prioritize Collins High School … and then you get a bill that says you can’t do that,” she said. “Everyone who votes for that bill needs to go into that room and engage with the same group of students that we just engaged with and explain to them why they cannot have more.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson poses with students at Collins Academy after a roundtable discussion about school funding and expanding the number of Sustainable Community Schools in the city.

Johnson, Davis Gates, and Mitchell, the Bronzeville parent, said Springfield should be focused on fully funding all public schools through the evidence-based funding formula approved in 2017.

That formula promised to get all Illinois school districts, including CPS, to “adequate” funding by 2027 by adding $350 million in new money for K-12 education every year. Since that time, the amount of state money allocated to Chicago schools annually has grown by more than a billion dollars. But the formula says CPS is still another $1 billion short of “adequacy.”

During the roundtable discussion with the students at Collins, Johnson and others, including the local alderwoman Monique Scott, whose dad and brother both served on Chicago’s school board, told the students they were advocating for more money from the state.

As the conversation wound to a close, Collins senior Marshall Douthard Jr. raised his hand.

Everyone has been talking about “the resources and the money problems,” Douthard Jr. said. “I would like to know when they come through: How do you plan to fulfill these requests?”

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

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.

Should Chicago school board members be paid? Some advocates hope state lawmakers say yes.

2024-04-01T10:00:00+00:00

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Education advocates are renewing a push to change Illinois law to allow Chicago school board members to be paid — with the hope that would encourage teachers and parents from low-income households to represent Chicago Public Schools’ diverse student body.

State law currently does not allow school board members to be paid, though they can be reimbursed for expenses related to the job. But a bill filed in the state senate last fall would allow Chicago Board of Education members to be paid.

Chicago’s first school board elections take place this November, with a new half-elected, half-appointed 21-member board taking office January 2025. Candidates are already emerging now that they can collect signatures to get on the ballot.

Educators for Excellence, a nonprofit that advocates for teacher voice in policy and decision making, held an event earlier this month to rally support for paying Chicago school board members.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence, noted that because state law prohibits employees of Chicago Public Schools from sitting on the elected school board, teachers could run for a seat, but would have to quit their job in order to serve. Educators for Excellence has penned an open letter asking the Chicago Teachers Union to publicly support paying Chicago school board members.

The Chicago Teachers Union has yet to comment on whether it will support a measure for compensation.

Corinne Lydon, a middle school teacher in the city’s Austin neighborhood and a CPS parent who switched careers later in life, spoke at the Educators for Excellence event and said there’s no way she could have served on the school board when her children were younger and she worked in the restaurant and bar industry.

“As a low-income single mother who was struggling to make ends meet, I was always working three, four jobs,” Lydon said. “You desperately want to do something, but you can’t afford to represent your own child.”

Being a CPS board member requires between 25-30 hours of work per month, according to the board’s website, and involves attending public meetings, briefings with district officials, visiting schools, and reading hundreds of pages of documents every month.

“The elected school board role is not a small job,” Demma said. “You’re managing a $9.8 billion budget. That’s a huge amount of money.”

State Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored legislation creating an elected school board in Chicago, said negotiations are underway for compensating board members, but he’s not hopeful that legislation will be passed this year.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a $391 million deficit next school year as federal COVID recovery money runs out. Those who argue against paying Chicago’s 21 future school board members say it’s not the time to add additional costs.

In Colorado, which experienced a similar debate a few years ago over whether serving on a school board is a job or a civic duty, opponents argued the state’s underfunded schools should not be spending even small amounts on paying school board members. Ultimately, Colorado lawmakers voted to allow — but not require — school board members to be compensated and last year, Denver’s elected school board voted to pay newly-elected, incoming members up to $33,000 annually.

School boards under mayoral control in New York City and Philadelphia do not pay their members. In Los Angeles, elected school board members make up to $125,000.

In Indiana, school board members can receive a stipend of up to $2,000 per year, in addition to meeting stipends that max out at $112. In some states, such as Florida and Nevada, board members are paid a salary.

In 2021, when lawmakers first approved an elected school board for Chicago, Martwick pushed to allow school board members to be paid. But he said he ultimately took out the provision to get support for the legislation from some suburban and rural legislators.

Kara Kienzler, a spokesperson for the Illinois Association of Schools Boards — an organization that trains school board members across the state — said its members have not adopted a stance on compensation for board members.

There’s not much research on whether paying school board members impacts how schools operate. But a study out of Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill looked at whether state legislatures with higher salaries attracted more economically diverse representatives. The researchers found states with higher salaries actually had fewer working-class people serving.

Still, some research does show when politicians are paid more, they are more efficient and pay closer attention to the concerns of the people they represent. Research also shows that having diverse school boards does matter for how schools operate.

Lorena Lopez, a CPS parent, local school council member, and advocate with Kids First Chicago, said compensating board members could help ensure diversity on the CPS board, which would ultimately mean a “more equitable, innovative, and progressive school district.”

A recent Kids First Chicago poll found that more than 70% of Chicago voters believe elected school board members should receive a stipend or salary for serving on the board.

Illinois Families For Public Schools has expressed support for paying board members because it would give parents and community members a “meaningful, realistic ability to run and serve,” which was the intent of “a generation of community organizing” that made the looming school board elections a reality.

Samantha Smylie contributed.

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

Chicago is getting an elected school board and candidates are starting to emerge

2024-03-26T10:00:00+00:00

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Leer en español.

Today is the first day people can collect signatures to get on the ballot for Chicago’s first school board elections.

Chicago voters will head to the polls on Nov. 5 to choose 10 of 21 members to serve on the Board of Education beginning Jan. 15, 2025. After those elections, the mayor will also appoint 11 members.

The city is divided into 10 districts for these first elections and each will be represented by one elected member and one member appointed by the mayor. The mayor will also appoint a school board president.

Candidates must live in Chicago in the district they plan to run for at least one year. They must be a U.S. citizen, registered to vote, and cannot be a child sex offender. In order to get on the ballot, candidates have to collect at least 1,000 and no more than 3,000 valid signatures from voters in the district they’ll represent.

Signatures must be filed with the Chicago Board of Elections between June 17 and June 24.

In addition to signatures, candidates will be fundraising to support their campaigns. Once a candidate fundraises more than $5,000, state law requires them to file disclosure paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections. So far, four candidates have done that under committees that include their names, while other political action committees have been formed.

CPS parent and former CPS teacher and principal Adam Parrott-Sheffer filed campaign disclosure paperwork earlier this month and launched a website to announce he is running to represent District 10, which includes his Hyde Park neighborhood and stretches most of the city’s south lakefront from I-55 to the Indiana border.

Parrott-Sheffer told Chalkbeat he jumped in the race after not seeing others throw their hat in the ring. He said because school board members will not be compensated beyond expenses related to doing the job, parents and people not connected to special interests will have a harder time.

“I don’t think that the seats should be like they are in [Los Angeles]LA, where it’s a fight between business and charter and unions,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I think that there’s a lot that all those perspectives can learn from each other, and are really valuable when we’re thinking about all of them together.”

Parrott-Sheffer, now an education consultant and adjunct professor, said being a principal gave him the skills to be a strong school board member who can balance the needs of parents, the district, organizers, teachers, community organizations, and businesses while keeping kids “front and center.”

“Politics is not my thing,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I like schools, I like making schools better. I like making them work for kids. And so that kind of was the ultimate decision.”

CPS parent Kimberly Brown is planning to run in District 4, which encompasses the north lakefront neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and Uptown. Brown is the chief marketing officer at a global manufacturing company and has two small children – one who attends a neighborhood school in Lakeview.

“The reality is the most change that affects you happens in your backyard with your local politics and most specifically your local school,” she told Chalkbeat. “And if you don’t have kids, local schools affect your public safety. They affect your public infrastructure. They affect the businesses and the economy that makes your streets wonderful. Local schools build local economies.”

If elected, Brown said she’s hoping to promote more transparency and communication from the district. That desire comes after spending the past eight months talking to CPS parents to understand what they want from the district, who don’t know “if the Board [of Education] is really trying or not,” Brown said.

Michelle Pierre also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Friday and plans to run in District 1, which covers neighborhoods, including Portage Park and Jefferson Park, on the northwest edge of Chicago near O’Hare airport. Pierre started her career as a teacher in New York, became a principal in D.C., and moved into district leadership roles in D.C. and Cleveland. She’s the former chief of schools for the LEARN Charter School Network in Chicago and now works for New Leaders, a national nonprofit focused on training principals and school administrators.

“I just plan to be out knocking on doors, going to events in our community — It’s starting to warm up in Chicago, which is great — and going to places where parents are,” Pierre said.

Pierre has served on the Local School Council at her high-school aged daughter’s school and said she believes in parents having a strong voice and also supports school choice.

Carlos Rivas also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Monday and is planning to run in District 3, representing the north west side neighborhoods of Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and part of Belmont Cragin. He’s a former college counselor and alumni support manager at the Noble Network of Charter Schools and now serves a public affairs chief for Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Education-focused political committees could play a role

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools have active political committees that have supported local candidates for Chicago City Council and the Illinois legislature in the past decade. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the charter group’s political funds had a collective $1.8 million and the teachers union’s two PACs had just over $200,000 in their accounts.

Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said his organization plans to meet with school board candidates and determine who to support over the summer after candidates have filed signatures to get on the ballot. He raised concerns about state lawmakers increasing the signature requirement to 1,000 from 250 under previous legislation. For comparison, Chicago aldermen must get 473 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

“Given that petition challenges are a feature of Chicago politics, you need to have more than 1,000 to actually be competitive,” Broy said. “I think that was probably a ballot access barrier of sorts put in place at the 11th hour in Springfield.”

Two familiar names in Chicago’s education landscape — former mayoral candidate and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas and former charter school leader Juan Rangel — recently filed paperwork to form a political action committee called Urban Center PAC.

Rangel said the PAC could possibly support Chicago school board candidates, but it’s not the group’s sole focus. He recently launched a nonprofit of the same name, The Urban Center, that more broadly focused on community organizing around more centrist political views. “Access to High-Quality Schools” is listed on the organization’s website as something the group stands for, which includes “parents to choose a school — public or private — that best fits the needs of their children.” Rangel recently worked for Empower Illinois, one of the state’s top scholarship-granting organizations under the tax-credit scholarship program Invest in Kids, which is sunsetting.

“We want to be a resource for candidates who want to run for public office and that would include for school board,” Vallas said. He added that he is not planning to run for Chicago school board and hopes future board members will focus on “empowering the community to have input into the transformation of their local schools.”

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

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

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar electo y empiezan a surgir candidatos

2024-04-01T17:50:58+00:00

Leer en inglés.

Las personas interesadas en postularse a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar de Chicago pueden empezar a recolectar firmas para poder estar en la boleta el 26 de marzo.

Los votantes de Chicago acudirán a las urnas el 5 de noviembre para elegir a 10 de los 21 miembros que formarán parte del Consejo de Educación a partir del 15 de enero de 2025. Tras esas elecciones, el alcalde nombrará también a 11 miembros.

La ciudad está distribuida en 10 distritos para estas primeras elecciones y cada uno de ellos estará representado por un miembro elegido y otro designado por el alcalde. El alcalde nombrará también a un presidente del consejo escolar.

Los candidatos deben vivir en Chicago, en el distrito al que piensan postularse, durante al menos un año. Deben ser ciudadanos estadounidenses, estar registrados para votar y no pueden ser delincuentes sexuales de menores. Para figurar en la papeleta, los candidatos tienen que recoger al menos 1,000 y no más de 3,000 firmas válidas de votantes del distrito al que representarán.

Las firmas deben presentarse ante la Junta Electoral de Chicago entre el 17 y el 24 de junio.

Además de las firmas, los candidatos recaudarán fondos para apoyar sus campañas. Una vez que un candidato recauda más de 5,000 dólares, la ley estatal le obliga a presentar documentos de divulgación a la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois. Hasta ahora, cuatro candidatos han hecho eso bajo comités que incluyen sus nombres, mientras otros comités de acción política han sido formados.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer, padre de CPS y ex maestro y director de CPS, sometió documentos de divulgación de su campaña a principios de este mes y lanzó un sitio web para anunciar que él está compitiendo para representar el Distrito 10, que incluye su vecindario de Hyde Park y extiende la mayor parte de la orilla del lago del sur de la ciudad desde I-55 hasta la frontera de Indiana.

Parrott-Sheffer le dijo a Chalkbeat que se lanzó después de no ver a otros lanzarse. Dijo que debido a que los miembros del consejo escolar no serán compensados más allá de los gastos relacionados con el desempeño de su trabajo, los padres y las personas no relacionadas con intereses especiales tendrán más dificultades.

“No creo que los cargos deban ser como lo son en [Los Ángeles], donde es una lucha entre empresas y sindicatos”, dijo Parrott-Sheffer. “Creo que hay mucho que todas esas perspectivas pueden aprender unas de otras, y son realmente valiosas cuando pensamos en todas ellas juntas”.

Parrott-Sheffer, ahora consultor de educación y profesor adjunto, dijo que ser director le dio las habilidades para ser un miembro firme que puede equilibrar las necesidades de los padres, el distrito, los organizadores, los maestros, las organizaciones comunitarias y las empresas, manteniendo a los niños “al frente y en el centro”.

“La política no es lo mío”, dice Parrott-Sheffer. “Me gustan las escuelas, me gusta mejorarlas. Me gusta hacer que funcionen para los niños. Y ésa fue la decisión final”.

Kimberly Brown, madre de CPS, planea postularse en el Distrito 4, que abarca los vecindarios de Lincoln Park, Lakeview y Uptown. Brown es la directora de marketing en una empresa de manufactura global y tiene dos hijos pequeños - uno que asiste a una escuela en Lakeview.

“La realidad es que la mayor parte de los cambios que nos afectan suceden en nuestro propio vecindario, con la política local y, más concretamente, en nuestra escuela local”, dijo a Chalkbeat. “Y si no tienes hijos, las escuelas locales afectan a la seguridad pública. Afectan a las infraestructuras públicas. Afectan a los negocios y a la economía que hace que tus calles sean bonitas. Las escuelas locales construyen economías locales”.

Si es elegida, Brown dijo que espera promover una mayor transparencia y comunicación por parte del distrito. Ese deseo viene después de pasar los últimos ocho meses hablando con los padres de CPS para entender lo que quieren del distrito, que no saben “si la Junta [de Educación] realmente lo está intentando o no”, dijo Brown.

Michelle Pierre también ha presentado la documentación de su campaña el viernes y planea postularse en el Distrito 1, que abarca Portage Park y Jefferson Park, en el noroeste de Chicago, cerca del aeropuerto O’Hare. Pierre comenzó su carrera como profesora en Nueva York, se convirtió en directora en D.C., y pasó a desempeñar funciones de liderazgo de distrito en D.C. y Cleveland. Fue directora de la red de escuelas chárter LEARN de Chicago y ahora trabaja para New Leaders, una organización nacional sin fines de lucro dedicada a la formación de directores y administradores escolares.

“Sólo pienso salir a llamar a las puertas, ir a actos en nuestra comunidad -en Chicago está empezando a hacer calor, lo cual es estupendo- e ir a los sitios donde están los padres”, dijo Pierre.

Pierre ha servido en el Consejo Escolar Local en la escuela de su hija en edad de escuela secundaria y dijo que cree en los padres que tienen una voz fuerte y también apoya la elección de escuela.

Carlos Rivas también presentó la documentación de su campaña el lunes y tiene previsto postularse en el Distrito 3, que representa a los vecindarios del lado noroeste de Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa y parte de Belmont Cragin. Ha sido consejero universitario y gestor de apoyo a ex-alumnos en la Red Noble de escuelas charter y ahora es jefe de asuntos públicos de la Oficina Civil de Rendición de Cuentas de la Policía de Chicago.

Los comités políticos centrados en la educación podrían desempeñar un papel importante

Tanto el Sindicato de Maestros de Chicago como la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois tienen comités políticos activos que han apoyado a candidatos locales para el Concejo Municipal de Chicago y la legislatura de Illinois en la última década.

A partir del 31 de diciembre de 2023, los fondos políticos del grupo charter tenían un colectivo de 1.8 millones de dólares y los dos PAC del sindicato de maestros tenían poco más de 200,000 dólares en sus cuentas.

Andrew Broy, presidente de la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois, dijo que su organización planea reunirse con los candidatos a la junta escolar y determinar a quién apoyar durante el verano después de que los candidatos hayan presentado firmas para entrar en la boleta electoral. Expresó su preocupación por el hecho de que los legisladores estatales hayan aumentado el requisito de firmas de 250 a 1,000 en la legislación anterior. En comparación, los concejales de Chicago deben obtener 473 firmas válidas para poder presentarse a las elecciones.

“Dado que los desafíos en las peticiones son una característica de la política de Chicago, se necesita tener más de 1.000 para ser realmente competitivos”, dijo Broy. “Creo que probablemente se trata de una especie de barrera de acceso a las urnas puesta a última hora en Springfield”.

Dos nombres conocidos en el panorama de la educación de Chicago - el ex candidato a la alcaldía y ex CEO de CPS Paul Vallas y el ex líder de las escuelas charter Juan Rangel - recientemente presentaron documentos para formar un comité de acción política llamado Urban Center PAC.

Rangel dijo que el PAC podría apoyar a los candidatos a la junta escolar de Chicago, pero no es el único objetivo del grupo. Recientemente lanzó una organización sin fines de lucro del mismo nombre, The Urban Center, que se centra más ampliamente en la organización comunitaria en torno a puntos de vista políticos más centristas. “Acceso a escuelas de alta calidad” figura en el sitio web de la organización como algo que el grupo defiende, lo que incluye que “los padres puedan elegir la escuela -pública o privada- que mejor se adapte a las necesidades de sus hijos”. Rangel trabajó recientemente para Empower Illinois, una de las principales organizaciones estatales de concesión de becas dentro del programa de becas con desgravación fiscal Invest in Kids, que está llegando a su fin.

“Queremos ser un recurso para los candidatos que quieran presentarse a cargos públicos y eso incluiría para el consejo escolar”, dijo Vallas. Añadió que no tiene previsto presentarse al consejo escolar de Chicago y que espera que los futuros miembros del consejo se centren en “capacitar a la comunidad para que participe en la transformación de sus escuelas locales.”

Reema Amin colaboró en la redacción.

Becky Vevea es jefa de la oficina de Chalkbeat Chicago. Puede ponerse en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Election results show Chicago voters reject ballot measure aimed at helping homeless

2024-03-22T15:15:21+00:00

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A city ballot measure aimed at reducing homelessness and increasing affordable housing failed Tuesday, a setback for efforts to serve the growing number of Chicago Public Schools students facing housing instability.

The “Bring Chicago Home” initiative was voted down 54 percent to 46 percent, according to unofficial results released Thursday.

The measure backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former school teacher and union organizer, would have raised a one-time tax on real estate transfers for purchases over $1 million.

Chalkbeat reported last week that 21,855 students currently enrolled at CPS were considered Students in Temporary Living Situations, or STLS. That’s up from 14,317 such students last February. The district’s homeless student population has been around 5% for the past decade, which is twice the national average.

While the vast majority of those students are classified as “doubled up,” living with another family temporarily, the number of students living in shelters or out of a car, park, or other public place more than tripled in the last year — from about 2,000 last February to nearly 8,000 this February.

Backers of the ballot initiative estimated the increase could have generated roughly $100 million annually for the city to fight homelessness.

Chicago Public Schools would not have directly received any of the increased revenue, but advocates and the mayor said the money could fund homelessness prevention, affordable housing, and other city-run housing assistance programs that would benefit students and their families.

Supporters of the initiative called the results disappointing and vowed to “keep fighting for housing justice.” Opponents said they also want to make Chicago a better place to live and support solutions that boost the “supply of naturally occurring affordable housing.”

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

Chicago student homelessness is rising. Could a tax change backed by the mayor help fix that?

2024-03-14T19:55:36+00:00

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Derrianna Ford lived with her grandmother on Chicago’s north side growing up, but when the older woman lost her home, Ford and her siblings had to relocate to the south side for about a year.

They moved from the city’s West Ridge neighborhood to the South Side during her freshman year at Mather High School. Ford said she had to wake up at 4 a.m., take a bus to the southernmost stop on Chicago’s Red Line, ride almost the entire 26-mile route north, and then get on another bus in order to get to school by 8 a.m.

During the week, she would occasionally stay with a friend closer to school to avoid the long commute.

“This is so normal to us,” Ford said. “You don’t see yourself as struggling because you’re used to it. You don’t see it as homelessness.”

These days, Ford, now 20, is searching for a place of her own. But she has another goal. She’s knocking on doors to help pass a ballot referendum in Chicago on March 19 that advocates say could put a real dent in reducing homelessness.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer and middle school teacher, promised in his education platform and transition plan to house the city’s homeless, with a focus on more than 20,000 students in Chicago Public Schools currently facing housing instability. In the last year, the number of CPS students in unstable housing situations — which can disrupt or derail students’ academic progress — has risen by roughly 50%.

To address that, Johnson and his allies are pushing to increase a real estate transfer tax on sales of property sales worth more than $1 million to generate an estimated $100 million annually to fund services for the homeless and affordable housing.

Some progressive groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union which helped propel Johnson to office, have been advocating to increase the city’s real estate transfer tax to help the homeless since Rahm Emanuel was mayor. The effort — dubbed Bring Chicago Home — is something Johnson emphasized often on the campaign trail last year.

“The people of Chicago voted for me because I said that I’m going to address homelessness,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Bring Chicago Home is an opportunity to address homelessness.”

A document obtained by Chalkbeat outlining Johnson’s first-term goals suggested his administration hopes to help house 10,000 students and their families.

But opponents of the initiative challenged the ballot question’s legality in the courts, even asking the Illinois Supreme Court to block the measure, which the court declined to do Wednesday. Still, some groups, including the nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation, are concerned the mayor and City Council have not been specific enough about how the money would be used.

“This is the mayor’s signature item,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly, who represents much of downtown and opposes the referendum because it lacks specifics and could have unintended consequences on rental property and commercial real estate. “He’s put a lot of political capital into it and right now the Chicago electorate gets to give him a report card. I think this is as much about the policy as it is about a commentary on his agenda.”

Chicago Public Schools would not directly get any of the estimated $100 million in revenue that a change to the real estate transfer tax would generate. CPS officials did not comment on the ballot initiative, but said the district will continue to support homeless students and protect their rights under federal law.

More Chicago Public Schools students identified as homeless

The number of students in temporary living situations enrolled at Chicago Public Schools has hovered around 5% for at least the last decade — twice the national average. Recent data indicates the problem is getting more acute as the numbers climb.

District data shared with Chalkbeat from the end of February indicated 21,855 students currently enrolled at CPS were considered Students in Temporary Living Situations, or STLS. That’s up from more than 14,317 such students last February. CPS data includes any student categorized this way at any time during the school year, and once a student is marked as such, they keep that status for the remainder of the year.

The vast majority — around 16,000 students — are classified as “doubled up,” meaning they are living with another family temporarily, like Ford was while a freshman in high school.

But the number of CPS students listed as living in a shelter, hotel or motel, or living out of a car, park, or other public place more than tripled in the last year — from about 2,000 last February to nearly 8,000 as of Feb. 29. The jump has coincided with the ongoing influx of migrants arriving from the southern border.

Chicago grappled with students facing homelessness or housing instability long before the COVID pandemic and recent wave of migrants. A 2021 study from the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab analyzed nine years of district data between 2009 and 2018 and found that, over the course of their K-12 experience, about 13% of CPS students experienced housing instability.

The report noted that research shows homeless students come to school less often, have lower academic achievement, and are more likely to drop out. At the same time, school districts like CPS “have limited capacity to connect students to housing supports.”

Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, the daughter of a longtime housing activist, saw this “heartbreaking” reality up close during the more than two decades she spent as a classroom teacher, including working alongside Johnson at a school serving the Cabrini Green public housing complex.

One time, she said, a single mom of one of her students had no place to stay, so Stamps and the school’s security guard “called and called and called around” to help them find housing.

Stamps, who now also works for the Chicago Teachers Union, said past administrations have emphasized academic achievement and improving test scores without prioritizing the conditions students faced that affected those scores: “There is no [academic] progress … if a baby doesn’t know where they’re going to sleep at night, if they don’t know where they’re going to eat.”.

Federal law requires school districts to support students facing housing insecurity. Some districts also get money through competitive grants to support homeless students. Students identified as such are entitled to transportation, the right to enroll without a permanent address, and the right to continue attending the same school through the end of the academic year even if they move.

But few districts have been directly involved in finding families housing.

With the help of federal COVID money, some schools across the country have added staff to help families with housing, others have provided emergency hotel stays and even propped up shelters inside schools.

Alyssa Phillips, an education attorney with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which has been advocating for Bring Chicago Home for several years, said the city needs a consistent revenue stream to tackle homelessness, along with input about what works from people experiencing homelessness and service providers.

“I think the most important thing is having that continuous funding,” Phillips said.

Federal COVID money for homeless set to expire

During the COVID pandemic, housing instability rose across the country. Homeless students were disconnected from schools and districts struggled to identify how many students were entitled to additional support and resources.

Chicago Public Schools received about $10.1 million in federal pandemic aid to serve homeless students, as part of roughly $800 million distributed nationally to states and school districts.

The city and school district created a program to give $500 stipends to families in Students in Temporary Living Situations, using money from the initial 2020 wave of federal COVID relief dollars. It’s not clear how many families received the money, and district officials deferred to the city, which administered the program.

Ald. Maria Hadden, who represents Chicago’s north lakefront and is a supporter of the Bring Chicago Home initiative, said the city also used some of its share of federal COVID dollars to provide rental assistance to thousands of people. She recounted helping one family in her ward with a CPS student with epilepsy avoid an eviction because they were able to get six months of rental assistance.

But soon, federal COVID money is drying up. Expenditure data obtained by Chalkbeat shows most of the school district’s share of federal COVID money has been spent, primarily for school staff.

If the ballot initiative to raise the real estate transfer tax on property over a $1 million is approved, Hadden said, the city could revive, continue, or expand pandemic-era programs, like rental and mortgage assistance and rapid rehousing efforts for people living in tent encampments.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is greeted by supporters after he spoke while dozens rally for the Bring Chicago Home resolution outside the Thompson Center before a City Council meeting on Nov. 7, 2023.

Political ‘slush fund’ or nimble revenue stream?

Ford and others continue to knock on doors to garner support from voters who will ultimately decide whether Chicago should have a graduated real estate transfer tax.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Teachers Union is gearing up for another round of contract negotiations with a mayor more amenable to their views than his two predecessors. During contract negotiations in 2019, the union pushed to include provisions around affordable housing. But then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the union contract was “not the appropriate place for the City to legislate its affordable housing policy.”

Leaked contract proposals for upcoming contract talks include two focused on affordable housing: mortgage and rental assistance for teachers, and a vocational program that would have students build affordable housing.

Whatever happens with the teachers union contract, Johnson is forging ahead with a plan to borrow $1.25 billion dollars to fund affordable housing and other development. On Wednesday, the mayor said he’ll soon name a new chief homelessness officer. And he directed the city’s Department of Family Support Services to work with CPS to match the district’s most vulnerable students with housing. The two agencies meet weekly, a spokesperson confirmed.

If voters approve the ballot initiative, the City Council would still need to pass an ordinance spelling out how to appropriate the revenue.

Reilly, the downtown alderman, said that “anyone who has a soul” cares about the homeless and wants to find solutions. But he worries that if the tax is approved, the revenue could quickly turn into a “slush fund” for political allies of whomever is mayor.

“There’s no guarantee that any of this money lands with helping the homeless people,” Reilly said. “It’s just going to be a big stack of money that a whole lot of people are gonna wanna fight over.”

Emma Tai, campaign director for the Bring Chicago Home Ballot Initiative, said the revenue would be legally dedicated to fund affordable housing and services for the homeless. A draft ordinance for implementing the change to the transfer tax would create a 15-member panel appointed by the mayor and approved by City Council to make recommendations annually based on the “most pressing needs.”

“The idea is for the funds to be nimble,” Tai said, noting that during the height of the pandemic, there was a critical need to provide housing to domestic violence victims, whereas now that pandemic-era eviction moratoriums have ended, there’s a need for emergency rental assistance. The idea is that the panel’s recommendations would take such shifts into account.

For young people like Derrianna Ford, who experienced housing insecurity as a student and is searching for an affordable apartment now, the issue boils down to one thing: “stability.”

This story has been updated to more accurately characterize Tai’s comments about how housing needs have shifted in Chicago.

Chalkbeat reporter Reema Amin contributed reporting.

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

Illinois Senate approves plan for how Chicago would elect 10 of 21 school board members in 2024

2024-03-06T00:12:50+00:00

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Chicago voters would elect – for the first time – 10 school board members this November and all 21 members in 2026, according to a plan approved by Illinois senators Tuesday.

The vote on Senate Bill 15 firms up the districts that elected school board members would represent ahead of a looming April 1 deadline to draw a map lawmakers pushed back last spring. It also comes ahead of March 26, when candidates can begin circulating petitions to get on the Nov. 5 ballot. They would need to collect at least 1,000 but not more than 3,000 signatures by June 24 in order to run.

The bill now goes to the House, which must approve the measure before it can head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.

The Senate vote appears to resolve a disagreement between lawmakers that emerged last year over whether Chicago should go straight to electing all 21 school board members and skip having a hybrid school board. The original law passed in 2021 laid out a process to have 10 elected members and 11 appointed by the mayor.

Senate President Don Harmon said during the hearing that he filed an amendment to the bill that passed Tuesday because Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote a letter to him at the end of January requesting to stick with a hybrid school board.

“There has been much passion and frustration surrounding this effort, not for days or weeks or months, but for years and decades,” said Harmon during the Senate’s floor debate on Tuesday afternoon. “What we’re about to do today is one of the most consequential things we will do in our legislative careers. We are making a new democratic form of government from whole cloth and getting it across the finish line.”

Chicago’s Board of Education has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. In 2021, the state legislature passed a law paving the way for a 21-member elected school board. The school board votes on the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determines how schools are measured, authorizes contracts with vendors to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

Senate majority leader Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and western suburbs, said it is time to stop “playing politics” and represent the children who are attending Chicago Public Schools.

“We are here now, punting the ball back and forth from chamber to chamber – if the mayor wants it, if [Chicago Teachers Union] wants it — who cares?” Lightford said. “When are we willing to put politics aside and educate our children? I would love to see that happen before I retire.”

The district map approved by the Senate on Tuesday mirrors a third draft released during the veto session in November, but groups the 20 districts into pairs to create 10 districts for this year’s elections. That aligns with what the House passed last fall which was put forward by Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats who worked on drawing school board districts.

There are three majority Black districts, three majority Latino districts, two majority white districts, and two districts with no majority, but a white plurality.

By creating 10 districts for 2024 and dividing them into 20 subdistricts in 2026, Senate Bill 15 would allow everyone in the city to vote for a school board member this November.

During the 2024 elections, if the winning candidate in District 1 lives in subdistrict 1a, the mayor would appoint someone who lives in 1b. In 2026, all 20 school board members would be elected from subdistricts to either a two-year or four-year term and the school board president would be elected citywide to a four-year term beginning Jan. 15, 2027.

Chicagoans who testified at multiple hearings last year raised concerns about the school board representing the students it will eventually serve. The district is 46% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. However, electoral districts must represent all voters. Chicago’s overall population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the demographics of the schools within the boundaries of each of the 10 districts indicates that in four districts, the racial majority of the population does not match the student demographics of the schools in that district.

There is also an imbalance of the number of CPS schools within each district. One district, which stretches from West Town to Austin, has 101 public schools in it, while the north lakefront district that includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Uptown, has 34 CPS schools.

Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, said in a statement it hopes Mayor Johnson will “leverage his appointments to ensure the elected school board reflects our student body’s diversity in 2025.”

Under the bill now headed to the House, the 10 districts would be divided for the 2026 elections, creating 20 districts, seven majority Black, six majority Latino, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

During the Senate’s executive committee hearing earlier on Tuesday, a large number of people were critical of Senate Bill 15. Some want to see a fully elected school board now, while others found the language in the bill confusing.

“Back in November, everybody could vote for the candidate of their choice. Anybody who wanted to run could run and it didn’t matter where they lived or who their neighbor was,” said Valerie Leonard, with Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which also pushed for a committee that focuses on Black student achievement at Chicago Public Schools.

Leonard said the move to an elected school board under this plan is confusing. “If you ask 30 people what this bill is today, I guarantee you’re gonna get 30 different answers,” Leonard said. “That’s not good public policy.”

Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board law that passed in 2021, said on the Senate floor Wednesday that bill also required compromise.

“That’s what the Senate passed. That’s what the House passed. That’s what the governor signed,” said Martwick. “Is it perfect? No. But when you figure out what the perfect form of democracy is, would you let me know?”

Martwick worked with some grassroots organizers and the CTU for several years to make an elected school board a reality in Chicago.

“People volunteered and worked for years and years before I got there,” he said. “We get the privilege of making their dreams of democracy become a reality.”

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

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

Chicago’s school board wants to remove police from all schools starting next school year

2024-02-20T19:32:03+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education wants to remove police officers from schools starting next school year, according to a resolution included in the agenda for Thursday’s board meeting.

The resolution directs CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to come up with a new policy by June 27 that would introduce a “holistic approach to school safety” at district schools, such as implementing restorative justice practices, which focus on resolving a conflict instead of punishment.

That policy “must make explicit that the use of [school resource officers] within District schools will end by the start of the 2024-2025 school year,” the resolution said. (Find the resolution on page 15 of your PDF reader.)

The resolution nods to the district’s shift in student discipline to more restorative practices, which has led to “significant progress” in reducing suspensions. However, the resolution notes that disparities in suspension rates are disproportionately higher for students with disabilities and Black students, compared to their Hispanic and white peers.

Most CPS schools don’t have school resource officers who, unlike security guards, are trained and employed by the Chicago Police Department, but are stationed in schools full-time. If passed, the resolution would directly impact 39 schools – all high schools – that have a total of 57 officers on campus, according to the resolution and district officials. Fourteen schools voted to remove a total of 28 officers and instead received a total of $3.9 million for “alternative safety interventions,” including for restorative justice and social service coordinators, the resolution said. CPS also employs more than 1,400 security guards at schools, according to staffing data from the end of December 2023.

Schools that have voted to keep their officers have cited a variety of reasons for doing so, including that in some cases, school resource officers have strong relationships with students. Opponents of police on campus argue that the presence of officers can lead to more punitive student discipline and can leave children feeling unsafe.

Last month, Nadig Newspapers and WBEZ reported that the board was planning to remove Chicago Police Department officers from schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson later confirmed to WBEZ that he’s in support of such a plan.

The resolution, which the board is slated to vote on Thursday, represents Johnson’s hand-picked school board’s clearest statements on removing police officers from Chicago schools. As a mayoral candidate, Johnson had said police officers “have no place in schools,” WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times reported. However, last year, he told the outlet he would leave the decision up to LSCs.

The resolution said the district would continue to partner with the Chicago Police Department, but district officials did not immediately explain what that relationship would look like.

Having police stationed inside Chicago schools came under scrutiny in 2019 as part of the police department’s federal consent decree. In 2020, amid protests and the racial reckoning that swept the country after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, Chicago schools began voting one-by-one on whether or not to keep their school resource officers.

Driven by similar issues, Denver Public Schools removed police from schools in 2020 and 2021, but its work to implement a new school safety policy, as Chicago’s board is seeking, was derailed by the pandemic. The Denver school board reversed its decision last June after a shooting inside a high school.

In 2022, the Chicago school board reduced its contract with the police department from more than $30 million to roughly $10 million and allocated money for schools to implement alternatives to police, such as restorative justice counselors. The contract was renewed last summer for $10.3 million and about $4 million to improve school climate was separately allocated to schools that had removed their officers.

Research from the University of Chicago released last fall found an improvement in student engagement and a decline in suspensions at schools that had implemented restorative practices in recent years.

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

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

Chicago Public Schools recover from pandemic declines more than other districts, study shows

2024-02-19T11:00:00+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools students’ reading scores are recovering faster since the pandemic than most school districts across the country, according to a new national report.

The district’s surprising rebound, documented by researchers at Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, also found the state of Illinois led the nation in reading growth between 2022 and 2023 and is one of just four states to return to pre-pandemic achievement levels.

However, the bounce back has not been as strong in math. Both Illinois and Chicago were in the middle of the pack for math score recovery compared to other states and districts.

Chicago Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova attributed the growth to how the district spent its federal COVID money.

“The federal pandemic aid actually has allowed us to invest fully in the day-to-day what I call the bread and butter of education,” Chkoumbova said.

Chicago spent a large portion of its $2.8 billion allocation on existing staff. Documents obtained by Chalkbeat in 2021 showed the district planned to use the money to cover salaries and benefits for roughly 30% of its workforce. Expenditure data obtained by Chalkbeat late last year indicates $1.4 billion of the $2.4 billion spent so far went to staff salaries and benefits.

CPS employed just over 38,000 people on the eve of the pandemic, and staffing records show that number has grown to more than 43,500 as of Dec. 31, 2023. The district’s overall budget grew from $7.7 billion the year the pandemic hit to $9.4 billion this school year.

A lot of the district’s increased staff costs were tethered to specific initiatives aimed at helping students recover from two years of disrupted learning:

The district tapped hundreds of mostly existing staff within schools to become academic interventionists, who worked one-on-one or in small group settings with struggling students.
CPS also hired hundreds of tutors across the school system and worked with an outside company to do high-dosage tutoring. According to a district spokesperson, 600 tutors in 230 schools provide tutoring in reading and math during the school day.
Summer school and after-school programs expanded significantly over the past few summers — spending between $20 million and $40 million each summer. However, tracking student participation has proved difficult.
Chkoumbova said the district has also hired more than 180 “instructional coaches” dedicated to supporting teachers and school staff in schools with the highest needs.

The growth in CPS between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school year documented by researchers at Harvard and Stanford on their Education Recovery Scorecard bucks a broader trend of widening inequity between high-poverty and wealthier districts.

According to the data, Black student scores in CPS grew even more than the district average in reading. District officials said their improvement meant they “emerged from the pandemic two-thirds of a year ahead of where they were in reading than before the pandemic.”

“Our teachers, our staff, our principals, assistant principals, they also have experienced the effects of the pandemic, but they really stepped in a big way and I think it has to be celebrated,” Chkoumbova said.

State test score data released last fall showed more Chicago students were catching up, but still remained below pre-pandemic achievement levels. Gaps between Black and Latino students and their white and Asian counterparts remain and there’s more work to be done to help students with disabilities and immigrant students, Chkoumbova said.

With federal COVID money running out later this year, Chicago Public Schools is projecting a $391 million dollar shortfall. Officials have been urging the state to increase funding.

“We have a good plane that we can fly. We just need a lot more fuel to sustain the speed with which our students are recovering and also to gain some altitude,” Chkoumbova said.

Governor J.B. Pritzker is set to release his budget proposal next week and state education officials have proposed increasing overall education funding by more than $650 million next year, which includes increases for both K-12 and early childhood education. Lawmakers will have the final say over how much is ultimately allocated.

Pre-pandemic progress may have helped rebound

This is not the first time Stanford researchers have found promising academic growth in Chicago Public Schools.

A report released in 2017 that looked at test scores between 2009 and 2014 found Chicago students saw six years of growth in five and were improving faster than 100 of the nation’s largest school districts.

Paul Zavitkovsky, an assessment specialist at the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois Chicago, did a similar study that same year looking at 15 years of data and found the often negative perception of Chicago Public Schools did not match reality. In his study at the time, CPS students in every demographic group were outscoring their counterparts in the rest of the state.

He said that the latest pandemic recovery identified by national researchers could be due to the “carry-over impact” of high reading achievement levels of students in second, third, and fourth grades at the end of 2019. These students, Zavitkovsky said, “entered the pandemic better prepared than any comparable cohort in CPS history.” He likened their academic bounce back to a sponge.

“If you have a sponge, and it hasn’t had water for a long time, it tends to shrivel up a little bit,” he said. “When you pour water on it, it immediately soaks up that water because it’s got all this sort of latent capacity to absorb it.”

He cautioned that the promising growth may not last forever and raised concerns about students who may have missed key early literacy instruction.

Chkoumbova, who also worked as a teacher and principal in CPS, said the district has been focused on early literacy for decades. On the eve of the pandemic, the district released a new literacy framework and when schools returned in-person, she said they emphasized the importance of strong foundational reading skills in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We have been getting a little bit more specific about the need for this explicit teaching of foundational skills, phonics, phonemic awareness,” she said. “Our schools are really embracing this effort.”

She added that many schools have been using early literacy curriculum that is part of the district’s universal curriculum bank Skyline, which launched during the pandemic, or a curriculum from Wilson Reading. A district spokesperson said Skyline has been adopted on a voluntary basis by nearly half of CPS schools.

Cautious optimism as other indicators lag

Elaine Allensworth, Lewis-Sebring Director of the UChicago Consortium, said the findings were “exciting and surprising,” but also a little puzzling because attendance is still low and absenteeism is still high.

“Maybe there’s just a lot of focus on math and English language arts instruction right now because people are so worried about pandemic learning loss,” Allensworth said. “I know a lot of teachers feel under pressure to increase students’ test scores… which makes me nervous, honestly, because then I start to wonder, ‘Well, what are they not doing?’”

Chkoumbova said for the past two years, her message from the top has been to keep challenging students with grade-level work and “resist that urge” to do too much remediation on basic skills.

“If it is kill and drill and remediation, kids will not love coming to school,” Chkoumbova said.

She said she is “paying very close attention” to rates of chronic absenteeism. In Illinois, a student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10 percent – or roughly 18 days — in a school year, regardless of whether the absence was excused or not.

The percentage of chronically absent students in Illinois shot up in the 2020-21 school year and got even worse in 2021-22. In CPS, 39.8% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, down from 44.6% the previous year.

But Allensworth said Chicago schools use data and research more and collaborate more frequently across teacher teams and networks – both of which are associated with school improvement.

“I think there’s just a lot of different things that are going on in Chicago that are different than other places,” Allensworth said. “It’s not glamorous or scandalous or whatever. And so locally people don’t know but people outside of Chicago look at Chicago as a place that’s kind of an exemplar in a lot of ways.”

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

How a Chicago counselor supports Latino boys in high school and beyond

2024-02-15T21:45:00+00:00

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When Jorge Alaves looks around room 110 at Lindblom Math and Science Academy each Wednesday morning, he sees 36 versions of his teenage self: Latino boys with a lot of potential at a high school full of high-achieving students trying to figure out how to be successful after graduation.

This is what’s known as “Lindblom Colegio,” a peer mentoring and postsecondary planning group for Latino boys that meets during the school’s colloquium days.

Alaves, one of Lindblom’s five counselors, launched the group about six years ago after noticing that Latino boys at the selective enrollment high school were less likely to apply to college and would sometimes struggle academically and socially.

Lindblom admits top students from elementary schools across the city based on an admissions test. Students like Freddy Lazaro.

Lazaro attended a charter school for kindergarten through second grade, but then transferred to Beasley, a gifted school in Washington Park. Lazaro got into Lindblom’s Academic Center in seventh grade and is now a senior.

“It was diverse and that’s what I liked about the school,” Lazaro said. “I was able to meet a lot of different people who came from different backgrounds.”

Latino students make up about 27% of Lindblom’s otherwise primarily Black student body, which includes just over 1,300 students.

Lazaro said it was a hard transition academically when he got to Lindblom because he was suddenly taking Chinese and pre-algebra. Initially, his grades weren’t the best, he said, but they got better over time.

Since joining “Colegio” as a sophomore, he said he’s been able to explore career options and visit a variety of colleges, including University of Illinois where he was recently admitted to the business school.

“Those college trips definitely influenced my post-secondary plans,” Lazaro said.

When Alaves first started “Colegio” six years ago, he recruited Latino boys with a 2.0 to 2.9 GPA. He would talk to teachers during team meetings and review freshman grades to identify students who might benefit from additional support.

“But it’s grown so much to where, it’s just word-of-mouth,” Alaves said. “They themselves share with their friends and will bring their friends here to my office, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, Mr. Alaves. I think that he’s a really great fit. I think that he would do really well in ‘Colegio.’”

Counselor Jorge Alaves poses for a portrait at Lindblom Math and Science Academy in Chicago.

Like his students, Alaves was a high achiever in elementary school and got into a prestigious high school: De La Salle Institute, the alma mater of many famous Chicagoans, including two former Chicago mayors, Richard J. and Richard M. Daley.

He went to Florida State University on a full scholarship because he felt like that was what was expected of him.

“In reality, I was first-generation, I had no idea what I was doing,” Alaves said. “I had never stepped foot on any college campus and a big, big environment like that was not the best fit for me.”

Alaves transferred and finished his degree in psychology at DePaul before landing a job at a nonprofit in Little Village, where he ran a youth program after school and during summers. After getting a master’s in school counseling and clinical mental health counseling, he became Lindblom’s counselor for the seventh and eighth grade students in the Academic Center.

Eduardo Serna, a junior, gives a presentation to his classmates in the "Lindblom Colegio," which provides mentoring, counseling, and postsecondary planning for Latino boys at the predominantly Black selective enrollment high school.

Shortly after the bell rang on Valentine’s Day, junior Eduardo Serna stood before his classmates to give a presentation about a program he’s part of this school year called Chicago Builds, a pre-apprenticeship program for high school juniors and seniors to learn construction trades, such as carpentry, electricity, welding, and HVAC.

Serna explained how his teachers are part of the electricians union and showed off pictures of a small house he built. Then he touted the pay-off.

“When you’re working overtime, you get 1.5 times pay and you can get double time hours as well,” Serna said. “Your salary can be well up to or over $100,000.”

Alaves chimed in to tell the group that Chicago Builds can help students get into competitive apprenticeships with the unions after high school.

“To get into a union, it is really, really, really competitive,” Alaves said, adding that there are 2,000 applications for about 200 spots every year. “They do want strong students. You can’t just give up on high school and say I’m going to do a trade. If you’re thinking about the trades, you still have to be doing well academically now and keeping your grades up.”

Serna said he plans to get his bachelor’s degree in business and hopes to one day run his own construction or trade company.

As the class period came to an end, Alaves reminded the boys to return their permission slips for the group’s upcoming visit to Roosevelt University while he handed out black sweatshirts. Emblazoned on the front, in the school’s maroon and yellow colors, were the words: “Lindblom Colegio.”

Wear these shirts proudly, he told the boys. They represent the school and the values of the “Colegio”: Be on your best behavior. Be respectful. Be on time to class. Keep your grades up and ask for help when you need it.

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

Chicago Public Schools plans to end Aramark cleaning contract

2024-02-13T01:41:10+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools said Monday it is not planning to renew a multi-million dollar deal with Aramark for the management of school janitors and cleaning services after a decade.

The move comes after years of concerns and complaints over school cleanliness from staff, parents, and students.

The school board’s latest agreement with the Philadelphia-based company is set to end June 30, 2024. According to a school board committee agenda posted Monday, the district is asking board members to increase the current contract, which started Aug. 2021, from $369 million to $391 million “due to unforeseen expenditures associated with overtime, custodial supplies and custodial equipment.”

A district spokesperson confirmed Monday the district is not renewing the contract with Aramark and the school board will vote on seven new contracts at its Feb. 22 meeting.

Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer at CPS, said the district is looking forward to more direct oversight of janitorial services and supplies and allowing principals to have more say on school cleaniness. Mayfield said the district will contract with seven vendors for custodial services. He said he doesn’t anticipate any job losses with this change.

CPS employs more than 1,000 custodians, according to staffing records updated at the end of December.

“We had an opportunity to renew at Aramark and we opted not to,” said Mayfield. “There were some challenges there, but they’ve also been great partners over a number of years. Sometimes change happens.”

A spokesperson for Aramark wrote in a statement that the company was disappointed to not be selected to continue providing facility services for CPS.

“We are proud of the efforts of our dedicated employees and are committed to ensuring a smooth transition to the school district’s new provider,” said Chris Collom, Aramark’s vice president of corporate communications.

Chicago Public Schools first contracted with Aramark in 2014. Budget officials at the time promised that outsourcing the management of school cleaning would save money and ease the burden on school principals.

But the deal backfired in the first school year when staff returned from summer break to dirty classrooms and, in some buildings, fewer custodians. Then-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett admitted the shift to privatized management of custodians was not going smoothly and the board reversed nearly 500 planned layoffs. By the spring of 2015, the contract with Aramark had gone millions of dollars over budget, WBEZ reported.

The union representing school janitors called the move a victory for its members. SEIU Local 73 — the union that also represents school employees such as special education classroom assistants, bus aides, and crossing guards — has been meeting with the district’s facilities department for almost three years to raise concerns about Aramark’s management of equipment and supplies for custodial staff.

Stacia Scott Kennedy, executive vice president of SEIU, said she is thrilled the contract is over.

“I feel hopeful that this change in management will improve the outcomes of cleanliness,” said Scott Kennedy. “I also feel hopeful that it’ll improve the working conditions of our members who have suffered under private contract with management for the last 10 years.”

SEIU Local 73 has been in contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools since its contract ended June 30, 2023. One of the union’s economic proposals was to ask the district to get rid of the contract with Aramark. Scott Kennedy said they will keep the proposal as negotiations continue.

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

These Chicago middle schoolers have big ideas for improving their neighborhood

2024-02-01T21:35:08+00:00

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Standing next to a 3D model of the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood spread across a conference room table, eighth grader Rondell Sims gave a call to action to a room of city officials and classmates.

“As development comes to our community, you all will be advocates alongside in creation of a plan that is for us, by us,” Rondell said during a presentation on Wednesday inside the Altgeld Gardens Chicago Public Library Branch.

Rondell and his fellow middle schoolers at Aldridge Elementary were laying out a vision for the future of Altgeld Gardens that would include a grocery store, a new recreation center, public art by a planned new public transit stop, and a museum to honor Hazel Johnson, the “mother of the environmental justice movement” who lived in the neighborhood and fought against air pollution and toxic conditions in the community.

“You can’t really speak on something that you don’t live,” Rondell said after the formal presentation ended. “I feel like by us adding these things to the community and making more things that will be better for the people that’s in the community is just amazing. It will give a better name for our community.”

The project — that allowed middle schoolers to play the role of city planner and propose changes to their community — is the culmination of more than two years of collaboration between Aldridge teachers and the Field Museum.

“The work that we do in schools can’t just be isolated to grades,” said Principal Afua Agyeman-Badu. ”I wanted them to see the power that exists within them to make decisions and create a plan about what it is that they want for this place.”

Built in 1945 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to house Black veterans returning from World War II, Altgeld Gardens is a planned community made up of mostly three-story townhomes operated by the Chicago Housing Authority.

The neighborhood — near the site of the old steel mills and the Pullman factory — sits 19 miles from Chicago’s Loop at 130th Street and has no access to the city’s public transit system, which ends at 95th Street. City officials have been talking about extending the Red Line for decades, but the project now appears on the cusp of becoming a reality.

Agyeman-Badu said the Red Line extension project is a learning opportunity for Aldridge students.

“I want them to be able to one day see when the ribbon is cut for them to see their ideas as a part of that plan for the Red Line extension,” Agyeman-Badu said.

Raven Mayo, Aldridge’s middle school science teacher, said the students have been working on this project since sixth grade and it’s evolved over time. The news of the Red Line extension prompted engaging discussions in class when students questioned why the community doesn’t have access to public transit and is isolated from the rest of Chicago.

“This created an opportunity for them to share their gripes in a productive way,” Mayo said. “Like this is what we deserve, just like the rest of the city.”

“The kids are speaking, they have a voice, their voice matters, their desires matter, they’re the future.” Mayo said. “In the next five years, they’ll be working adults, and they need to have access to get it downtown and to be a part of the workforce in Chicago.”

Bill Mooney, chief infrastructure officer for the Chicago Transit Authority, and other city officials attended the presentation on Wednesday to give feedback and take notes.

“This is one of the coolest things I’ve been able to participate in my 26 years at CTA.” Mooney said. “We are in a unique moment. Not often does what’s right, and what’s possible align.”

He urged the students to keep fighting to bring their ideas to fruition. The Red Line extension project cleared a hurdle last fall in the process to secure nearly $2 billion in federal funding, but the final award won’t be determined until late 2024. It’s not expected to be completed until 2029.

Jasmine Gunn, a city planner for the Far South Region with Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, said often community meetings draw an older demographic, so it was refreshing to see the youth perspective.

“They’re gonna be living in this community longer than any of us,” Gunn said. “To start any development, we need the vision and seeing their vision is really great. I’m actually trying to set up a field trip for our staff to come look at the presentation.”

Eleanor Sweeney, an educator with The Field Museum who works with the Aldridge students, said students are more likely to be engaged with learning when there’s a connection to their own lives. They also have so many good ideas.

“If anyone is making decisions about the future of their neighborhood, consult your local middle schoolers,” Sweeney said with a smile.

Terrence Perry, an eighth grader who worked on the public art piece of the project, said he’s hopeful that city officials will pick up some of their ideas.

“Once everybody sees it? They’re gonna be like, “Oh, I get what they’re trying to do,’” Terrence said. “A lot of people are gonna want to move out here.”

He stood near the 3D model on the conference room table and pointed to a tiny display near his home. It read: “Power and peace starts within me.”

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

Chicago Public Schools cancels after-school activities, sports for Friday and Saturday

2024-01-12T18:57:37+00:00

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As a winter storm continues to dump wet, heavy snow on the area, Chicago Public Schools has canceled all district-run after-school programs and sports games and practices for Friday and Saturday.

The move comes after hundreds of districts in the area called off classes or switched to virtual learning amid the storm, which also grounded and delayed airplanes at both of Chicago’s airports.

Parents of CPS students were also notified of the cancellations via robocalls, texts, and emails.

School is closed Monday, Jan. 15 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In a news release, district officials said staff and families will be notified this weekend as to whether there will be classes on Tuesday, Jan. 16. Or whether any events scheduled at schools during the Monday holiday will still happen.

ALERT: Due to inclement weather, all CPS-managed after-school and out-of-school programs are CANCELED for Friday, January 12, and Saturday, January 13. https://t.co/pqYDhYxw0R pic.twitter.com/7n7MacK5Ja
— CPS - Chicago Public Schools (@ChiPubSchools) January 12, 2024

Officials said they will consider temperatures, wind chill, snow accumulation, building accessibility, bus transportation, and potential issues with heating systems at schools before deciding to cancel school or extracurricular activities.

According to the news release, testing to get into selective enrollment schools will continue at the Illinois Institute of Technology this weekend. Families would have scheduled testing dates when they submitted their GoCPS applications to attend schools outside their neighborhood-assigned one.

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

How many out-of-school, out-of-work youth did Chicago reengage last school year?

2024-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

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About 1 in 5 of roughly 2,300 out-of-school, out-of-work youth contacted to participate in a new reengagement program in Chicago took part during the first year, according to a new policy brief from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

In Chicago, roughly 45,000 teens and young adults are disconnected from school and work. With $18 million from the state, the city launched Back to Our Future in May 2022 to reach 1,000 young people ages 14 to 21 in 15 neighborhoods on the South and West sides. Data indicates fewer than 500 have participated so far.

The findings released today illustrate how difficult it is to reconnect with these young people — often referred to as “opportunity youth” — once they’ve disengaged.

“If it was easy, somebody would have already done it,” said Jadine Chou, chief safety and security officer at Chicago Public Schools. “We knew going into this that it was going to be really hard.”

The Back to Our Future program is a partnership between the Crime Lab, Chicago Public Schools, and the three community organizations tasked with doing the on-the-ground reengagement: Breakthrough, UCAN, and Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc.

Kim Smith, director of programs for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab, said the low uptake is not entirely surprising. Back to Our Future is “a very ambitious program” to reach young people that have not been “served well by status quo services,” she said.

“This group of young people are not just going to kind of show up after a phone call,” Smith said. “There is an incredible need to tailor programming, to tailor services, even to tailor outreach strategies.”

The 12-week Back to Our Future program costs roughly $18,000 per young person to run. It includes 20 hours a week of mentoring, mental health services, job training, credit recovery to earn a CPS diploma or GED programming, and a stipend for youth participants.

However, the policy brief found many teens did not engage for the full 20 hours of programming each week. On average, participants attended nearly seven hours each week.

The policy brief analyzed referral and participation data, but was not a full evaluation of the program.

Chou said the district has a database of former students who left school before earning their diploma that they have used and shared with partner organizations in order to track down students. But often phone numbers and home addresses are no longer current or they have left Chicago. A lot of them have also aged out and would not be eligible for Back to Our Future.

“Once you do reach them, you have to really build trust,” Chou added.

She said the district is also learning a lot from the young people in Back to Our Future about how to prevent disconnection before it happens.

“They all have very important information, very important experiences that they are very happy to share,” she said, “which then I bring back to (colleagues at) CPS and say, ‘How can we work on this so that we essentially stem these young people from leaving us in the first place?’”

Chou highlighted school transfers as a signal for a student eventually dropping out.

“Once they do that transfer, that is so disruptive and destabilizing to their experience and to their sense of well-being because now they have to make new friends, now they have to navigate a new path to school,” she said. “And so, if possible, how do we support them in place?”

Smith said prevention is important so the numbers of out-of-school, out-of-work youth do not grow.

“At the point where a young person has not attended their school for 6, 12, 18 months, something has gone really wrong,” Smith said. “But it’s not ever too late, in our opinion, to try to re-engage young people and get them back on a good track.”

The brief only looked at data through May 2023. According to Chou, 346 young people are currently participating in Back to Our Future and outreach continues every day. She said 103 youth have successfully completed the program and of those, 32 earned their high school diplomas and 71 are re-enrolled in school.

“They would not have been able to do that without this program,” Chou said.

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

Chicago gets $20 million federal grant to buy 50 electric school buses

2024-01-09T22:05:09+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is planning to purchase up to 50 electric school buses to operate its own fleet with a $20 million federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The additional money comes as the district continues to struggle to provide students with transportation. The district has not operated its own bus fleet for more than a decade. It contracts with outside vendors to provide bus service and has been grappling with a driver shortage since the pandemic hit.

CPS announced just before winter break that it would not be adding bus service for general education students, many who attend selective or magnet schools, for the remainder of the year. They cut service to those students at the start of the school year in order to ensure students with disabilities, who are legally entitled to transportation, were being routed and weren’t riding the bus more than an hour.

But the federal grant and new buses will not immediately fix those issues. For one, 50 buses “will not be enough to provide service to the entire district,” a district spokesperson said. The process for buying and deploying the electric buses will start on April 1, 2024 and happen over a three-year period, the spokesperson said.

The Chicago Teachers Union applauded the grant and said the news was a sign of better collaboration between the union, the district, and the mayor, who is a former CTU organizer. The statement issued by the union said the award would “allow CPS to hold private bus vendors accountable for another 140 electric buses that will replace their current diesel-powered fleets.”

About $81 million is being awarded to private bus vendors that serve Illinois and other states, according to the EPA. First Student Inc. – which operates yellow buses in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin – is getting $39.4 million to purchase 100 electric buses; Student Transportation of America Inc is also in line to receive $12.2 million to purchase 32 buses in Illinois and Wisconsin; and Highland CSB 1 is expected to get $29.4 million to purchase 98 buses in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

A news release from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office said the goal will be to deploy the new buses in communities “most impacted by poor environmental policies and practices, and historic disinvestment.” Johnson ran on a promise to update school facilities to be more environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

In all, the federal government is doling out more than $1 billion to fund electric buses across 280 school districts.

In Philadelphia, the school district is in line for $8 million to add 20 electric buses to its fleet, doubling the current 20 it operates. Detroit Public Schools is expected to get nearly $6 million to buy 15 electric buses.

The move comes as districts nationwide are looking to shift to clean energy buses. Colorado also announced plans last August to expand electric buses in more than a dozen school districts using state and federal funding. New York state announced in 2022 it wants all new school buses to be zero-emissions by 2027.

The federal Clean School Bus Program also provides rebates to districts that use electric buses. Thirteen school districts in Illinois, most of them downstate, got more than $46 million in those rebates last school year to operate electric buses, according to data from the EPA.

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

Three things to know about the Chicago Board of Education’s resolution on school choice

2024-01-03T12:00:00+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education made waves last month when officials revealed a vision to move away from its school choice system and boost neighborhood schools.

The declaration, included in a resolution the board passed in December, lays out priorities for the district’s five-year strategic plan, which will be finalized this summer. Any resulting changes will depend on feedback from the community, board members said.

But the board’s new vision immediately sparked misinformation. Here are three things to know about the board’s resolution.

Will schools close?

No. Not yet, at least.

The resolution does not say anything about closing schools. State law put a moratorium on school closures in Chicago until Jan. 15, 2025, the same day a new 21-member, partially-elected school is set to be sworn in. The current seven-member school board, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, would not be able to close schools of any type – charters, magnets, or neighborhood schools – until that time.

School board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland did indicate the board is scrutinizing charter school performance through the usual renewal process and questioned whether poor-performing operators should “continue to exist.”

But even a recent board decision to revoke a charter agreement with Urban Prep did not ultimately mean those schools closed. First, the district proposed operating the two campuses as district-run schools. But after a court order, the board extended Urban Prep’s charter until June 2024.

Will I have to go to my neighborhood school?

No. The resolution does not say anything about requiring families to attend their neighborhood schools.

The closest it comes to addressing enrollment policies is a bullet point about a “reimagined vision” that includes a “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”

Any school-aged child living in Chicago is guaranteed a spot at their zoned neighborhood school. Additionally, board policy amended as recently as last summer, allows families to apply to a myriad of selective, magnet, charter, or other speciality programs that admit students from across the city. Some schools require a test for admission, while others are a straight lottery.

These policies have not changed, but could after community feedback sessions.

“There likely will be policies that need to be revised and changed,” Todd-Breland said. “The admissions and enrollment policy is on the table.”

Data shows half of elementary school students attend their zoned neighborhood school and only a quarter of high school students do. These numbers shifted over the course of the past 20 years, when roughly 75% of elementary school students went to their local school and half of high schoolers did.

What do parents and students think?

It varies greatly.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked readers for their thoughts on school choice and got nearly 80 responses from families across the city about how they’ve navigated the system. Five families shared more about how — and why — they chose their schools.

The wide range of responses could be a bellwether for the kind of debate or disagreement that could emerge during community feedback sessions.

The Board of Education was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to create socioeconomically diverse schools. The district said it plans to use the money to engage the community on how to draw more families into neighborhood schools. Their application included a goal to reduce the percentage of families attending a school outside of their regions by at least 3%. The district did not answer questions to clarify their definition of region or why 3% was their goal.

The district is already collecting feedback on the next five-year strategic plan through an online survey and community meetings for the next Educational Facilities Master Plan. Officials have said they will host in-person and online meetings in February to gather feedback on the strategic plan.

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

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

Chicago Public Schools won’t bus general education students for the rest of the school year

2023-12-21T22:54:15+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools won’t provide busing to general education students for the rest of the school year, officials said Thursday.

In a letter to parents, the district said a driver shortage persists and is preventing it from providing busing to general education students — largely those in magnet and selective enrollment programs. The district will continue to provide free CTA cards, valued at $35, to those roughly 5,500 families; about one-third of those children are using the passes, according to a CPS spokesperson.

“We fully understand how frustrating this news will be for many of our families, and sincerely empathize with the challenges and inconvenience that this situation has caused,” the letter said.

The update comes after the district announced in late September that it couldn’t provide busing to general education students this semester but would share an update with families before winter break regarding the second half of the school year. In November, the district cast doubt that it would be able to expand bus service this year.

Citing a driver shortage, the district announced in late July that it would limit busing to students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, call for transportation, as well as students who are homeless. Both student groups are legally entitled to transportation — and the district is on state watch to improve commute times for students with disabilities.

The district left open the possibility that general education students could get busing later in the year.

The district is currently busing 8,133 students with disabilities and another 146 students who are homeless, according to a CPS spokesperson.

Thursday’s busing update comes a week after the school board passed a resolution saying it wants to bolster neighborhood schools and move away from a system of choice where families travel outside their neighborhood for school. Asked if the district’s desire to move away from school choice informed their decision to sever busing for general education students, a spokesperson said the district is following state law and board policy by prioritizing students with disabilities for transportation.

Parents of children in selective enrollment and magnet programs have repeatedly shared frustrations with the Board of Education about the difficulties they’ve faced without busing to schools that are far from their homes, including difficulties balancing the school commute with their work schedules. Some parents have transferred their children to other schools.

Aria Haque, a sixth grader at Keller Regional Gifted Center in Mt. Greenwood, lives 20 miles from her school, and transferred to her neighborhood school after “so many hurdles and almost no time” to figure out the commute, Haque told the board at its meeting earlier this month. Her new school, however, was teaching material she said she’d learned two years ago.

Haque decided to re-enroll at Keller “even with the killer commute.” Her father now drives Aria and another Keller student whose family doesn’t have a car and lives 15 miles away from the school.

“That has been our routine ever since: An hour-and-a-half on the road for me, which isn’t bad, but over three hours for my dad, which is horrible,” Haque said.

Natasha Haque, Aria’s mother, said she’s been advocating with a group of parents to get busing reinstated for general education students in magnet and selective enrollment schools. She worries that students from low-income families at Aria’s school, Keller, will lose out on the chance to attend a great school. Roughly a third of Keller’s students were from low-income families last year.

“If the message to families is: ‘You cannot rely on us to transport your child to a selective enrollment school,’ it’s the lower income families that will be the first to say, ‘Yeah, I cannot afford to take my child to school. I cannot quit my job,’” Natasha Haque said Thursday after the letter to parents was sent out.

Limited busing has also helped the district comply with a state corrective action plan to keep commutes under an hour each way for students with disabilities. Last school year, about 3,000 students with disabilities were on routes longer than an hour. As of October, the district was busing an average of 7 students with disabilities per route, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Commute times had improved this year as the district has limited busing, but have worsened in recent months: In August, 47 students with disabilities were on routes longer than an hour; that’s grown to 111 students as of Thursday, a slight dip from late November, according to the district.

CPS said another 115 students with disabilities are in the process of getting bus routes. The district has received 4,649 requests since the start of the school year, close to 900 more requests than last year. It is also continuing to hold job fairs to hire more bus drivers.

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.

New leaders, COVID spending, bus troubles: 6 Chalkbeat Chicago stories that defined 2023

2023-12-21T22:45:44+00:00

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This year brought big shifts for education in Chicago and Illinois. As schools continued to return to normal and recover from the COVID pandemic’s impact on learning, the city elected a new mayor who appointed a new school board.

Schools grappled with a wave of migrants, who partly helped stave off continued enrollment declines, and the district entered a third straight year of transportation troubles.

As we approach the end of 2023 and look ahead to 2024, here are six of the biggest education stories we covered this past year:

New leadership to shape a new era

If the 2023 education beat had a theme, it might be leadership transitions. The state of Illinois got a new superintendent in Tony Sanders and Chicago got a new mayor and a new school board.

When Brandon Johnson, a former public school teacher, union organizer, and public school parent, made it into the runoff in February, he unexpectedly dashed incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hopes for a second term. He would face Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who made a career as an education consultant and “fixer” turning around urban school districts.

Johnson’s victory over Vallas reflected, in part, ongoing shifts in local and national education policy. By July, he replaced six of seven school board members — a common act of new mayors — with more public school parents, community activists, and the leader of the parent group Raise Your Hand. The new board has already signaled some significant policy shifts, including moving away from a system of school choice and redoubling efforts to boost neighborhood schools.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicagoans will soon elect school board members, though state lawmakers are still working out the details of how that will happen. Before the legislature wrapped up its veto session, they did appear to agree on how the city would be divided into 20 districts after releasing their third draft of a district map.

Teresa Przybyslawski, an interventionist at Chicago’s Brunson Elementary School, works with a student on multiplication and division using flashcards. Przybyslawski, a former classroom teacher, took on the interventionist role this school year to help catch up struggling students.

COVID recovery money fuels interventionists, tutors

Federal COVID recovery money is dwindling and set to run out in 2024. But districts across the country have continued to spend millions on everything from tutoring to summer school to existing staff. In Chicago, more than $2 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds have already been spent.

After months of questions and public records requests, Chalkbeat found a complicated picture of summer school spending in Chicago in February of this year. Many schools reported strong success in offering students robust programs, but tracking participation and attendance proved difficult. Data obtained six months after an initial request showed repeat sign ups or unusually high enrollments, raising questions about accuracy.

Chicago also continues to spend a large amount of its federal funds on existing staff, including a cadre of academic interventionists. These are mostly classroom teachers already on the district’s payroll who were tapped to help struggling students catch up. The district also spent $25 million to create a Tutor Corps to support students who may have gaps in their learning from when schools switched to virtual learning during the pandemic.

But the district is not only spending its money on staff. It also used some of the money to pay vendors to help develop a new $135 universal curriculum bank known as Skyline. In partnership with WBEZ, Chalkbeat took a closer look at how Skyline is being implemented and what teachers think of it.

Outside of Chicago, one south suburban school district is moving ahead with an uncommon technology plan to keep hybrid learning at the ready.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicago is planning to spend the final $300 million of the $2.8 billion it got in the 2024-25 school year and Illinois’ education budget could see some belt-tightening as districts set about spending roughly $1.9 billion of the $7 billion.

Migrant support group at Brighton Park Elementary in 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.

Schools see influx of migrant students

Chicago has seen an estimated 4,000 migrant students coming to the city from the southern border, most of them via bus from Texas. Among the many people stepping up to help families, especially children, adjust to a new country are teachers. During summer, we featured a few teachers volunteering at a south side police station to help refugee youth navigate a new language, a new culture, and in the fall, new schools. We also spent time at one school trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma.

Amid back-to-school season, it was not clear if schools would be ready to welcome waves of newcomers. A Chalkbeat analysis of staffing data obtained through records requests found the number of bilingual teachers had declined in recent years, but teachers with endorsements to teach in a bilingual program had grown.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicago continues to struggle to manage the influx of new arrivals, which has slowed in recent weeks. Plans to construct temporary tents in two locations have been put on ice. But the city instituted a 60-day limit on how long people can stay in temporary shelters just before Thanksgiving. However, migrant students do have a right to remain in the same school and receive transportation if they’re forced to move. (Leer en español.)

Joshua Long is the new Chicago Public School District district's department leader for students with disabilities on Mon., Dec. 11, 2023.

Special education sees shakeup

Chicago Public Schools has struggled to provide services to students with disabilities for several years and the COVID pandemic only exacerbated the issue.

In June, Chalkbeat obtained documents that found the district was violating state law on the use of restraint, timeout, and seclusion in school. Two days later, the top official overseeing the department that serves students with disabilities stepped down.

After that departure and after Johnson appointed a new school board, the district asked the public for input in hiring a new special education chief. In December, officials announced it had found a new special education leader from among its own ranks. Joshua Long, the longtime principal of a school for students with disabilities, was approved by the school board and will start his new role in January.

What’s to come in 2024? Long inherits a troubled department that remains under state watch for use of restraint, timeout, and seclusion in school. It also continues to face challenges providing students with disabilities with transportation, which they’re entitled to under federal law. Last year, hundreds of students with disabilities were on the bus for longer than 90 minutes each way, but that has declined significantly. Just over 100 were riding the bus longer than an hour, as of the end of November.

School bus at the front of North-Grand High School in Chicago. Photo by Stacey Rupolo/Chalkbeat �May, 2019 photo�

Transportation troubles continue

Amid state oversight, Chicago Public Schools announced in late July it would only provide bus transportation to homeless students and those with disabilities. Both groups are entitled to transportation under federal law.

Citing a bus driver shortage, district officials also offered families of students with disabilities and those in temporary housing a $500/month stipend to cover their own transportation, which nearly 4,000 families have taken as of late November. But those payments were initially delayed and the first checks weren’t mailed until late September.

By late September, district officials also confirmed that general education students attending schools outside their neighborhood, most of them selective or magnet options, would not get busing for the rest of the semester, leaving some parents grasping for help or switching schools.

What’s to come in 2024? CPS officials announced this week that the district would not provide busing to general education students for the rest of this school year. At a City Council meeting last month, officials outlined possible solutions for next school year, including having students picked up at a regional site rather than their home and working with schools to adjust bell schedules.

A Haugan Elementary classroom on Thursday, August 4, 2022 Chicago. | Christian K. Lee for Chalkbeat

Preschool expansion goes statewide

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is promising to expand preschool and make child care more accessible in his second term. He said he hopes to make Illinois one of the best states to raise a family.

A longtime supporter of early childhood education, Pritzker’s push to boost the sector in his first term started off with a $100 million increase in 2019, but got sidelined by the COVID pandemic. Now, he’s making moves with a plan to increase early childhood by $250 million over the next four years and the creation of a standalone agency to bring together programs that are now housed across three separate departments. He also signed a bill requiring school districts to get up to speed by offering full-day kindergarten by 2027.

Chicago started rolling out universal preschool for all 4-year-olds in 2018, when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel made it a re-election promise before bowing out of the 2019 mayoral election. Now, full-day preschool is a reality in every neighborhood, officials say, and enrollment figures from this fall show pre-K helped, in part, stabilize enrollment in CPS.

What’s to come in 2024? The governor typically gives a speech and releases a budget in early February. It’s likely he’ll continue increasing early education funding, but also could begin to detail the shape and scope of the new early childhood agency.

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

Chicago Public Schools leaders want to move away from school choice

2023-12-12T18:45:13+00:00

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Chicago school leaders want to move away from the district’s system of school choice — in which families apply to a myriad of charter, magnet, test-in, or other district-run programs — according to a resolution the Board of Education will vote on this week.

The move puts in motion Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign promise to reinvigorate Chicago Public Schools’ neighborhood schools. On the campaign trail, Johnson likened the city’s school choice system to a “Hunger Games scenario” that forces competition for resources and ultimately harms schools, particularly those where students are zoned based on their address.

District leaders’ goals include ensuring “fully-resourced neighborhood schools, prioritizing schools and communities most harmed by structural racism, past inequitable policies and disinvestment,” the resolution, which was released Tuesday, said.

The board wants to pursue that policy goal — and several others — as part of the district’s five-year strategic plan, which will be finalized this summer. In an interview with reporters on Tuesday, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, Board President Jianan Shi, and Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland declined to specify changes or say how far they want to move away from the choice system. That’s because they want to collect community feedback on how far the district should go, which would be outlined in a final five-year strategic plan this summer, they said.

The board is expected to vote Thursday on the resolution, which doesn’t create or get rid of any policies; rather, it formalizes and publicizes the district’s goals.

The district wants to “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools,” the resolution says.

This marks the first time the board has formally stated it wants to move away from selective admissions and enrollment policies. It says the school choice system, as it exists today, “reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity” and must be replaced with “anti-racist processes and initiatives that eliminate all forms of racial oppression.”

Some selective enrollment and magnet schools lack the diversity of the city, enrolling larger shares of white and Asian American students, while others remain largely segregated by race and class.

Martinez said it is painful to hear of students traveling far distances to attend school, or when parents ask if they should get their 4-year-old child tested for gifted programs. He said he can “scream as loud as I can” about all that he believes neighborhood schools can offer to families versus highly sought-after magnet or selective enrollment schools — but “it’s not going to be enough.”

“We see this as an opportunity to, again, build trust, because I want to keep calling that out — that is a huge challenge for us,” Martinez said.

Any number of big changes could be on the horizon, Todd-Breland said.

“There likely will be policies that need to be revised and changed, so the admissions and enrollment policy is on the table as something that through this process of engagement, likely there will be some changes to it,” Todd-Breland said.

Todd-Breland and Shi said they’ve heard many pleas from the community to overhaul the choice system. The board’s goal to move away from school choice is framed in the resolution as a response to the district’s ongoing challenges, such as budget deficits and academic disparities between students citywide and Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities, those who are homeless, and children learning English as a new language.

District leaders imagine prioritizing neighborhood schools to receive more resources and programming. Martinez said universal preschool is one example of an initiative that can draw families into a school.

The system of school choice in Chicago grew over many decades.

Data shows around 56% of elementary school students attended their zoned neighborhood school last school year and 23% of high school students did. Twenty years ago, during the 2002-03 school year, 74% of students attended their zoned elementary school and 46% of high schoolers did.

Many of the district’s most popular magnet and selective schools were created in the 1980s and 90s under a court-ordered federal desegregation consent decree that officially ended in 2009. In the 2000s, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley opened 100 new schools under an initiative known as Renaissance 2010. Most of those schools did not have neighborhood attendance boundaries and many were charter schools run by third-parties.

The expansion of school options also contributed to the mass closure or shakeup of nearly 200 schools, including 50 schools in 2013. Enrollment has further declined since then, but under state law, the district cannot close schools until 2025. Officials would not say if the five-year plan would eventually include closing schools and emphasized their plans to engage communities.

However, Todd-Breland did signal that the board might move to close charter schools.

“If you are a privately-managed school, taking public dollars from our taxpayers that would otherwise go to the other schools that we know need to be invested in because they haven’t [been] for years, and you are not performing at a level that we find to be a high quality educational experience for young people, then why do you continue to exist in this system?” she said.

Nearly half of the charter schools authorized by the Chicago Board of Education are up for renewal this year and dozens more will be next year. If a charter is not renewed, it most likely would close, though operators can appeal to the state.

The previous administration, under the leadership of former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, also tried to reinvigorate underenrolled neighborhood schools. In 2018, the district offered additional funding for specialty programs to local schools looking to attract more students.

Though the current system has long been criticized for stressing out students and families as they compete for spots at the most sought-after schools, many families value having options outside of their assigned neighborhood school. Student admissions to gifted programs rely on a test, while admissions to selective enrollment high schools are based in part on the High School Admissions Test and previous school performance.

The board’s policy priorities come less than a year before Chicago will for the first time elect school board members. State law currently says 10 members will be elected and the mayor is to appoint another 11. That shift is one reason the board is focused on getting a lot of community feedback on their vision, so new board members “understand this is the direction that the district is moving in,” Shi said.

Political shifts, such as this transition to an elected school board, could upend what the current board wants to do, said Jack Schneider, an education policy expert and professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

“The last thing you want is to put all of this effort into something like promoting neighborhood public schools and then have a massive change in the composition of the board that then leads to a 180 in priorities,” Schneider said.

The resolution also highlights several other policy goals under the district’s next strategic plan, including creating more community schools over the next five years. These schools provide wraparound services to students and families, another priority for Johnson. It also includes adding staff, ensuring culturally relevant, anti-racist lessons for students and similarly framed professional development for educators, and prioritizing collecting feedback from students and the community.

The board also wants to ask the community’s help in creating plans for “previously closed and currently ‘underutilized’ schools,” the resolution says.

Read the full resolution on page 21 of the board’s agenda posted online.

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

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

Chicago Public Schools is tapping principal Joshua Long to lead its special education department

2023-12-11T20:31:00+00:00

Joshua Long, currently the principal of Southside Occupational Academy High School, has been selected to lead Chicago Public Schools’ beleaguered special education department, according to district officials.

The department — known as the Office of Diverse Learners Supports and Services — serves nearly 52,000 students with disabilities and has been without a chief since June. That’s when Stephanie Jones stepped down amid fallout from Chicago’s violations related to the use of restraint and timeout of students. The department has also struggled in recent years to ensure students with disabilities are getting services they’re legally entitled to under federal law.

Long sent a letter to families whose children attend Southside this morning announcing “with mixed emotions” that he accepted the role and would start after winter break, pending confirmation by the school board this Thursday.

“I am excited to continue working for students with disabilities and look forward to new opportunities to engage with all stakeholders as we move to positively impact each student’s experience in every school,” he wrote.

Ben Felton, chief talent officer at Chicago Public Schools, said the district used an external search firm and input from city officials, local advocates, educators, and other staff in its search for a new department head.

“We approached this differently than we had in the past given how critical this role is to CPS and how deeply invested many of our stakeholders are in special education and in this position,” said Felton.

Representatives from Access Living, the city’s Office of People with Disabilities, district principals, the Dyslexia Collaborative, and the Chicago Teachers Union were among the community groups that had a conversation with finalists and provided feedback, Felton said.

CEO Pedro Martinez made the final recommendation; the school board, which meets on Thursday, must approve the appointment.

Long would be inheriting a department beset with problems. The district is under state watch on multiple issues, including providing timely transportation to students with disabilities and for how it physically restrains students in the classroom.

Long has been the principal of Southside since 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. In 2019, he won the prestigious statewide Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Leadership.

Joshua Long, second from left, speaks with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson in Sept., 2023 in Chicago, Ill.

Before that, Long worked in various positions, including as a speech pathologist in a dozen schools, he told Chalkbeat in 2019. At the time, when Chalkbeat asked Long how the district should help students with disabilities, Long said he saw classes that “were not being run effectively” and weren’t “as rigorous” as other schools he’d been in. With that in mind, Long said “that the biggest thing is establishing equity for all students no matter which school or neighborhood they are in.”

Some district leaders have known Long for years. Board of Education member Mary Fahey Hughes, a longtime advocate for students with disabilities, sent her son to Southside. During a school visit with Mayor Brandon Johnson in September, Hughes praised the school and its model, which is designed to help those with more challenging disabilities transition into the real world.

“The thing I love about this place is there is so much respect for students where they’re at,” she told Chalkbeat at the time.

Long was a proponent of changing the timeline for when students with disabilities could transition out of public schools. Previously, under state law, some students with disabilities could receive services until the day before their 22nd birthday. In 2021, state law changed to allow students who turn 22 during the school year to remain eligible for services through the end of that year.

Long has also advocated for improving funding and availability of services for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities once they graduate from CPS. In an interview with Chalkbeat during the September school visit with Johnson, Long said the state has a yearslong waiting list for people with more challenging disabilities who want to access state-funded adult services, such as for community-based living or day services, that are meant to provide people with more independence. One of his former students accessed such services eight years after she graduated from Southside, he said.

“Our students do best through routine and through daily interactions,” Long said. “Now, she sat home for eight years and likely lost a lot of skills that she learned here with us.”

Long’s appointment comes after the district leaders signaled this fall that they were interested in expanding the school model Long oversaw. Southside is one of a handful of so-called specialty schools that focus on teaching students with intellectual and developmental disabilities about work and life skills. Southside, for example, has classes that teach students how to work in retail, food service, and auto mechanics. Unlike most schools, the district assigns students to these schools.

The district is under state watch regarding multiple issues for how it supports students with disabilities. Last year, the state launched a corrective action plan requiring the district to cap bus commute times for students with disabilities to 60 minutes each way. About 3,000 students with disabilities exceeded that limit at the start of last school year, according to the district.

Under state watch, those travel times have vastly improved this year, after the district decided to stop busing general education students, largely those in magnet and selective enrollment programs. In September, the state launched a new corrective action plan to ensure the district is providing transportation to all students of disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, call for bus service.

This spring, documents obtained by Chalkbeat revealed the district had been under state watch for failing to follow state law on physical restraint and timeout for students. The state board said that Chicago was not notifying parents of incidents, staff and faculty were not trained in how to properly restrain and seclude students, and untrained staff were using outlawed methods of restraint.

The state board named Jones for failing in her role as a designated official to look into restraint and timeout incidents. In that role, she was required to maintain copies of incidents, be notified of incidents that occurred during the school day, and receive documents of physical restraint and timeout incidents that went on for a long time.

Prior to Jones’s time as chair, the district’s department responsible for supporting students with disabilities had been in trouble with the state before. A 2017 investigation WBEZ found Chicago Public Schools secretly overhauled the special education department in 2016, resulting in students losing access to vital services. The State Board of Education placed the district under a corrective action plan in 2018, which lasted until 2022. During the 2022-23 school year, the state placed Chicago under a general supervision plan to continue to watch how the district handles special education services.

Now, Long could play a key role in ensuring that the department is delivering services to students with disabilities, monitoring physical restraint and timeout incidents, and helping students catch up after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted education.

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

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

Chicago Public Schools students are taking longer than four years to finish college: report

2023-12-05T11:00:00+00:00

Most Chicago Public Schools students take five years or longer to finish college, according to a new report from the To&Through Project at the UChicago Consortium on School Research.

The report — titled “The Four Years Fallacy” — analyzed CPS students who graduated in 2015 and enrolled in college the following year. It found 30% finished their degree in four years, but when looking at college completion rates within six years, the rate climbs to 50%.

Most students — roughly 67% — finished their degree in five years, after one or two extra semesters, while 12% took longer. About 15% finished in four years, exactly eight terms, and 4% finished early.

Jenny Nagaoka, deputy director of the UChicago Consortium and senior advisor for the To&Through Project, said college graduation rates are most commonly reported by the federal government and higher education institutions as six-year rates, but that’s not how students and families think about college when they’re applying.

“The problem is that we call them four-year colleges,” Nagaoka said. “If I’m on a two-hour flight, and if it arrives three hours later and that’s considered on time, I’m going to be pretty unhappy.”

The report did not look at the reasons why students took longer, and the authors said there are many valid reasons students take more time. However, the report points out that taking longer than four years to complete a degree can create financial burdens, including more student debt, and can delay the start of one’s career and earnings.

When looking at a student’s race and gender, disparities in college completion emerge.

Young Black men are least likely to finish their degree in either four or six years, followed by young Black women and young Latino men. Young white and Asian American women have the highest college completion rates, followed by their male counterparts, according to the report.

“We’re seeing a lot more first-generation college students, a lot more low-income students, and we’re seeing more students who are going to college are racially diverse,” Nagoaka said. “What colleges need to do to make sure that students are successful has changed considerably.”

Brian Harris, Director of College Pathways with Chicago Public Schools, said it’s important not to “negatively stigmatize taking six years to finish college.”

“Our focus is on our students’ success in general as opposed to doing it within a specific amount of time,” Harris said.

CPS has a curriculum for all sixth through 12th grade students to help them think about their future careers and how to navigate college applications and enrollment, as well as prepare them academically to be successful in college classes, Harris said.

But once they’re on a college campus, that extra guidance and help can fade away.

“So much of persistence and completion is connected to the type of support they get on the college level,” Harris said.

He pointed out that the district has had a partnership with more than a dozen local universities and colleges since 2014 aimed at collaborating on the question of how best to support CPS students.

“We talk about financial aid, we talk about admissions policies, we talk about student affairs policies,” Harris said. “We have a pretty open line of communication with higher ed institutions in hopes that we get feedback on: How can we best prepare students for success at your institution?”

“And on the flip side, here’s what we’re hearing from our students in higher ed institutions. This is what our students need in order to be successful at your institution,” he said.

Harris noted that the data in the report looks at the Class of 2015 and said district officials anticipate seeing improved four-year and six-year college completion rates in the coming years.

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

Not every Chicago school offers algebra in middle school. CPS is working to change that.

2023-11-30T19:15:00+00:00

Every school day at 10:30 a.m., two dozen middle schoolers shuffle into a classroom at Warren Elementary on Chicago’s far south side. One by one, they boot up a Chromebook at their desks.

Fourteen miles north, another nine students log in from their classroom at STEM Magnet Academy just west of downtown.

They are all taking the same course: Middle School Algebra with Raluca Borbath, who teaches virtually.

On a recent November morning, Borbath shared her screen to begin Lesson 13: Introduction to Two-Variable Inequalities. The students, who log in through Google Meet, dove into a problem about making bracelets with two different kinds of beads — one kind cost $1 and the other cost $2.

The class spent the next hour solving and graphing: 2x+y ≥ 10.

Classes like Borbath’s, in which middle school students learn algebra partly online, have been critical to Chicago Public Schools’ efforts to reduce long-standing inequities in access to the course, which is seen as a gateway to better high schools, better colleges, and ultimately, better careers.

Put simply: Mastering algebra in middle school can give kids an advantage for the rest of their educational trajectory. But in Chicago, access to the course before high school has long been inequitable.

Schools without algebra in the middle grades have been largely located in predominantly Black and lower income neighborhoods on the south and west sides. For students who do take algebra in eighth grade, state data shows white and Asian American students in Chicago Public Schools are more than twice as likely to pass than Black and Latino students.

But the district says it is trying to address the inequity and has found some success.

In addition to the Virtual Academy, which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic and has offered middle school algebra for the past two years, the district also partners with three local universities to get more middle school teachers certified to teach the course.

Data obtained by Chalkbeat shows:

Over the last decade, the number of CPS elementary and middle schools offering algebra grew from 209 to 366.
The number of middle grade teachers with algebra credentials increased in the past two years from 428 to 489.
A decade ago, roughly 10% of the city’s eighth graders took the district’s Algebra Exit Exam. Last May, nearly 25% did.
There are still 85 district-run schools and 35 charters where no students took the Algebra Exit Exam last year.

Other cities have tried expanding middle school algebra with varying success. In New York City, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio promised in 2015 to get algebra in every middle school and saw rates of students taking and passing the course go up. But that district’s focus has shifted back to improving freshmen algebra. Similarly, the state of California recently considered recommending all eighth graders take algebra, but decided to leave the decision to local school districts.

Corey Morrison, director of mathematics at Chicago Public Schools, said the district is focused on equity, not a one-size-fits-all approach.

“It’s algebra choice for all,” Morrison said. “We want to get to a place where every eighth grader has a choice and can choose – as much as an eighth grader can without their parents making them.”

Algebra skills ‘build from the bottom up’

Algebra has long been a core requirement for high school freshmen in Chicago and the rest of the country. But for decades, it’s also been offered to advanced middle school students. Those who took it early would be on a fast track to taking calculus senior year, giving them a leg up on college applications and a strong foundation once enrolled in university.

“If you’re spending three years on your mandatory classes, you only have one more year to look for AP classes, or dual credit classes, or anything else that you want to do,” said Borbath, the teacher of the hybrid class. By taking algebra early, students are able to free up their high school schedules.

But in Chicago, data shows stark disparities in who has historically had access to algebra in middle school. Chalkbeat Chicago obtained and analyzed the number of students who took and passed the district’s Algebra Exit Exam. The two-hour test, taken at the end of each school year, consists of 34 multiple choice questions and six short answer problems. Students who pass can move on to geometry.

Ten years ago, roughly 200 of the district’s 500-plus schools serving middle schoolers had students who took the exam. Now, more than 350 do.

At Warren, no students took the district’s Algebra Exit Exam in 2018, data shows.

The small school sits in the heart of Chicago’s Pill Hill neighborhood, a South Side enclave once home to many doctors and pharmacists who lived in the spacious homes down the street from the nearby hospital. It serves 271 students; 99% are Black and 80% come from low-income families.

STEM Magnet Academy, which shares a section of Borbath’s algebra class with Warren, is in the city’s more affluent West Loop and serves 403 students; 38% are Black, 34% are Asian American, 18% are Latino, and 6% are white. About 43% come from low-income families. In 2018, 14 students at STEM Magnet took the Algebra Exit Exam and 7 passed. But no students have taken it since then.

Borbath also teaches a morning section of algebra to middle school students at three other predominantly Black south and west side schools — Daley, Sumner, and Brown — all of which had no students taking the Algebra Exit Exam as recently as 2019, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Morrison said the pandemic was terrible in a lot of ways, but the way the district is using the Virtual Academy to close gaps in access to algebra is a “silver lining.”

Students at Brentano Elementary in Logan Square work on graphing equations during an algebra class.

At Brentano Elementary in Logan Square, no students were taking the Algebra Exit Exam in 2018, district data show. Seth Lavin became principal nine years ago and said adding the course took time and planning.

“The wrong way to do this is just to change your eighth grade course and say, ‘Now we do algebra,’” Lavin said. “The right way to do it is to build from the bottom up so that the kids can be ready for it.”

Lavin said Brentano teachers led the effort to rework how math was taught in order to offer the course.

“This required, for us, changing what sixth graders were doing, and then changing what seventh graders were doing before, eventually, we could change what eighth graders were doing,” Lavin said.

Now, all eighth graders take algebra in school, Lavin said. And starting last year, Brentano started offering a before-school algebra course to any interested seventh grader.

Lavin said he’s able to pay one of Brentano’s teachers to teach the early morning algebra using federal COVID recovery money. Once that money runs out, the offering could be at risk.

Staffing middle school algebra can be a complicated equation

There are logistical and budget hurdles to overcome in order to offer algebra to middle schoolers, Lavin said.

“A teacher in your building has to have an algebra certification, or a high school math endorsement,” he said. “That requires some groundwork.”

Teacher Martin Lenthe teaches algebra to seventh grade students at Brentano Elementary before the regular school day begins.

Chicago Public Schools launched an effort 20 years ago, known as the Chicago Algebra Initiative, to boost the number of middle school students taking algebra. In partnership with three local universities, the school board pays tuition for up to 90 middle school teachers to earn a credential to teach algebra each year.

Morrison, with the district, said the goal is to eventually have at least one certified teacher in every school, but the math hasn’t always worked out.

“How do you pull a handful of kids out to give them a robust algebra course when there’s only one eighth grade teacher?” Morrison said.

For the past couple of years, the Virtual Academy has been able to step in to serve those schools.

Last school year, 777 middle schoolers across 120 schools took the virtual course and this school year, the number climbed to 1,140 middle school students across 142 schools, according to the district. Roughly 300 take the class during the school day and 800 take it before or after school.

Morrison said the virtual courses are also showing teachers and administrators that offering in-person algebra is possible.

“It changes the mindset of teachers and administrators,” he said. “There are enough students in your school, in your community, where we can work towards putting an in-person course in your building, because that’s the ultimate goal.”

District data obtained by Chalkbeat shows that 489 teachers working at 287 schools have an active credential to teach algebra to middle school students. That’s up slightly from 2020 when 428 teachers at 248 schools had them. A district spokesperson said data on algebra credentials was not available prior to 2020.

Warren is hoping to offer in-person algebra next school year. Veteran teacher Tracey Kidd is working toward getting credentialed through the University of Chicago as part of the Chicago Algebra Initiative. Last school year, she was the teacher in the room where middle schoolers logged into virtual algebra.

“It’s kind of hard to do (algebra) virtually sometimes, because kids, they wander off a little,” she said. “But if you’re in the room with them, then they’re gonna focus more, and they get that one on one attention from you.”

Kidd currently teaches intermediate math and knows many students are ready to handle the rigor of algebra.

Younger students get a jump start in algebra

In Sandra Shorter’s classroom at Warren, a group of sixth grade students are starting pre-algebra with the goal of taking algebra next school year as seventh graders.

“We’re doing ratios, unit rates, and then we’re gonna graph them and write them as equations,” Shorter explained.

A classroom wall at Warren Elementary helps middle schoolers at all levels prepare for success in algebra.

Morrison, with the district, said algebra is not just for certain students who want to be scientists or engineers. It teaches important skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking.

“Math is for everybody. But do you need to get on the accelerated track in eighth grade? Not necessarily,” Morrison said. “Do you still need to learn algebra? Yes.”

Algebra is a graduation requirement in CPS, but the stakes for taking it before high school can feel high.

Last week, 13- and 14-year-olds across Chicago found out their scores on the district’s High School Admissions Test — a one-hour exam that partly determines whether they can go to the city’s top high schools. Though the content of the test is not public, many parents and students say taking algebra in middle school gives students a leg up.

“It will help us with a test to get into high school,” said Brentano student Liam Dolik. “That is something that’s so huge in eighth graders’ life, especially in Chicago. It’s not the best but we have to do it so we might as well prepare for it.”

Teacher Martin Lenthe helps a seventh grade student with algebra at Brentano Elementary before the regular school day begins.

Dolik is one of nearly 30 seventh graders who come to school at 7:45 a.m. every weekday to take algebra. They spread out across nine tables as the morning sun streams through the towering windows in classroom 306.

Lavin said all seventh graders were offered the option to take algebra before school, and about half of them decided to do it. But Lavin wrestles with whether the morning section for seventh graders is creating a new inequity.

“Sometimes there’s this temptation to go ahead instead of going deeper,” Lavin said. “At the same time, our kids are in the CPS reality where everybody’s trying to figure out how to get as high a score as they can in the high school admissions test.”

At the end of the day, Brentano is still a neighborhood public school in a diverse neighborhood, offering advanced math to everybody, Lavin said. “That’s increasing equity in the district.”

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

Chicago closed 50 schools 10 years ago. What’s happened since then?

2023-07-25T10:00:00+00:00

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Demetrius Hobson’s voice piped through the loudspeaker into every classroom at Matthew Henson Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side.

It was just before 3:45 p.m. on June 19, 2013. In a few minutes, the bell would ring to dismiss classes on the last day of the school year at Chicago Public Schools.

Hobson had arrived the previous year, fresh out of Harvard’s principal leadership program, with endless energy and new ideas. He had been ready to transform the 250-student school that served mostly Black students from low income families in North Lawndale and was “gearing up for the long run.”

Now, he had to do something no principal wants to do.

“Good afternoon, Matthew Henson Elementary School, and congratulations,” Hobson intoned. “This is our final few minutes as a school.”

That day would mark the largest mass closure of public schools in the nation’s history, as Henson and 49 other Chicago schools shut their doors for good. Some 17,000 students and 1,500 staff would scatter to schools across the city. Many others would leave the district altogether.

The promise made at the time by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel was that the students would go to better schools, and the district would save money by offloading expensive-to-maintain aging buildings.

“I know this is incredibly difficult, but I firmly believe the most important thing we can do as a city is provide the next generation with a brighter future,” he said in a statement after the school board voted on the closures. “I am confident that … our children will succeed.”

The moment capped months of raucous public hearings, days-long marches, downtown protests, and even arrests of activists who demanded Emanuel and his hand-picked school board reverse course.

On that June day, as Hobson and others said good-bye to their schools, questions hung in the air: What would happen to neighborhoods being disrupted? Would buildings get new life or fall into disrepair? Would Emanuel’s promise of better futures for students come to fruition?

Henson security guard Kelvyn Cockrell was not as confident as the mayor.

“I just hope and pray that somehow this works,” he said, standing outside the school’s main office on the last day of school.

Nearby, Mia Bonds, then a soft-spoken eighth grader and the valedictorian of her class, helped a teacher pack up a box.

Boxes are stacked inside of a classroom on June 19, 2013, the last day of school at Matthew Henson Elementary in North Lawndale. It was one of 50 schools shuttered under what would become the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history.

She would be moving on from Henson anyway, heading to Whitney Young High School, one of the district’s top test-in high schools. But for her brother, then a second grader, the closure would mean being reassigned to Hughes Elementary a few blocks west.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Bonds said at the time. “I want people to remember that Henson was not just a school — it was like a family.”

Before the bell rang at Henson for the last time, Hobson searched for words of comfort as he spoke to the students over the intercom:

“I want you to remember that education is the key to unlock the golden door to freedom,” he told them. “And I want you to know that every day at Matthew Henson Elementary School, education is liberation.”

A principal and his students ‘find community somewhere else’

About a week after the last day of classes, Hobson says he got a phone call from a district official telling him the school was about to be officially mothballed.

“Get to the school, get your things,” Hobson recalled the official saying. “We need to lock the doors and turn in your keys.”

Henson was one of 46 buildings that would be emptied out. Desks, chairs, books, bulletin boards, and everything else would be moved out — taken to other schools, warehoused, sold, or simply thrown away.

Chicago Public Schools would pay an Ohio-based logistics company to manage all the stuff from the shuttered buildings — a contract that would eventually double from $8.9 million to $18.9 million. Years later, metal desks, solid wood chairs, and other relics from the school closings would end up for sale on Craigslist.

The three-story, mint green and tan brick building once called Henson would be put up for sale the following year.

After his school closed, Hobson needed a break. At the time, he didn’t want to walk into another school building and start over again. He told his wife, ‘If I go back into another school, it’s going to be a school I start.’”

But near the end of that summer, Hobson said, Chicago Public Schools called again: Would he mind stepping in as interim principal at another school?

He was still on district payroll, so he took the job in Woodlawn. But midyear, Hobson was asked to go to Earle Elementary in Englewood, a school that had been designated as a welcoming school for Goodlow Elementary, another closed school.

In some of the buildings that welcomed displaced students in the fall of 2013, the transition was tough and sometimes even chaotic.

“They took two low-performing schools and put them together,” said Darlene O’Banner, a grandmother of four children at Goodlow and later Earle. “They were setting us up for failure.”

The shuffling of students was a monumental task for the district. Officials spent millions of dollars on additional staff, new iPads, and building repairs at roughly 50 schools designated to welcoming students from closed buildings. But instead, some of the students scattered. Just over three-quarters of students attended the welcoming schools that were designated to take them in. The rest fanned out to 200 other schools across the city, WBEZ reported at the time.

Hobson’s time at Earle turned out to be brief: He had gotten a job offer to open a new school. In San Francisco.

So Hobson and his wife packed up and moved West, where he would become the founding principal of a new public middle school named after that city’s first Black mayor, Willie L. Brown.

Many of those impacted by the closures also moved away. Data obtained by Chalkbeat showed that roughly a third of the students who attended closed schools transferred out of CPS. Some families and advocates said the loss of an anchor institution, like a school, would lead to more displacement and disinvestment in the segregated Black neighborhoods, not less.

Bonds started freshman year at Whitney Young, one of the city’s top high schools that accept students based on their test scores and where they live. It was far more diverse and less segregated than Henson, which served mostly Black children from low-income families. The year Bonds enrolled, the student body at Whitney Young was 30% white, 24% Black, 27% Latino, and 15% Asian American.

“I feel like I needed to be in a more diverse type of schooling,” she said. “I saw Whitney as an escape. So I was there early, leaving late.”

Her brother enrolled in third grade at Hughes, the school where Henson students were assigned. It was closer to their apartment, Bonds said, but they “just liked Henson better.”

“Once you close schools down like that, people have to find that community somewhere else and adapt,” she added. “In this situation we were forced to, it wasn’t like a choice.”

Vacant school buildings and new starts in and outside Chicago

By 2017, Henson’s building still sat vacant. The windows were boarded up. Litter blew across the cracked blacktop. The marquee outside the front door was blank, no longer emblazoned with the school’s name.

The marquee outside of Henson Elementary in North Lawndale is now blank. The school has sat vacant and boarded up since 2013, despite interest from a nonprofit housing developer.

The district had managed to sell only a handful of the shuttered schools — most on the north side — to luxury housing developers or private schools. They repurposed a few as district offices or transferred them to other city agencies and put the remaining 30 out to bid for a second time.

In May 2018, the Board of Education had an interested buyer for Henson’s property, which sits across six parcels. The Single Room Housing Assistance Corporation offered $55,000 and put forward a plan to convert the school into 80 mini-studio apartments for low-income people, including veterans, single mothers, and people with disabilities.

There were a lot of similar proposals — and dreams — for the vacant buildings left behind in the wake of the historic closings. A “teacher’s village” with a mix of housing and retail. A women’s center and artist incubator. A community center for formerly incarcerated people. Affordable housing for seniors.

Calhoun Elementary, one of 50 schools that Chicago Public Schools closed in 2013, is still vacant.

The old Genevieve Melody Elementary building at 412 S Keeler Ave. sits vacant. Windows are broken and inside classrooms, there is graffiti on the walls. The building was mothballed in 2013 when Melody relocated to Delano Elementary, 3937 W Wilcox St., which was closed.

The old Delano Elementary in West Garfield Park became the new Melody Elementary in 2013. It was one of about a dozen closures in which Chicago Public Schools relocated students from the school staying open to the building of a school being shut down.

The old Charles Earle Elementary building, 6121 S. Hermitage, closed in 2013. A Wisconsin-based developer purchased the building in 2017 for $200,000 with plans to convert it into affordable housing for seniors. It remains vacant.

The front entrance of the old Charles Earle Elementary building, 6121 S. Hermitage. In 2021, the new owner announced plans to convert the building into affordable housing for seniors.

The playground at the former Arna Bontemps Elementary, 1241 W 58th St., which closed in 2013, is overgrown and scribbled with graffiti.

A message is spraypainted on the side of the former Arna Bontemps Elementary school, 1241 W 58th St., which closed in 2013.

The old Laura S. Ward Elementary building at 410 N. Monticello Ave. in Garfield Park was closed in 2013. The school relocated to 646 N Lawndale Ave. in Humboldt Park and took over the old Martin A. Ryerson Elementary building.

Students play on the playground of the old Martin A. Ryerson Elementary, 646 N Lawndale Ave., in Humboldt Park closed in 2013. It is now home to Laura S. Ward Elementary.

The old Martin A. Ryerson Elementary, 646 N Lawndale Ave., in Humboldt Park closed in 2013 and is now Laura S. Ward Elementary.

The playground is locked and overgrown at the old Genevieve Melody Elementary building at 412 S Keeler Ave. The building was mothballed in 2013 when Melody relocated to the old Delano Elementary, 3937 W Wilcox St.

Faraday Elementary School, 3250 W Monroe St., used to be Garfield Park Elementary. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools shut down Garfield Park and relocated Faraday to this building, merging the students from both into one school.

The basketball court next to Henson Elementary, 1326 S. Avers Ave., in North Lawndale is empty on a hot June day 10 years since the school closed in 2013.

The marquee at Nathan Goldblatt Elementary School, 4257 W. Adams St., in West Garfield Park still has notes on it from the last time it served students in 2013.

The gate around Nathan Goldblatt Elementary, 4257 W Adams St., in West Garfield Park is locked. The school has gotten little to no interest from buyers when Chicago Public Schools has put it up for sale.

The site of the former William King Elementary, 740 S. Campbell Ave., is now home to 30 single-family, new construction homes built in 2020. The property was sold to a developer in 2017 for $1.5 million at a time when the Chicago Board of Education was approving multiple bids on vacant closed schools.

The former Dett Elementary building, 2306 W. Maypole Ave., sits vacant on Chicago’s West Side. Dett’s building closed and the school relocated to Herbert Elementary, 2131 W Monroe St., in 2013 when the Chicago Board of Education shuttered 50 schools. Despite plans to convert it into a women’s center, the property still sits vacant.

Hobson, in the meantime, was trying to bring a new school to life nearly 2,000 miles away.

He was “working day and night” to recruit students for a new STEM middle school in San Francisco, hiring staff, applying for grants, and designing curriculum with the district leadership.

But in late 2018, Hobson returned home to Chicago once the school opened. He remembers thinking: “‘Maybe I should just start over? Go back to the classroom. See what that feels like.”

Bonds, who had graduated from Whitney Young in 2017, became the first in her immediate family to go to college.

“A lot of people urged me to go. They said I needed to leave the west side of Chicago,” she said. “Every college I applied to I got accepted.”

She chose Northern Illinois University. “Nearby, but far enough away.”

Her brother finished elementary school at Hughes and enrolled at a Noble charter high school.

Data obtained by Chalkbeat show 59 percent of second graders from closed schools, like Bonds’ brother, are still enrolled across the district. It’s one of the cohorts of closed school kids who remained enrolled at slightly higher rates than comparison schools that were also on a list of 129 schools being considered for closure in 2012-13, but were ultimately spared.

But the closures had thrown other students off course.

A 2018 study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that students impacted by the closures had academic outcomes that were “neutral at best, and negative in some instances.” For example, students from closed schools initially had lower reading and math scores. Reading scores recovered, but the gap in math scores persisted.

The school district had promised a five-year moratorium on school closings after 2013. When it ended in 2018, CPS closed four high schools in Englewood. But in exchange, it built a new state-of-the-art STEM high school.

Still, Chicagoans questioned if the district would return to an annual cycle of closing a handful of schools every year, as it did prior to the 50 closures.

How school closings were decided remains ‘hurtful’

On a hot June day this year, exactly 10 years and three days since the last day of school in 2013, the entrance to Henson was still blocked by boards on which someone had painted a mural.

It read: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

The front entrance of Henson Elementary in North Lawndale is boarded up, but painted with a colorful mural.

A City of Chicago Empowerment Zone sign, with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s name on it, hung above the mural. A weathered and crumpled piece of yellow paper from the Department of Water Management was stapled to the side, asking the owner to contact them within 10 days so workers could access the water meter and avoid a shutoff.

Chicago Public Schools still owns the building. There have been no micro-studios for veterans, single mothers, or disabled people.

The sale approved by the school board to the Single Room Housing Assistance Corporation never went through. Former alderman Michael Scott Jr. held it in the City Council’s Committee on Housing five years ago.

The blacktop where an inflatable bounce house stood on the last day of school was cracked and faded. Near a side entrance, a few men in their thirties were sitting on buckets, smoking. One swept broken glass off the ground and into a garbage can.

The blacktop behind Henson Elementary in North Lawndale where students used to play. A last day of school celebration was held here on June 19, 2013, before it was shut down by the school district.

Hobson has driven by Henson’s building a few times. One time before the pandemic, he remembers turning the corner to see Henson’s green and tan building.

“I was surprised to see how disheveled the building, the environment was,” Hobson said. “You could see vestiges of night parties, you know, bottles, and food bags, and everything just kind of collected on the stairs.”

The story is the same for many vacant schools. Approvals have stalled and some projects have languished as they wait for financing.

Hobson is back in the classroom now, teaching middle school social studies at an elementary school on the West Side closer to downtown than Henson was. It’s also named William Brown STEM Elementary, but after a different William Brown than the school he started in San Francisco.

It’s harder to know where the 252 students who were at Henson are today. One Henson student featured in a WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times series said after fourth grade when the closure happened, he went to three different elementary schools and three different high schools in Chicago and the suburbs before getting his high school diploma at an alternative school.

Data provided by the district did not break down outcomes by school.

But data obtained separately by Chalkbeat Chicago shows that about 60 percent of Henson’s kindergarten through second grade students — those still likely to be enrolled — were at district schools during the 2022-23 school year.

Of all the students who attended schools that closed in 2013, fewer graduated and more dropped out when compared to the rest of the district. But these outcomes were similar to schools that were also on the chopping block in 2013, raising questions about whether the closures resulted in a better education for students.

Hobson said he still occasionally thinks about what it would’ve been like to “be a fly on the wall” in the rooms where the school closings decisions were made.

“Now that we can see on the other side, based on the data, there was no real transformation for the children,” Hobson said.

“What we were told and what actually happened are two different realities.”

As for Bonds, she moved back home to North Lawndale this summer after finishing her master’s degree at NIU. Her family is still in the same apartment about six blocks from Henson. She’s working for After School Matters this summer, as she has for the past several years. And next year, she’s doing City Year, an Americorps program that stations full-time mentors in high-need schools.

Looking back now, Bonds said the historic mass school closings weren’t “the end of the world.” People adapted. But it still felt like “a numbers game” that made communities like hers feel “powerless to a system.”

“It wasn’t like it was super detrimental,” Bonds said. “It was just hurtful.”

Her little brother is now entering his senior year at the same Noble campus he started at and is on track to graduate, she said.

Most Chicago students enrolled today have not experienced their public schools closing down for good. The kindergarten students of 2013 are set to graduate in 2025 — the same year state legislators have given the city’s school board permission to close schools again.

Mila Koumpilova and Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

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

ABOUT THIS STORY

I first met Demetrius Hobson and Mia Bonds at Henson Elementary on June 19, 2013, when I spent the day at the campus as a reporter for WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR station.

I was the age Mia is now. Just starting out in my career. Like many others, Chicago’s 50 school closings impacted my life in ways I’m not sure I realized until many years later. It shaped how I think about my work as a journalist and the responsibility I have to those who share their stories with me. It changed how I think about systems and structures.

In the years that followed, I stopped covering education and became a city politics reporter. I got married. I had two kids. Yet every time the name of someone I met or interviewed or the name of one of the closed schools came across my radar, my eyes and ears would perk up. Although I no longer covered education, I kept track of what was happening to the shuttered schools. I often updated a spreadsheet not thinking it would ever lead to anything. (Spoiler: It did.)

In thinking about how to mark the 10-year anniversary of this moment, in my current role as Chalkbeat’s Chicago bureau chief, I went back to my old files and re-listened to much of what flowed in and out of my tape recorder that year. I thought a lot about where all the students, parents, teachers, and activists were now. (One got elected mayor.) I reconnected with some. I talked to new people. I revisited past research. I filed multiple information requests.

I went back to Henson on a hot day in June, exactly 10 years and 3 days since that last day. I cried. And then, I wrote.

This story does not have all the answers. No story does. It seeks — once again — to add information to the public conversation around an important policy issue and to elevate the stories of those most impacted. As Mia said to me in our recent conversation: “The story is the people.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announces new agency to oversee early childhood

2023-10-24T23:28:41+00:00

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Illinois is planning to create a state agency focused on early childhood, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.

The new agency would oversee preschool funding and regulation and day care licensing, as well as early intervention, home visiting, and child care assistance programs.

Currently, those programs operate under the Illinois State Board of Education, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Children and Family Services.

“When you have pieces of agencies that you’d like to bring together, we want to make sure that’s done in a way that’s cost effective,” Pritzker said Tuesday. He said the current system can be an “impossible bureaucracy” that’s difficult for both parents and providers to navigate.

“We need to make it so much easier,” he added.

Pritzker will be signing an executive order to begin a “multi-year process” to create the new agency. The governor’s office said he will work with the legislature next spring to pass legislation to bring together programs for the state’s youngest residents and their families.

The governor’s office said Ann Whalen will serve as transition director as the new agency is formed. Whalen has served as director of policy for the education advocacy organization Advance Illinois since 2019.

An advisory committee will provide input and gather feedback. It will be led by Bela Moté, the chief executive officer of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, the governor’s office said.

Creating a separate agency focused on early childhood is another step in Pritzker’s work to make Illinois “number one” for child care access. In last year’s budget, the governor announced a $250 million four-year effort to expand preschool and child care.

It’s not clear the size of the new agency or what its new budget will look like. The governor is expected to make his 2025 budget proposal in January.

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

Illinois lawmakers propose allowing Chicago’s school board members to be paid

2023-10-24T23:13:18+00:00

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State lawmakers are proposing a bill that would allow elected Chicago’s school board members to receive compensation — a move advocates hope will encourage parents from low-income households to run for seats when the board shifts from appointed to elected.

State Sen. Robert Martwick and State Rep. Kam Buckner, who both represent parts of Chicago, announced at a press conference Tuesday morning a proposal to lift a prohibition in state law that prevents Chicago’s elected school board members from receiving compensation. The bills in the Senate and House, introduced during the fall’s veto session, would not mandate the school district to provide a salary or set minimums for how much school board members get paid.

Under a bill passed by the state legislature in 2021, Chicago’s board of education will transition from a seven-member mayoral-appointed board to a 21-member elected school board by January 2027. Ten of 21 school board seats will be up for election during the general election in November 2024.

Currently, Illinois law permits school board members to be reimbursed for certain expenses, but they do not earn a salary or stipend.

“I’ve had a number of conversations with people who live in my district from South Shore to Woodlawn who want to be a part of the solution, who want to be a part of this generational shift of a new elected school board,” Buckner said. “However, they don’t know how they’re going to do it and work the night shift.”

State lawmakers have a short window to pass the proposal. This fall’s legislation session is only six days and is currently scheduled to end on Nov. 9.

Courtney Hrejsa, executive director of Educators for Excellence, said in an interview with Chalkbeat the organization is behind this proposal because it hopes pay will persuade teachers to join the elected school board. The lack of a stipend or compensation is a major barrier to teachers who might be interested in running for school board, Hrejsa said.

“Teachers are typically middle-class residents of Chicago. They are breadwinners for their families and their income is required for their livelihood,” said Hrejsa. “If we are unable to provide them any sort of compensation for board service, we’re essentially excluding them from realistically being able to serve. That will not result in the best governance of our school system.”

Under the current law, employees of the school district are not allowed to sit on the elected school board, so a teacher would have to quit their job in order to serve.

Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, surveyed almost 800 Chicagoans earlier in the fall to ask their opinions on Chicago’s elected school board. Over 70% of respondents believe board members should receive a stipend of salary.

Lorena Lopez, a parent and advocate with Kids First Chicago, said in an interview with Chalkbeat it’s only fair to pay parents for the time spent “helping the Board of Education.”

The issue of pay for Chicago’s elected school board members was taken off the table in 2021. Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board bill, pushed for compensation at the time, but said he ultimately took out the provision to get support for the legislation from some suburban and rural legislators. Martwick believes now is a good time to revive this issue during the session.

In an interview with Chalkbeat Chicago, Martwick said the proposal only focuses on Chicago at the moment, but he would not be opposed to supporting a bill from other legislators that would allow school boards across the state to decide whether they want to compensate members.

“The reason that we’re doing it for Chicago is because that’s what we’re focused on.” Martwick said. “We’re in the midst of creating (district) maps, figuring out how the process of elections is going to happen, and figuring out how we’re going to transition from 10 to 20.”

In Los Angeles, elected school board members make $125,000 if they don’t have outside employment and $50,000 if they do. Appointed school boards, such as those in New York City and Philadelphia, are not paid.

In Indiana, school board members can get a stipend of up to $2,000 per year, in addition to meeting stipends that max out at $112. Florida and Nevada allow school board members to be paid a salary.

Currently, Chicago City Council members are paid. According to Block Club Chicago, most aldermen will make $145,974 in 2024, with the lowest paid taking home $118,392.

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

This Chicago principal creates a sense of belonging for migrant students and their families

2023-10-18T21:50:45+00:00

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When Maureen Delgado walked into her first classroom at Clinton Elementary in 1999 to teach middle school English and Social Studies, it was virtually empty — no textbooks, no pens, nothing.

“If I hadn’t had experience previously teaching, I probably would have really struggled,” Delgado said. “But that’s also one of the things that I think about when I hire new teachers: How can I support them? How can I make sure that they have what they need?”

Delgado is now the principal at Clinton, a kindergarten through eighth grade school in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood on the city’s north side. It’s a role she took on in 2016 after several years as the school’s assistant principal.

This month, Delgado and a handful of Chicago Public Schools principals are being featured on Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains as part of Principal Appreciation Month. District officials said she was chosen for creating an inclusive environment for Clinton’s immigrant and refugee population.

Delgado spoke with Chalkbeat Chicago about how she leads one of the city’s largest elementary schools, serving more than 1,000 students, 90 percent of whom are from low-income households and 62 percent of whom are English learners.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What made you want to be a principal?

I think if you were to ask me, back when I was doing my undergrad work, I would say I just wanted to be a teacher, and that’s all I wanted to do. But through my experiences here, I found myself being pushed into leadership roles, such as a grade-level instructional team leader. I think one of the things that really propelled me, though, was I realized that the opportunities and structures I had set up in my classroom were not necessarily the same across the school. I thought I could do more good as a school leader in order to support all of our learners.

Tell me a little bit about your own experience with school growing up and how it affects your work today.

My own experience in school is kind of embedded in working in this neighborhood. My father was an immigrant from the Middle East. My mother was a second-generation American. School was always important. I was the first person in my family to go to college. There were no ifs, ands, or buts in our family. You were going to get a college degree. It was always ingrained in us that school is important, that we’re here in this country being given the opportunity to better ourselves. My father felt that education was really the driver to seek a better life, and he was a proponent of making sure that that happened for his family.

I always wanted to be a teacher. I tortured my family, my cousins by playing school on the weekends. I had a chalkboard that I was given as a birthday gift. I just was always really drawn to education and drawn to helping kids and to helping students learn. When I was attending school at nearby Rogers Elementary, I spent a lot of time volunteering in younger grades like kindergarten and first grade. I’d spend my lunch periods or other free periods helping out in those classrooms. In high school, there was a child development class and we had a preschool in our high school, where I would volunteer. At Clinton, I feel like I found my niche and I found the perfect community to do that in.

Chicago has seen a big influx of migrant students. How is your school helping newcomer students?

One of the things that has drawn me to this community and has helped me stay here is being a child of an immigrant myself. My family comes from the Middle East and my aunts’ education stopped at what would be the equivalent of third or fourth grade. They never felt like they could go into their children’s school. So they relied on my mother who was English-speaking to be able to advocate for my cousins because they just never felt welcome in the school and they felt that that barrier would hinder them.

West Ridge and Rogers Park is a very diverse part of the city and it’s been diverse for years. Clinton is right off of Devon Avenue, which is known as Little India. We’ve had a lot of Asian families from Pakistan and India, but we also have a lot of different families from the Middle East. When I was teaching, we would get a lot of families from Eastern Europe, especially Kosovo, Bosnia, when there was a civil war there. We’ve always been welcoming different immigrants and different refugees from around the world.

We’ve continued to do that at Clinton. What has been a little bit more challenging this year is that we’ve had over 115 kids that have enrolled as newcomers since the beginning of the school year. We do have a lot of support in place, but it’s just been very fast. And while about a quarter of them are Spanish speaking, there’s another quarter that are Arabic speaking. We also have students that speak Rohingya, Burmese, Somali. We have 45 different languages spoken here. Our issues have been, ‘How do we support this huge influx that we’ve gotten?’ Because we’re also expecting more.

Over the last few years, our teachers have gotten English as a Second Language endorsements. About 95% of our teachers have their ESL endorsements. One of the things we focused on, particularly last year, was doing a professional learning community with those teachers. We have our English Language Program teachers who work as coaches and so they go in and support teachers.

We also have a lot of teachers that speak another language. Whenever we have parent meetings or one-on-one meetings about a student’s progress, we make sure that if we don’t have somebody on staff who speaks that language, we utilize the language line [a hotline we can call to get a translator]. So that helps us strengthen that home-to-school connection.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received and how have you put it into action?

I think the best advice I’ve ever received is to really listen. One of the things that I’ve had to do as an administrator is really to listen to my community, our school community, and kind of hear what we’re struggling with and being able to have people express their concerns or question things. That has really helped to guide where we’re headed as a school and to guide our new instructional shifts and our focus is just really being able to listen to the community.

I think a lot of times people are always thinking about how to respond to something or about how they’re gonna get their point across. But I think for me, just really taking the time to listen and process what I’ve been told.

How has your school worked to support students’ mental health?

One of the things that we’ve always offered here is a partnership with Asian Human Services, now known as Trellus, so we’ve always been able to offer counseling within the school day, which I think really helps some parents become more comfortable with the idea [of counseling] because they trust the school.

Thankfully, the district has given us a second counselor. That has been phenomenal for our school. We have a rainbows group that’s meeting about loss. We have a positive minds group that’s talking about self esteem and really growth mindset. We have a wellness group that’s talking about wellness, holistically, not just physical wellness, but also mental health. We have different “lunch bunches” where kids are able to meet and have lunch with the counselor and talk about things very organically.

In addition, our counselors are supporting our teachers, with programs such as Second Step and Calm Classroom. We’re also working on restorative practices within our school.

All of that has helped to make parents more comfortable so that when we have students who do require some additional support, they trust us. We also do workshops on mental health with our Parent Advisory Council.

How do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

If you ask my family, they’ll say I’m never not at work. Even if I’m not physically in the building, my mind is constantly thinking about school. But I think the way I take care of myself is really spending time with family and friends and taking care of my own mental health. Sometimes it’s getting a massage, sometimes it’s reading, sometimes it’s vegging out on Netflix.

Principal Maureen Delgado reads to a student at Clinton Elementary, where she’s served as principal since 2016 and has worked since 1999.

How does it feel to have pictures of yourself on Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains?

I haven’t physically seen one yet, but I know one of my clinicians did. I will say, I am really committed to this school and this community. I am really proud of the work that we’re doing. And I’m very proud of the teachers, our students, our staff, and our parents. Whatever I can do to share that I’m more than willing to do it.

My father passed away a few years ago and I was telling my mom about it and I said, ‘You know what, I think he would have been proud of me.’ And she goes, ‘Yes, he would be so proud of you.’ On a personal level, it’s kind of nice to know that I’m being recognized. But in terms of the school, I’m happy that we’re being recognized. Our goal is to be the best neighborhood school in the city of Chicago, and I think we’re on our way to doing that.

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

Chicago Public Schools cancels this weekend’s High School Admissions Test for non-district students

2023-10-12T21:52:35+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is canceling this weekend’s High School Admissions Test for students who are not currently enrolled in the district but are planning to apply for the city’s selective and magnet high schools.

District officials cited ongoing technical difficulties with the vendor’s testing platform.

The cancellation comes after similar issues forced the district to pause testing Wednesday, when all CPS’ roughly 24,000 eighth graders were supposed to take the exam in school.

“We are working now to reschedule all students who were scheduled to test this weekend and will share updates to families as soon as possible,” district spokesperson Samantha Hart said in a statement.

The district said it is working with the vendor, Riverside Assessments, LLC, to solve the technical problems and to provide new testing dates “for students who were impacted by the vendor’s technical issues.”

In July, the Board of Education authorized a $1.2 million no-bid contract with Riverside, in part to provide testing materials for the HSAT.

The vendor’s website Thursday included a note that it was aware schools in several regions were unable to log in or complete testing and that a team is “working around the clock to resolve this issue.”

Applications for next school year are currently due Nov. 9. In previous years, CPS has extended the deadline.

The glitches Wednesday prevented students from logging into the testing platform to take the exam, school leaders told Chalkbeat. Some students at one North Side school also encountered some Spanish words on their exam and needed teachers to translate, according to an administrator.

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

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

Chicago 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.

Is Chicago’s shift to restorative justice and fewer school police working? Some say yes.

2023-09-28T11:00:00+00:00

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Youth organizer Maria Paula Degillo used to protest in downtown Chicago against the high rates of suspensions and expulsions for students of color.

Now, she collaborates with Chicago Public Schools to create safe school environments without harsh discipline and over policing.

Today, Degillo, with the group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, is joining the district’s Chief of Safety and Security Jadine Chou at a City Club of Chicago event to highlight the partnership forged between the district and community organizations over the course of the last decade to improve school safety.

The event comes as Chicago says it has made significant progress disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. Suspensions have plummeted from nearly 50,000 in 2013-14 to less than 10,000 in 2021-22. And the number of police officers on campus has been more than cut in half.

What’s more, new research released by the University of Chicago Education Lab earlier this month found student arrests dropped at schools where restorative practices were implemented and students said they felt a stronger sense of safety and belonging.

Degillo, Chou, and others who have been working on this issue for more than a decade say Chicago’s approach to school safety could be a blueprint for other schools across the country.

“When we talk about safety in schools,” Degillo said, “it’s about young people and their parents being able to be at the decision making table so that they can decide what they feel makes them safe.”

Chicago makes slow shift to restorative discipline

Chicago’s work to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline started years before national debates around school safety and the presence of police in schools heated up in 2020.

When Chou took the job as safety and security chief 12 years ago, she said she was the first person not from the police department to fill the role.

“It was not easy at first,” she said. “I think a lot of people were stuck in that same paradigm that, you know, if we go to restorative practices, bad things will happen.”

Early in her tenure, the school board approved several changes to the student code of conduct that activists, such as Degillo, pushed: limiting the use of automatic suspensions and redefining what behaviors deserved out-of-school punishment. And the state of Illinois passed legislation, at the urging of groups like VOYCE, to limit the use of suspensions and expulsions in public schools.

During the 2013-14 school year, 22 Chicago high schools and 34 elementary schools began implementing restorative practices focused on building relationships and conflict resolution.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Education Lab studied what happened in the years that followed. In a report issued earlier this month, they found that suspensions declined at schools that implemented restorative justice, student arrests in-school fell by 35%, and out-of-school arrests dropped by 15%.

Anjali Adukia, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and one of the report’s authors, said changing how schools approach student discipline doesn’t happen overnight.

She recalled talking to a teacher who saw restorative practices as “fluffy duffy stuff” that was going to take up too much time. But after trying some of the strategies, the approach made their job easier. That teacher is now a restorative practices coach, Adukia said.

Chou, with CPS, said the research confirmed what she felt she already knew: This was actually working. It also “refutes the myth” that restorative practices lead to “no consequences” and everything being “out of control.”

“The research actually shows that you do good both by keeping children in the classroom through these restorative practices,” Chou said. “And in fact, the climate is calmer.”

Removing police from schools is just one piece of the puzzle

In addition to its work to reduce suspensions and expulsions, Degillo’s organization Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, or VOYCE, was on the forefront of the movement to remove police officers from schools.

This was before a 2019 federal consent decree over the city’s police department pushed the district to rethink the role of police in schools and before the racial unrest in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd.

Around that time, the district began to collaborate with community organizations, including VOYCE, on an effort known as Whole School Safety. The approach also gave local school councils the ability to vote on whether or not to keep school-based police officers, commonly referred to as SROs.

An initial wave of schools removed police in 2020, but the momentum has slowed more recently, with just two schools voting to remove officers last school year.

In June, the school board approved a $10.3 million contract with the police department to station 57 officers at roughly 40 high schools that have voted to keep them. It’s a fraction of the 140 stationed at district-run high schools in 2019, which cost roughly $33 million that year.

Chicago initially faced some criticism for pushing the decision about whether to keep police in schools down to local communities. But the ground-up approach may prove to be more sustainable, Chou said, noting other districts who removed police in 2020 only to return them more recently.

That was the case in Denver, where the school board voted in 2020 to phase out police from schools only to reverse that decision in a divided vote this past June after a shooting in March at one of the district’s high schools.

Although Degillo said VOYCE would still like to see police removed from schools altogether, she said allowing communities to decide is just as important.

“The goal is to create a process in which people are not relying on knee-jerk reactions to safety, “ Degillo said. “There’s so much more to school safety. The goal is to create that safe, healthy, equitable learning environment.”

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

Chicago’s youngest students showed growth on reading tests last year, but officials mum on math

2023-09-25T22:33:55+00:00

Chicago Public Schools said Monday that last year’s kindergarten, first, and second grade students made promising progress in reading, according to data from a new test now used in most district elementary schools.

Officials touted reading growth on a new test called i-Ready, which students took at the beginning, middle, and end of the 2022-23 school year. According to a press release, about 40% of kindergarten through second grade students were at or above grade level in reading by May, up from just 9% in September.

The district also noted that Black and Latino students’ scores improved on the exam. The percentage of Black students scoring at or above grade level went from 5% to 32% by the end of the year. The percentage of Latino students at or above grade level went from 5% at the start of the school year to 32% by year’s end.

However, CPS did not provide the data by school and did not release any information about how the city’s youngest learners were doing in math.

Ernest Williams, principal of Ellington Elementary School, said tests such as i-Ready are different from standardized tests administered by the state. These diagnostic tests are designed as a tool for teachers and school leaders to monitor how a student is doing in real time so they can adjust teaching practice or provide extra help.

“It gives us data on which students need urgent intervention, which students are almost there, and which students are on track,” said Williams. “It gives teachers recommendations on how to push the students further.”

Bogdana Chkoumbova, chief education officer of Chicago Public Schools, on Monday attributed some of the increases in literacy scores to the district’s investment in expanding Skyline curriculum to 400 schools, professional development for educators, diagnostic tests, and expanding the district’s Tutor Corps to 200 elementary schools to help students between kindergarten and fifth grade.

The district also highlighted an initiative funded by federal COVID recovery money to create “literacy-rich environments,” with colorful rugs, comfortable chairs, technology, and new books at 90 schools. Students at those schools were also given packs of books to take home twice a year. Officials said 50 more schools will be added to that program this year.

At Ellington, teachers and interventionists are able to look at the i-Ready data alongside other classroom tests and pull students into small groups based on their scores, Williams said.

On Monday, Chicago Public Schools officials toured Ellington, where they visited two classrooms to see how teachers were teaching students how to read.

In one kindergarten classroom, three teachers sat with three separate groups of students. One group practiced reading out loud. Another spent time matching letters and drawing pictures. And another group created sentences with cards labeled with pictures and words.

State and local school officials have been concerned about students backsliding in reading and math after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted education in 2020. Since 2021, results on national and state assessments showed significant drops in student test scores. Chicago Public Schools announced last week that more students met state math and reading standards, but the metrics still lagged pre-pandemic levels.

CEO Pedro Martinez said Monday afternoon at the press conference that proficiency in reading is important for students to be successful in their academic careers and throughout their lives.

“Our ultimate goal is for students to be literate by third grade,” said Martinez. “Proficiency by third grade is essential for being ready for high school, graduating from CPS, being prepared to succeed in college, career, and community.”

Chicago’s standardized tests shift post-pandemic

The district previously used the Northwest Evaluation Administration’s Measures of Academic Progress in second through eighth grade and a mix of other assessments for kindergarten, first, and second grade students. In 2021, the district announced it would no longer use MAP to monitor student growth and measure school performance. And in April 2022, the school board approved a three-year, $6.75 million contract with Curriculum Associates, the company that makes the i-Ready test.

Now, most kindergarten through second grade students take i-Ready and most third through eighth grade students take a similar test known as Star360.

Not all schools are required to take the i-Ready, but according to data obtained by Chalkbeat earlier this year, 424 of the district’s 500-plus elementary schools used the assessment during the 2022-23 school year.

Given the recent switch, it’s difficult to compare how Chicago’s youngest students are doing compared to before the pandemic. A national report on i-Ready scores released last fall indicated young readers were struggling.

According to data from the NWEA MAP test in 2019 — the last time CPS published results from that test to its public data page — 56% of the district’s second graders were at or above the national average in reading.

Data from the i-Ready beginning and middle of the year tests obtained by Chalkbeat in March did not break down data by grade level, but overall district numbers indicated growth between the beginning and middle of the year.

In a presentation given to principals around the same time, district officials said Chicago’s middle-of-the-year scores tracked closely with other urban districts, with roughly 53% of kindergarten students at or above grade level for reading, 33% of first graders, and 37% of second graders. All three groups saw double-digit growth in reading from the beginning of the year.

Chicago Public Schools is moving away from using these types of tests to rate and measure school performance. During the pandemic, the district paused and eventually scrapped a controversial school quality rating policy that partly relied on NWEA MAP scores.

Last April, the school board approved a new system for measuring school performance that will no longer assign a numerical rating to schools. Instead, parents and the public will get a dashboard with a variety of metrics to explore — including state test scores, attendance, graduation rates, college enrollment, and a host of other information about curriculum and the student experience on campus.

Mila Koumpilova contributed reporting.

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

Chicago Public Schools pauses COVID-19 vaccinations until doses of new version arrive

2023-09-15T16:25:00+00:00

Chicago Public Schools has temporarily stopped giving COVID-19 vaccines at school-based vaccination events and clinics, while officials wait for the recently approved new vaccines to arrive.

The move comes after the school district scaled back COVID guidance — ending school-based testing and continuing with no masking or quarantine requirements.

Chicago public health officials said Thursday that doses are expected to be here in the “coming weeks” and by early October, supply of the new version of the vaccine should be “plentiful.”

They encouraged anyone older than 6 months to get the new COVID vaccine as cases are already starting to rise heading into the fall and winter months.

“It’s clear that this will provide additional protection against COVID regardless of what vaccines you’ve gotten in the past, whether they were the primary series or last year’s bivalent booster,” said Brian Borah, medical director for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Surveillance at the Chicago Department of Public Health.

CPS officials said once doses arrive, the district will resume offering the shots for free.

The district is no longer tracking COVID vaccination rates by school or among students and staff. It is continuing to track self-reported cases. In previous years, data showed fewer than half of students were vaccinated with the original COVID vaccines and boosters, with schools on the South and West sides having some of the lowest rates of uptake.

CPS has 27 school-based health clinics and continues to offer vaccination events at schools and mobile events at charters and high schools. Students can also access free flu shots and vaccinations for other viruses that are required to attend public school, including tetanus, measles, and meningitis. According to WTTW, about half of all CPS schools are below “herd immunity” for measles, but rates have improved since dropping during the pandemic.

Because the COVID public health emergency has ended, vaccines for the virus have become “commercialized” and no longer covered by the federal government. City public health officials said those with insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, should go to their doctor or local pharmacy for a shot first.

But the city and school district will continue to provide free vaccines to all children under 18 and those without insurance or those who are underinsured, regardless of immigration status, under other federal programs that allow them to do so.

In addition to the school-based clinics and events, the city operates three public immunization clinics in Uptown, Pilsen, and West Elsdon, near Midway Airport.

The department of public health will also run annual COVID and flu vaccination clinics at City Colleges locations on Saturdays in October and November.

Saturday, Oct. 7, Malcolm X College
Saturday, Oct. 14, Kennedy-King College
Saturday, Oct. 21, Wilbur Wright College
Saturday, Oct.28, Olive-Harvey College
Saturday, Nov. 4, Richard J. Daley College
Saturday, Nov. 11, Arthur Velasquez Institute
Saturday, Nov. 18, Truman College

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

A dozen Chicago Public Schools employees ousted over federal PPP loan fraud

2023-09-06T18:05:00+00:00

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A dozen Chicago Public Schools employees have resigned or been fired after the district’s inspector general found they fraudulently obtained federal Paycheck Protection Program loans.

The loans — most of which did not need to be repaid — were available to businesses during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help them stay afloat. Federal officials have since said the PPP loan program lacked controls and was “susceptible to fraud.”

All but one of the ousted CPS employees earned six-figure salaries and worked year-round positions.

“We’re talking about people who have full-time, year-round jobs with CPS,” Inspector General Will Fletcher told Chalkbeat Wednesday. “How they were able to have fully fledged side businesses was obviously going to be a question.”

The inspector general’s report does not name the employees. According to the report, one of them was a central office administrator who inflated how much they made on a side business in 2020 in order to get a PPP loan and also did not report that secondary employment to CPS.

Other cases include:

A district regional administrator making $165,000 a year created a fake business in order to get a $20,000 PPP loan. The money was deposited in their personal checking account and spent within two months on “expensive luxury items” and a trip to Las Vegas, bank records obtained by the inspector general showed.
A school administrator with a side business selling clothing admitted to inflating its income in 2019 in order to get two PPP loans totaling $40,000. The clothing business earned “at most $7,500,” but they claimed it earned $100,000.
An administrator making more than $120,000 a year got a $20,000 PPP loan by paying someone to fill out the application and report they made $100,000 as an independent contractor in 2019.

The inspector general’s report cites two additional employees whose dismissal cases are pending. The district said it has filed dismissal charges against them, but both cases are being litigated.

In a statement, a CPS spokesperson said the district is reviewing a recommendation by Fletcher that future employees be required to report any PPP loan they’ve received as part of the onboarding process.

“We take seriously our responsibility to serve students and families with integrity and we will hold accountable individuals who breach CPS policies and the public’s trust,” the spokesperson wrote.

Fletcher said his office opened a broad investigation into PPP fraud in 2022 and started by searching a public database that lists all PPP loan recipients. In all, 780 district employees showed up in the data as having obtained PPP loans, the OIG report said.

“We’re not presuming that all 780 loans were fraudulent,” Fletcher said, noting some CPS employees do have legitimate side jobs outside of school and during the summer. There may also be cases of identity theft. While the investigations are continuing, the report released Wednesday focused on cases involving higher-level employees and those who worked year-round positions.

“We’re looking at employees who have some level of supervisory authority or who are in positions where they have some kind of control over sensitive information, financial information, dealings with the contractors and vendors,” Fletcher said. “People who are in positions of trust in the district.”

Other investigations have also turned up evidence of misused funds related to the pandemic. The inspector general found most bus companies that were given “good faith” payments to keep paying drivers during the switch to virtual learning in March 2020 laid off their workers despite taking the money.

“PPP fraud is just one facet of what has concerned us related to pandemic fraud,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher said his office has the capacity to continue investigating these and other pandemic-related fraud and waste allegations, but noted there is a “lack of information” around much of the COVID relief money distributed by the federal government in the past few years.

Chicago Public Schools has received more than $2.8 billion in COVID recovery money from the federal government under three Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief packages passed by Congress.

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

Meet Jianan Shi: Chicago’s new Board of Education president

2023-08-31T10:00:00+00:00

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Jianan Shi describes himself as “an immigrant that’s fallen in love with Chicago.”

Born in China, he immigrated first to Toronto at age 5 and later to Boston at age 8. Raised and later adopted by his aunt and uncle, Shi said he was undocumented until age 16 and was “very much in the shadows as a kid,” always fearful of being deported.

Shi moved to Chicago in his twenties and taught at Solorio Academy High School.

“One of the reasons I think I love Chicago is I got to choose Chicago,” Shi said.

Now, Mayor Brandon Johnson has chosen Shi, 33, to be president of the Chicago Board of Education. He’s the first Asian American and youngest person in recent memory to hold the high-profile appointment to oversee the city’s largest sister agency and the state’s second largest employer. Previously, he served as the executive director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, though he’s not a parent yet himself.

When Shi reflects on his own education, he said he thinks a lot about access and opportunity. As an English learner, he developed a love of books early on and remembers getting extra reading support and sneaking “a few more books” than the three each student was allowed from the library, which he noted was staffed with a full-time librarian.

Shi sat down for an interview with Chalkbeat Chicago this week wearing a blazer and a T-shirt from the Solorio DREAM Team, a club for undocumented students advocating for immigrant rights, with a colorful butterfly and the saying: “Fear only limits your dreams.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You’ll likely be the last school board president on a fully-appointed Chicago Board of Education. Are there policies or practices you’d like to implement in the next two years before the shift to a hybrid and later elected school board?

It’s been 42 days so far, and I have 505 left. I feel the urgency of this work. Part of the reason why I accepted this role was to help transition us towards a fully elected school board. I think some folks in Chicago lack the imagination that we can have expanded democracy, right? I know, it’s gonna be messy, but it needs to be iterated on. We’re already meeting with the board staff to look at different structures.

The previous board, especially Vice President Elizabeth Todd Breland, has been doing work around that. The Agenda Review Committee is one way to start being more transparent. We’ve stood up the Special Education Committee. A lot of it is setting the tone of how a board should act. We should be in community, and we should be communicating publicly, way more than before. I think there’s a lot of work to do around training to make sure board members are ready. This is a $9.4 billion institution with lots of moving pieces.

Do you envision the 21-member Board of Education almost like a mini Chicago City Council?

I don’t know how often we’ll have all 21 folks in full agreement. I think that’s the beauty of democracy and discourse, right? We’ll get a chance to really have tough conversations in public and together. There aren’t many models for a 21-member school board and so the board staff has done a lot of work. And I’m hopeful that we can also work towards a way where these positions are compensated.

The board announced in July it would meet on the last Thursday of the month instead of Wednesday to not conflict with City Council meetings. Last week, the board set the time and date of its next meeting to be in the Austin community on the West Side and in the evening. Previous boards have done that, but only as a sort of one-off event. Are you committing to doing that regularly?

We’ve already committed to three — one in the Austin community in September, one at Kennedy High School, and another we’ve committed to the south side. I believe it’s almost every quarter we’re doing it. I hope that we continue that. We want to, again, set the culture and tone so that when the new school board gets elected, they understand that it’s our role to be out in the community. I also hope to do office hours in the community.

Chicago is now the nation’s fourth largest school district and has lost about 80,000 students in the past decade. As board president, how do you plan to grapple with the declining number of students enrolled in CPS?

I want us to shift from looking at lagging indicators, and move towards how we invest in communities. If we provide well-resourced neighborhood schools, if there’s abundant social services and affordable housing in Chicago, those communities will grow back, right? I am maybe stubborn enough to believe that an institution like ours, and all of our sister agencies cannot be influential in the population in Chicago.

I think we need a comprehensive plan, from pre-K to 20. And what does that look like in your neighborhood and region? If I send my kid here, I know that they’re going to do pre-K to 8 here, there’s gonna be a great high school nearby that has the programs that I want to see my kids in, and then also access to community college and higher ed or jobs. That’s what we need to tell parents. That you can choose any neighborhood and you will find a path.

Chicago is seeing an influx of migrant students. It’s not clear if all schools have enough bilingual staff, the enrollment process is not quick, and there have been reports of migrants being turned away at some schools. There are volunteers, union staff, and district officials working to enroll children. But what more, if anything, can be done to streamline that process, as potentially more buses show up?

It’s not “if.” More buses will show up. And it’s intentionally chaotic, right? It’s intentionally disruptive … Chicago should be a sanctuary city, but there are so many challenges in making sure our newcomers’ needs are met.

It’s about food, shelter, and education. We’ve enrolled, I think 1,700 (students) in the last two months, and we’re enrolling 1,000 more. We’ll be strategic about placing them in schools where they’re best fit. But then these are also folks who are STLS (Students in Temporary Living Situations). I think we have 15 shelters in the city, but that’s not a permanent solution. So how are we looking towards housing? I know that’s starting to go outside of what is in my purview. Some folks tell me to stay in my lane, quote, unquote, but then we’re not actually addressing those students and families (needs).

Last fall, a report required by the law creating an elected school board outlined several costs the Board of Education may take on as it becomes more independent from City Hall. This could exacerbate financial problems for the school district. What is your plan for sorting out the financial relationship between the board and the City of Chicago?

That’s part of the transition towards the 21-seat school board: How do we create working relationships? The city understands in order for it to succeed, the education system needs to succeed. There’s a lot to look at and I think this is just the beginning of the conversation. I’ve read both reports. Ultimately we need more revenue. We’re woefully short from the federal government, from the state government. I think that’s where my focus is.

The deadline to spend down federal COVID recovery money is next fall. There are a number of initiatives, such as the CPS Tutor Corps, expanded summer school, and additional staffing, including academic interventionists and social workers, that have been supported with this money. What happens when that money runs out?

When I think about that question, I often get, I don’t know, a little upset. Because wealthy communities never have to make that choice. Schools in the suburbs do not have to make that choice. What I appreciated about being on Mayor Johnson’s transition committee, is that we tried to shift out of a scarcity mindset and think about what students need.

The federal government provided us money that allowed us to hire these interventionists and allowed us to hire staff for after-school programs. These aren’t just good to have for students. These are essentials. And we need to maintain those.

To be honest, the amount of ESSER money we got doesn’t even meet the gap that we are owed from the state. And that’s a formula that says all the things that we need. Yes, we need to look at how money is allocated and reduce waste. But again, it’s my job as board president to build a coalition of folks that work towards increasing revenue for Chicago Public Schools at every level. Before January, I intend on meeting with every elected (official) that touches Chicago.

Wow, that’s a big task.

It is a lot. But I think it’s clear to me that one, I want to listen because they also hear from schools and their needs. But it’s important to know that the whole state needs more revenue. There’s a lot of things that we can work together on whether it’s transportation or early childhood. But the evidence-based funding formula is obviously a big one. We’re still owed a billion dollars from the state on that alone.

Are you going to advocate for any changes to the 2021 law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago?

I think that’s a collaborative conversation. The Chicago school board will be voting on a legislative agenda in January that we will all abide by and all advocate for. It’ll be the first time ever, so leading up to that we are having those discussions.

Again, I personally do believe that board members should be compensated. As a former immigrant, I obviously believe that non-citizens should have the right to vote and that was recommended by the transition committee. But that’s a long process. I want to make sure that folks feel safe doing that and there’s the structures and systems in place. It’s not just a snap of a finger. I think there’s also stuff around eligibility that needs to be examined.

The previous board approved a smaller-than-usual capital plan in June and Mayor Johnson said a supplemental plan would come later this year. Chicago Public Schools has not had a Master Facilities Plan since 2018 and in the past, many school construction decisions were made behind closed doors. Many school buildings are old and in need of repairs or updates. How will the new school board approach capital planning?

Let’s just say I’m eager to work with the district on a comprehensive facilities plan that actually looks at how we want our buildings and programs to look in the next 10 years. There’s a lot of data that’s still being collected. And then we are going out to the community in the fall. I don’t think dates are set yet, but we made it very clear to management that something like this requires lots of community engagement around what we want to do with our buildings, what programs you want to see in neighborhoods, and again, how do we rebuild this idea of neighborhood schools, feeder networks, where there are rich programs.

There’s going to be an emphasis on Sustainable Community Schools. In these 42 days, what I’ve understood about Sustainable Community Schools is I think everyone supports them, they just don’t know it yet. Who doesn’t want wraparound programs? Who doesn’t want deep, authentic community engagement, and culturally relevant curriculum? Those are all things that I think every school wants. How do we work towards that?

And the goal is to have 200 Sustainable Community Schools by the end of the mayor’s first term, right?

The education transition committee report said 200. I think the appetite is to expand. But I want to make sure we do it right. That we serve students. Sustainable Community Schools haven’t really had consistency to thrive with a pandemic and everything. I went to three schools on my first day, and they said it was a game changer, a lifesaver. They have additional staff, restorative justice, and a trauma coordinator. It’s all these great things that make a school whole. It’s what makes students feel like they are ready to learn. And what ultimately has parents send them to those schools, right?

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

Postponed outdoor sports, water bottles, indoor recess: Chicago Public Schools outlines plan to deal with extreme heat

2023-08-23T15:43:08+00:00

No outdoor sports games or practices. Indoor recess. Full water bottles.

Chicago Public Schools sent an email to parents and blitzed them with robocalls Tuesday to outline how the district would deal with an extreme heat watch issued by the National Weather Service for this week.

Temperatures are expected to get close to 100 degrees on Wednesday, with a heat index of 109.

The district said in the letter that all outdoor sports games and practices will be postponed or moved inside on Wednesday and Thursday.

The move comes as districts around the Chicago area are canceling or shifting sports practices and games in response to the heat, ABC7 reports.

The Illinois High School Association, which governs high school athletics across the state, has a heat policy that requires districts to cancel outdoor workouts when temperatures exceed 89.9 degrees and postpone them until temperatures cool off.

On the first day of school Monday, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said all classrooms have air conditioning, but not all hallways. Many of the district’s aging buildings have had to be retrofitted and do not have strong cooling systems. The district said in the letter that staff will be available this week to fix any broken or malfunctioning air conditioning.

The district also urged students and staff to bring water bottles and keep them filled throughout the day. Officials noted that not every school has bottle fillers, but said students and staff can use sinks and water fountains.

Schools are also being encouraged to turn off the lights and pull down the shades in order to keep rooms cool.

In a statement released late Tuesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson said the district “has spent a lot of time adjusting resources and personnel” to address concerns and make sure buildings are cool enough to work and learn in. He noted that 12,000 water bottles have been donated by the private sector to students and staff.

On Monday, during visits to schools to mark the first day of classes, the mayor fielded several questions about how the looming hot temperatures would impact the district and pointed to his administration’s focus on “climate justice”. He also talked about the fight for air conditioning in classrooms during the 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike. In 2014, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel spent $100 million to install window units in classrooms.

Window air conditioners typically last five to 10 years. The district said it has 225 window units on hand if any currently installed in classrooms stop working. Officials could not say how many buildings rely on window units or have central air. Many newer facilities likely have more advanced cooling systems.

In a statement, a district spokesperson said improving school buildings is “a District priority.”

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

First day of school: Chicago Public Schools reopens under a new era of leadership

2023-08-21T21:28:02+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is officially back in session.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, the first Chicago mayor in recent history to send his children to public schools, kicked off the first day of classes by joining educators, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates outside Beidler Elementary School on the West Side.

Under a sweltering sun at 8:30 a.m., Johnson greeted parents and children in front of a chorus of reporters and cameras, before ringing the ceremonial bell to start the school year.

The joint appearance with Davis Gates, Martinez, and other district and union officials was unsurprising for the union-friendly mayor who came up through the CTU’s ranks, but still a break from the past when the union and City Hall officials would visit schools separately.

Despite the district facing a number of challenges ahead, including unreliable bus transportation, ongoing enrollment shifts, and an influx of immigrant students, Johnson focused on a new era of collaboration at the city’s public schools.

Later in the morning, after touring two other campuses, Johnson visited Kenwood Academy, where his son is now a sophomore.

Speaking to a history class, he likened the first-day icebreakers the teacher was doing to what he’s doing as the city’s new mayor.

“I hope that you will lean into the collaborative approach that your teacher is taking, because that is what we’re doing as a city,” Johnson told the students. “We’re building relationships, we’re collaborating so that we can make collective decisions together that ultimately can help transform people’s lives.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, and other city hall, school district, and union officials pose for a photo inside a classroom at Kenwood Academy on the South Side.

CPS claws back from enrollment losses

Visiting Beidler was a symbolic choice for the mayor. The school narrowly escaped closure about a decade ago and is now part of a program Johnson wishes to expand: the Sustainable Community Schools initiative, which aims to provide wraparound services and more programming for students and families.

But Beidler is among several other schools in the program that have lost at least a quarter of their enrollment since the initiative started.

The official enrollment count will not be known until after the 20th day of school in September. But last year, 80,000 fewer students were enrolled in Chicago Public Schools than there were a decade ago and it is now the nation’s fourth largest school district. Chicago’s declining enrollment predated the emergence of COVID-19, but continued during the pandemic.

And for many parents and kids arriving at Beidler Monday morning, more pressing thoughts — like wishing for a great year — were at the forefront. Dondneja Wilson hoped that her daughter, who started preschool, would “grow, and learn, and have fun.”

“She likes kids a lot, so I feel like that’s going to be her favorite part,” Wilson said.

Dondneja Wilson and her daughter pose for a picture outside of Beidler Elementary School.

Last year, data from the last day of school in June obtained by Chalkbeat showed little change in overall enrollment. However, the number of English learners grew by more than 5,000 students. District officials have pointed to the increase as an approximation of how many migrant students have arrived on buses in the past year.

Chicago is seeing an influx of newcomers, many of whom are seeking asylum, arriving by bus from the southern border in Texas.

The number of bilingual teachers in CPS has dipped since 2015, even as the English learner population has grown, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis. While 6,900 teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements — more than ever before, according to the district — it’s unclear how many are actually assigned to teach bilingual education.

Educators and immigrant advocates have expressed concerns about whether schools can properly support these new students. Jianan Shi, president of the Board of Education, said the city’s new welcome center for migrant students on the West Side has enrolled “hundreds” of newcomer students. He’s requested more information on the system’s overall strategy for supporting newcomers.

A classroom door welcomes students in Spanish at Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park.

Outside Beidler, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters that “the biggest challenge” is ensuring that all newcomers are registered in school, but he said the district is well-positioned to serve them, noting that Chicago has one of the largest bilingual and dual language programs in the nation. About one-fifth of the city’s students are English language learners.

“The challenge we have right now is, again, keeping up with all the new asylum-seekers that are coming in, going to them, making sure that we’re able to register them, assess them,” Martinez said. “But we’re doing that as we speak now.”

Transportation woes continue on first day

Transportation woes that have plagued the district for the last few years also cropped up on the first day, as parents reported problems with bus routes and trips that took more than an hour.

Laurie Viets, a CPS parent of three children – two of whom have transportation written into an Individualized Education Program – said the district promised to have all transportation issues resolved by last Friday.

However, Viets found out on Friday that one of her children, a seventh grader, was not going to have transportation and another child, a first-year high school student, would have a long bus route. Today, it took 70 minutes to get to school; it’s normally a 12-minute car ride, Viets said.

Viets said she wished Chicago Public Schools would have given her more time to prepare for changes in the transportation plans. Now, she won’t have transportation for one of her children for up to two weeks and she is concerned that her other child will be on the bus without air conditioning in extreme heat until they shorten his route.

The district’s bus problems stem back to 2021, the first year back to full-time, in-person school after COVID forced CPS to close buildings in March 2020. Students were left waiting on the first day and beyond for buses that never showed. In emergency mode at that time, the district began offering $1,000 stipends for rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber. But the transportation troubles continued well into the school year.

Last year, some 365 students were waiting for bus routes the first week of school and in September, district officials said they were still working to reduce 90-minute rides for some students.

The district has blamed and continues to point to a nationwide bus driver shortage as causing the transportation troubles. It signed a $4 million contract with a longtime vendor and bus-routing software company to try to fix the issues.

But last month, on July 31, district officials announced that it would not be able to transport roughly 8,000 students on the first day of school. They offered $500 monthly stipends to families of CPS students with disabilities or those in temporary living situations. Both groups are legally entitled to transportation. The district said at the time that 3,000 students had chosen the stipend option.

Davis Gates called the transportation troubles “a disaster” and a “failure of privatization.” CPS contracts with private bus companies to provide students with transportation. Davis Gates said she would like to see the district bring busing “in-house” and experiment with having its own fleet of buses that could start small by covering field trips and sporting events and then grow.

“These are Band-Aid approaches. I have not seen anything transformative or revolutionary in this space. And again, three strikes you’re out,” she said. “This isn’t a good way to start the school year with respect to transportation.”

The district has previously increased pay rates for bus driver companies, and is hoping to do so again this year. Martinez said he hopes that will help fill the driver shortage.

Viets, the parent worrying about her children’s transportation, said more needs to be done.

“Next year, if CPS is going to start by Aug. 21, by Aug. 1 they should know what the routes are,” said Viets.

If Chicago finalizes plans the Friday before the start of school, she said, the district is “not giving parents any kind of respect at all. They’re not giving us an opportunity to make other plans when they mess up.”

As Viets noted, the extreme heat also adds to worries about long bus rides. The weather also raises concerns about conditions inside buildings once students arrive.

Air-conditioning, aging buildings prompt push for green schools

With temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees this week, Martinez said his team worked “around the clock” to ensure classrooms are equipped with air conditioning this week.

Martinez said every classroom has at least a window unit, a key union demand during the CTU’s 2012 strike that was implemented a couple of years later by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Still, in some cases, hallways are not air-conditioned, Martinez said.

Johnson has touted “climate justice” as a key focus of his administration and reiterated Monday that includes schools.

“Having buildings that are retrofitted, as well as an economy that’s built around green technology, some of that is top of mind,” he said.

Davis Gates used this week’s weather forecast to illustrate climate change’s impact on the city and why it underscores the urgent need for a new CPS facilities master plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2018. She added that building greener schools will be one issue the union will bargain over ahead of its contract expiration in 2024.

The school calendar’s pre-Labor Day start is an issue Davis Gates would immediately bargain over, she said. The late August start date began in 2021, matching up with many suburban districts.

The union was not able to bargain over the school calendar in 2019, Davis Gates said. But the passage of a 2021 state law reinstating some of the CTU’s bargaining rights could allow the calendar to be back on the table. The union’s contract expires next June and it’s likely the district and new mayor will begin negotiations with the teachers this winter.

The larger issues that officials highlighted were likely not top of mind for many students, such as 5-year-old Pierre, who started kindergarten at Beidler.

Asked what he was most excited about this school year, Pierre replied, “Playing.”

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

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

Chicago Public Schools scales back COVID guidance

2023-08-16T23:15:53+00:00

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Nicole Abreu’s daughter Alexis is excited about starting sixth grade at Friedrich L. Jahn Elementary School next week. It will be the medically fragile 12-year-old’s first time back to school in person after being homeschooled last year and she can’t wait to meet other kids.

But her mom is concerned that Chicago Public Schools had yet to announce COVID-19 guidance when the start of school is only a few days away.

“Do kids even still have to report if they have COVID? Is there a quarantine period?” said Abreu. “It is unsettling to be a few days from school and not know.”

Parents like Abreu, who decided to homeschool her immunocompromised daughter and two other children last year, say they have heard little from the district about COVID-19 mitigations for the coming school year.

But during a school board committee meeting Wednesday, Jamie Tully, the district’s director of Health Information and Response, outlined a pared-down approach: The district will no longer do in-school COVID testing, but will provide at-home rapid tests to students and staff when an exposure occurs and ahead of breaks around Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Quarantine requirements and care rooms in schools are now gone, but close contacts will be encouraged to mask for 10 days, Tully said. CPS will also continue to collect and report data on cases and vaccinations.

The looser guidelines reflect a shift for Chicago since the height of the pandemic when the district struggled to reopen during the school year 2020-21. Once schools fully reopened during the 2021-22 school year, the district ramped up testing and vaccinating students across the city.

“I think the most important thing that we can communicate, particularly right now around COVID-19, is please stay up-to-date on your vaccinations and stay home when you’re sick,” Tully told board members on Wednesday.

The scaled-down mitigations come as cases are ticking up across the nation and at a time of uncertainty for the city’s public health department after Mayor Brandon Johnson fired Chicago’s Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady late last Friday. The move seemed abrupt, but Johnson committed to firing Arwady while on the campaign trail, stating that the two have different views on public health.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the Illinois State Board of Education updated public health guidance for schools on a monthly basis. After federal and state emergency orders were lifted in May, wearing masks, weekly testing, vaccinations, and social distancing were no longer required for students across Illinois.

Coronavirus cases increased in late summer across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported last Friday to the CDC that Illinois had a low level for COVID-19 hospital admissions as of the end of July. The department said that it will continue to monitor for COVID-19 data and other respiratory diseases as the fall and winter seasons start.

As of Aug. 15, Chicago Public Schools reported that 85 adults and 11 students have self-reported coronavirus cases.

Students are encouraged to get vaccinated

Chicago is hosting several back-to-school events this week where students can get vaccinated for COVID-19 and required childhood vaccinations for diseases such as measles, mumps, and chickenpox before heading back to classrooms.

As of the end of last school year, around 48% of eligible students had been fully vaccinated against COVID. Those numbers could backslide as they did last year with a new group of incoming kindergarten and pre-K students entering and high school seniors graduating. All ages are eligible for vaccination and boosters.

The federal government announced that an updated COVID vaccine that will target the latest variants responsible for a majority of new cases will be available in the fall.

Chicago shifts away from school-based testing

Last school year, just over 13% of Chicago Public Schools students opted into school-based COVID testing and the district also distributed about 1 million rapid tests.

CPS has 650,000 rapid tests in storage that can be distributed this year, Tully said. The district is asking the Chicago Board of Education to approve a contract with Fisher Scientific worth up to $5 million to purchase 500,000 more at-home COVID tests for students and staff to be distributed based on demand at schools during the 2023-24 school year.

The proposed contract for next school year would be a tiny fraction of the company’s previous contracts with the district to provide COVID testing to students and staff. Publicly-posted invoices show the company billed Chicago Public Schools $62 million from July 2022 to May 2023. The previous school year, the company billed the district $78 million for COVID testing.

In the fall of 2021, the University of Illinois’ Shield testing program was at over 1,700 K-12 schools and tested almost 113,000 school employees and about 900,000 students. The program gave Illinois school districts the ability to test students for the coronavirus by taking a sample of saliva and results would come back in less than 24 hours. The University of Illinois decided to end this COVID-19 testing program in June.

Expert urges schools to take safety measures

In July, the Illinois State Board of Education and the state department of public health adopted CDC guidelines for schools that were updated in May. The guidance says students should stay up-to-date on vaccinations for COVID-19 and other illnesses. When feeling sick, students are encouraged to stay home and schools can use COVID-19 testing to confirm or rule out COVID-19.

Daniel Johnson, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, said schools are a place where children can pick up COVID-19, which they could then share with their households.

“It’s incumbent upon all of us to be thoughtful about how we minimize the risk of getting COVID in a school setting while recognizing the importance of children going to school,” said Johnson “So children to conduct their lives, both socially and educationally, in as much a normal way as they possibly can.”

Johnson recommends that everyone gets vaccinated or get a booster if they have not been vaccinated in the last six months. If a child is sick, they should stay at home and get tested to confirm whether or not they have the coronavirus.

He recommended that schools should have good ventilation to circulate fresh air in classrooms and allow students to wash their hands or use sanitizer.

For immunocompromised children such as Abreu’s daughter Alexis, Johnson said he would recommend that students go to school, but they should be vaccinated.

Parents should encourage children to wear masks in the classroom and parents should tell their schools that they want to be informed if their child is exposed to COVID-19.

“Everything should be done to try and keep children in school and as safe as possible,” Johnson said.

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

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 an evidence-based formula.

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 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.

Chicago school board approves $9.4 billion budget as district officials warn of looming deficit

2023-06-28T22:05:00+00:00

The Chicago Board of Education approved a flat $9.4 billion spending plan for the next school year on Wednesday — and warned of looming deficits as federal COVID money runs out.

The 2024 budget is a fraction of a percent larger than last year’s, and allocates roughly half — or $4.8 billion — directly to schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on moving school funding away from being based on enrollment, a shift officials say is underway.

But the overall budget could grow later this year after the district does a comprehensive facilities review and puts forward a supplemental capital budget. On Wednesday, the school board approved a smaller $155 million capital plan. It did not include a hotly contested proposal to build a $120 million new high school on the Near South Side, though money for that project was included in the state’s 2024 budget signed earlier this month.

District officials and school board members said Wednesday they hope the state will provide Chicago Public Schools with additional funding in the future to avoid a fiscal cliff when COVID recovery money runs out next year.

“Many districts around the country right now are pressured to cut,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez. “We’re seeing layoffs. We’re seeing school closures. And so it is, it is a warning for us.”

Chicago Public Schools used much of its COVID recovery money to pay for existing and additional staff, such as academic interventionists and social workers. The district also boosted summer school programs and went on a technology spending spree.

Most schools will see flat or increased budgets under the approved 2024 budget. But a Chalkbeat analysis of school-level budget data released earlier this month shows that on a per pupil basis, 39 schools, or about 8% of campuses, will see budget cuts. Of those schools, 24 were predominantly Black, eight were majority Latino, and three were predominantly white. But schools serving predominantly Black students also saw the most substantial per pupil increases overall.

The district is forecasting a deficit of roughly $628 million by 2026. Next year, the district will spend the last of its $2.8 billion in federal COVID money, leaving it no financial cushion against declining student enrollment and rising pension and debt costs. Roughly 80,000 fewer students are enrolled in Chicago schools than there were a decade ago. The district has not released enrollment projections for next year.

School board president Miguel del Valle, who also announced Wednesday he would be stepping down as his term ends this month, said the district was facing a structural deficit during his first budget in 2019.

“If it hadn’t been for the federal dollars, that began to arrive … we’d be in even worse shape than we are,” Del Valle said. He noted that roughly a quarter of the district’s state funding goes toward paying down debt for both teacher pensions and past school construction. “Those two combined have us in a bind.”

The nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation raised concerns about the “long-term viability” of Chicago Public Schools budget. The group’s annual analysis said it’s imperative the district work with the City of Chicago on a long-term financial plan that addresses several of the “financial entanglements” between the two before the school boards begins its shift to being elected, rather than appointed by the mayor.

Voters will elect 10 members in 2024, while the mayor will appoint 10 and a school board president. The 11 appointed seats will be elected in 2026 and by 2027, all 21 members will have been elected.

“Now is a critical time for Chicago Public Schools to plan for its financial future,” the watchdog group wrote.

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

Chicago Public Schools staff to get 12 weeks paid parental leave

2023-06-08T21:42:42+00:00

Chicago Public Schools employees will soon have 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave — putting the district in line with city policy and well ahead of most other school systems across the country.

Parental leave became a campaign issue in January during the mayoral election, when the Chicago Teachers Union accused former Mayor Lori Lightfoot of reneging on plans to extend the city policy to teachers. A CPS spokesperson at the time said the union and district were “actively working” to update the policy.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer and teacher, announced the new leave policy on Thursday standing alongside CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.

“It will ensure that once they return from leave, they come back refreshed, energized and ready to lead the next generation of young Chicagoans into success,” Johnson said.

Martinez said the exact details are still being worked out, but the plan is to roll out the new policy before the start of the 2023-24 school year. A working group has begun meeting, according to the mayor’s office. Once finalized, the policy will go before the Chicago Board of Education for a vote. All new and revised policies must be posted online for public comment for 30 days.

Currently, teachers have two weeks of leave with the ability to use short-term disability if they are the birthing parent. Davis Gates told Chalkbeat in January that teachers usually cobble together leaves using those benefits, sick and personal days, and unpaid time off allowed under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. They also try to time pregnancies so they give birth when school is not in session.

“There are a lot of summer birthdays if you have teacher friends and that’s for a reason,” Davis Gates said Thursday.

Chicago will become an outlier nationally in providing teachers paid leave. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality, less than a quarter of nearly 150 school districts they reviewed, including the 100 largest, offer paid parental leave, but most offer fewer than 30 days.

While the details of the policy are still being worked out, Martinez estimated it could cost an additional $10 million annually. The district’s most recent budget was $9.5 billion.

“I think it’s a worthwhile investment,” Martinez said. “Because the reality is we lose teachers when they start having children, and that creates other challenges for us.”

Tiffany Childress Price, a teacher and mom of two, said the new policy is critical for retaining and recruiting high-quality educators.

“Becoming a parent was the best thing to happen to my teaching practice,” Childress Price said. “The way that I have seen other people’s children has transformed my empathy for struggling children and struggling families.”

Parental leave has historically been negotiated during contract talks in Chicago and elsewhere. Today’s announcement signals the policy will no longer be used as a bargaining chip. But Johnson bristled when asked what this says about how he might negotiate with his friends and former colleagues.

“This is not a gift to the CTU, this is a policy for the people of the city of Chicago,” Johnson said.

The union’s current contract is set to expire on June 30, 2024. Davis Gates and Martinez both said paid parental leave is no longer something that should be negotiated.

“It really is more of a policy for how we treat all of our employees,” Martinez said.

“When it is at the negotiating table, it gets crowded out by other things,” Davis Gates added. “We shouldn’t be trading parental leave for class size or class size for parental leave.”

All three touted today’s announcement as evidence of a more collaborative relationship between the mayor, the school district, and the teachers union. The energy is a stark contrast to the fraught labor relations under Chicago’s previous two mayors. Tensions between CTU and Lightfoot prompted an 11-day strike in 2019 and two actions during the height of the COVID pandemic.

The union also went on strike in 2012 for seven days after then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel rescinded a contractually-promised raise and pushed to unilaterally lengthen the school day and year.

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

Chicagoans reject Illinois lawmakers revised draft map for elected school board

2023-05-19T02:13:27+00:00

Chicagoans lambasted Illinois lawmakers for failing to better represent public school families, which are mostly Latino, in a revised draft map for the city’s soon-to-be-elected school board.

They also took the legislators to task for giving the public less than 24 hours notice before holding a virtual hearing Thursday to gather more feedback before the spring legislative session is scheduled to end and ahead of a July 1 deadline for drawing the maps.

“This type of lack of transparency is exactly why so many people, especially people of color, don’t trust our government,” said Eli Brottman, a political consultant who testified Thursday night.

Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to draw districts for the November 2024 election, when Chicago voters are set to elect 10 of 21 school board members.

The new draft, which was released late Wednesday night, tinkers with three districts where no racial group has a 50% majority, tilting two of those in favor of Latinos. Under the current proposal, seven districts have a population that is 50% or more Black, five where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts have a Latino plurality, where roughly 40% of the population is Latino, and one has a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality.

Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

Chicagoans have voiced concerns over the last few months about whether voting districts will reflect Chicago Public Schools enrollment or the city’s overall population.

The state senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board and the House Democrats’ CPS Districting Working Group must also strike a delicate balance because electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. They must also draw districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population and also comply with the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts that aim to preserve clusters of minority voters.

A group of local researchers, CPS parents, and open data advocates in Chicago put forward 1,000 alternatives to the first draft and another 1,000 alternatives to the revised map.

Denali Dasgupta said that group has been trying to create maps that account for the student population in Chicago Public Schools, but are still based on voters. She admitted that it’s not easy, but said the current draft has a proposed district covering much of downtown with only about 2,000 public school students living in it.

“I think that people running for office there and people voting there might understand the assignment of electing a member a representative to the school board a little bit differently,” she said.

Vanessa Espinoza, a parent with Kids First Chicago, which has been organizing parents around representation on the school board, said the revised map still perpetuates “systemic advantages to Chicago’s white population at the expense of people of color.”

Chicago City Council’s Latino Caucus opposed the current map as well.

“As it stands now, Springfield has proposed a map that creates a majority white school board which will govern the outcome of black and Latino students,” said Michaela Vargas, executive director of the Chicago Latino Caucus Foundation.

Ald. Nicole Lee, who represents the city’s first and only Asian American ward, said the lack of Asian American representation in the proposed map is disconcerting.

“The current version of this map also does not allow for our community to have a sufficient voice in the school board,” Lee said, before urging lawmakers to postpone a vote.

Jeff Fiedler, executive director with the Chicago Republican Party, raised concerns about gerrymandering and said the map-drawing process should have been done by an independent commission.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting has advocated for a map that aims to follow the City Council’s Ward boundaries. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, said the revisions were disappointing.

“The map breaks up communities,” she said. “In some instances, the districts might include as many as seven wards.”

Leonard also continued to raise questions about how the first election in 2024 will be handled if lawmakers put forward a 20-district map right away.

In November 2024, the law says, 10 members will be elected from 10 districts and the mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, as well as a board president. In November 2026, the appointed members will be elected. By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected, with a school board president voted on by all Chicagoans and 20 chosen by district. It will be the country’s largest elected school board.

In her opening remarks on Thursday, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who chairs the special committee, said “lawmakers are seeking guidance on whether current laws should remain the same.”

During the hearing Thursday night, the Illinois House posted notice that it would hold a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Friday on “the creation of the new Chicago Elected School Board districts.”

Dasgupta said lawmakers should not rush to pass something before the spring legislative session ends in the coming days.

“I don’t want us to end up down the road two years where we’re looking at a critical issue like school closures and have people saying, ‘Well, the people spoke and this is what they decided,’ And someone’s saying, ‘How did we get here?’ and me being like, ‘Let me tell you. There was this one day in May …’” Dasgupta said.

Doing so would meet the July 1 deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board districts, but would be a “blow to civic life,” she said.

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

From middle school teacher to Chicago mayor: Brandon Johnson sworn in to city’s top office

2023-05-15T20:30:33+00:00

Brandon Johnson, a public school parent, teachers union organizer, and former middle school teacher, has been officially sworn in as Chicago’s 57th mayor.

Johnson defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in a runoff election on April 4 after both candidates surpassed incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot during a Feb. 28 general election, dashing her hopes of a second term.

“We get to write the story of our children’s and our grandchildren’s future,” Johnson said during his inaugural address Monday at the Credit Union 1 Arena at University of Illinois at Chicago on the city’s Near West Side. “What will that story say?”

As the last mayor with control of Chicago Public Schools, Johnson will oversee the city’s transition to an elected school board, which he lobbied for as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. In his speech Monday, he once again promised to double the number of youth jobs, provide “child care for all,” and partner with school district leadership to “provide every single child with a world class education that meets their needs.”

“Let’s create a public education system that resources children based on need and not just on numbers,” Johnson said.

“Let’s have a system that respects its parents, educators and school employees,” he said. “Where the president of the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73 and the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools can work together to advocate for more resources for all of our children.”

Roughly three hours after taking the oath of office, Johnson signed four executive orders — one which directs the budget office to find available money to pay for youth employment this summer and year-round. It also tasks his new Deputy Mayor of Education Jen Johnson to identify entry-level jobs “suitable for young people” within city departments and agencies. Chicago’s youth unemployment rates increased during the pandemic, hitting Black young women particularly hard, according to a new report released last week.

Johnson’s own story from middle school teacher to mayor began more than a decade ago. He left the classroom in 2012 to join a grassroots effort by the Chicago Teachers Union to build political power in order to improve the conditions beyond the classroom walls that impact students and their families, such as housing affordability, poverty, crime, and environmental racism.

“I’m struck by how much work it took to bring us to this moment,” Johnson said, with CTU president, Stacy Davis Gates, and vice president, Jackson Potter, seated behind him on the stage.

While running for mayor, Johnson promised free public transit for students, an expansion of child care programs and health clinics in schools with available space, and an increase in support staff, such as social workers and counselors.

Johnson’s election signals a national shift on education within Democratic politics away from an emphasis on high-stakes accountability and market-based school choice. That view of reform, at times, also vilified teachers and their unions and came with legislation that stripped teachers of their bargaining rights and tried to tie job security to student test scores.

The Chicago Teachers Union began to push back on that thinking in 2010 with the election of the late Karen Lewis as CTU president. Their movement gained momentum and national attention going on strike in 2012, protesting mass school closures in 2013, and electing the first teacher to City Council in 2015. The CTU’s activism galvanized unions in other cities.

In a narrow election in 2018, Johnson upset an incumbent to win a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners, a position he officially resigned on Friday.

Mayor Brandon Johnson shakes hands outside Michele Clark Magnet High School in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood hours before taking the oath of office.

Prior to taking the oath of office on Monday, Johnson stopped at several schools on Chicago’s West Side, including DePriest Elementary, Michele Clark Magnet High School, and Leland Elementary. A drumline and crowd of students, teachers, and elected officials greeted him outside Michele Clark.

Torrence Bell, 15, held up a poster congratulating the new mayor and stood along a fence outside the front entrance, where dozens of elected officials gathered, including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, City Clerk Anna Valencia, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

“He’s a Black male, you know, I’m a Black male, so it’s really very inspiring for me,” Bell said.

Up the street, outside Leland Elementary students cheered and chanted for the new mayor, shaking his hand as he walked through the playground before getting in a black SUV to head to the inauguration ceremony.

“He’s one of our own,” said Alesia Franklin-Allen, acting principal at Leland. “That’s a great asset to have in a leader. He knows the needs of the schools.”

Speaking outside Michele Clark Magnet High School, current union president Davis Gates said she felt like the “personification of joy.”

“We deserve a mayor who’s going to invest in our children, who is going to practice justice and equity, not just as a value, but as a policy imperative,” Davis Gates said. “I am so very happy for us right now.”

Students from Leland Elementary on Chicago’s West Side wait to meet Mayor Brandon Johnson Monday morning before he took the oath of office.

Ten years ago this month, Davis Gates said, she and Johnson were in Springfield lobbying lawmakers to stop then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed Chicago Board of Education from closing 50 schools. Ultimately, the board voted to close those schools, which became a galvanizing moment for the CTU. After the May 22, 2013 vote, then-CTU president Karen Lewis said the union would start training people to run for office.

“Clearly, we have to change the political landscape in this city,” Lewis said at the time.

Davis Gates choked back tears Monday morning as she recalled that moment.

“I’m so happy that teachers and clinicians and paraprofessionals believed their union who said that we could bargain for the common good, that we could be in coalition with the community, that we could transform Chicago,” Davis Gates said standing outside Michele Clark High School before heading downtown for the inauguration. “This is so amazing. And my only regret is that Karen is not here.”

A few hours later in his inaugural address, Johnson nodded to Lewis, calling her his “mentor and dear sister.”

“We all are here because of the work of giants who came before us and without whom this day would not be possible,” he said.

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

Chicago Teachers Union chief of staff named city’s deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services

2023-05-11T18:55:11+00:00

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has named chief of staff at the Chicago Teachers Union and former high school history teacher Jennifer “Jen” Johnson to be the city’s next deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services.

Jen Johnson replaces Jaye Stapleton, who was appointed to the job last year after outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot promoted Sybil Madison from deputy mayor of education to chief of staff.

Johnson taught at Lincoln Park High School from 2003-2013 and left the classroom around the same time as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who will be sworn into office Monday. The two are not related.

Both were part of a grassroots movement led by the teachers union focused on social justice, community organizing, and pushing back against top-down school reform policies, including the closure of public schools and the expansion of privately-run, often non-unionized charter schools.

“These appointments reflect our policy priorities and strategic goals as we set a bold agenda for the next four years,” Mayor-elect Johnson said in a statement. “Together we can achieve our vision for sustainable, thriving communities, responsive services for our children and most vulnerable, and a budget that illustrates our values as a city.”

Chicago Teachers Union chief of staff Jennifer “Jen” Johnson has been appointed to be the city’s next deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services.

Jen Johnson’s appointment is a signal Chicago Public Schools could enter a period of labor peace with the teachers union for at least the next four years. At the bargaining table, she has sat across from past deputy mayors, who have historically served as the mayor’s representative in negotiations.

On the campaign trail, Brandon Johnson faced repeated questioning about how he would handle contract talks with his former employer, to which he replied during one debate: “Who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?” The current CTU contract expires in 2024.

A spokesperson for the mayor-elect declined Chalkbeat’s request to interview the new deputy mayor Thursday.

As CTU chief of staff, Jen Johnson supports and represents 30,000 rank-and-file educators and union leadership. Recently, she spoke with Chalkbeat about the district’s rollout of a universal curriculum bank called Skyline. She applauded the effort, but said the union does not believe it should be mandated as that would take away teacher autonomy.

Jen Johnson has been at the bargaining table multiple times over the past several years and gave updates to the press and the public during the negotiations over virtual and in-person learning in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and during an 11-day strike in 2019.

Chicago remained fully remote longer than many school districts, returning in-person on a hybrid basis in the spring of 2021.

During talks in the summer of 2020, Jen Johnson said the district’s proposal for a six-hour virtual school day was not age-appropriate for the youngest students and lacked an infrastructure to serve students with disabilities and English learners.

“You have too much screen time and not enough prep time,” she said at the time. “You can’t impose in-person school on at-home learning.”

In a speech at a labor conference in 2012, Jen Johnson called herself a “born Michigander” whose dad also taught high school history for 34 years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She said her grandfather taught high school English in Winnetka, a wealthy suburb north of Chicago, and mentioned that her mother wrote a book in 1970 “about her experience being the only white student in an all-Black public high school called Marshall on the West Side of Chicago in 1966.”

“I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a history teacher and that I wanted to work in public schools,” Jen Johnson said at the time.

According to a press release from the Mayor-elect’s transition team, Jen Johnson has sat on the boards of the Illinois Federation of Teachers Executive Board, Grow Your Own Illinois, and the Illinois State Board of Education State Educator Licensure and Preparation Board.

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

Illinois lawmakers release first draft of Chicago’s elected school board map

2023-05-08T16:00:58+00:00

Under a draft map released Friday, Chicago’s elected school board would eventually be drawn from 20 districts reflecting the demographics of the city overall.

The proposal from Illinois lawmakers is a long-awaited development in the school district’s shift away from mayoral control. If the draft were adopted, the school board would likely end up skewing whiter than the students it would be representing.

That’s because the draft map proposes seven majority white districts, seven majority Black districts, and six majority Latino districts. Chicago Public Schools student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

The public will get a chance to offer feedback before a July 1 deadline for lawmakers to approve the map. The first school board elections are scheduled for Nov. 5, 2024. At that time, 10 members will be elected and 10 members and a school board president will be appointed by the mayor. The 11 appointed seats will switch to being elected in 2026.

The debate about whether the map should reflect the makeup of the city overall or its student population has come up in recent weeks, as Chicagoans testified at public hearings. The city’s population is 33% white, 29% Black, and 29% Latino.

Two groups of Democrats — one from the state Senate and one from the House — have held public hearings about the maps. They jointly released the draft map.

A proposed map dividing Chicago into 20 districts for school board elections.

In a statement, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and is chair of the Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the committee took into account testimony from public hearings held in recent weeks.

“This draft map is intended to continue those conversations as the legislature works toward adopting boundaries that will help empower families and uplift children,” Lightford said in a statement.

Kids First Chicago, which collected feedback from hundreds of parents and submitted its own map proposal to lawmakers last month, said the draft map should be thrown out.

“We demand legislators go back to the drawing board and create districts that are more representative of CPS,” Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago, said in a statement Saturday.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map with 10 districts that mostly align with current Ward boundaries for City Council, also took issue with the draft map. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, called it a “non-starter.”

Leonard raised questions about whether only half the city will vote for school board seats in 2024 under a proposed 20-district map. The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

“Will the Mayor appoint 10 people to fill the vacancies of 10 districts while 10 of the districts will hold elections in 2024? Will the 20 districts be coupled, so that we effectively have 10 districts?” Leonard asked in testimony she submitted at a Saturday hearing and shared with Chalkbeat.

Others took issue with the sprawling nature of some of the proposed districts.

“This map is a gerrymandered disgrace,” Chicago Republican Party Chair Steve Boulton said in a statement. “Parents living at 79th and Western share a board district with parents in Hegewisch, 12 miles away. Parents in the West Loop share a board district with those near Marquette Park, almost nine miles away.”

The elected school board districts have to comply with the Illinois Voting Rights Act and must be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.”

The Senate’s special committee will hold a virtual meeting to gather feedback on the proposed map at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 9. It will be livestreamed on ilga.gov. The public can also provide comment at Additional opportunities to provide comment can be accessed online at www.ilsenateredistricting.com or by sending an email to ChicagoERSBCommittee@senatedem.ilga.gov.

This story has been updated with additional reaction to the draft elected school board map.

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

Chicago’s elected school board is coming soon. Here’s what you need to know.

2023-05-04T20:36:02+00:00

Chicago voters will soon see a new office on their ballots: school board.

In November 2024, voters will elect 10 members to the Chicago Board of Education as the city moves to a 21-member school board that will eventually be fully elected.

The transition marks a dramatic change for Chicago Public Schools, which has been under mayoral control since 1995. Before that, school board members were seated through a nomination process.

The law — and its subsequent trailer bill — spells out a number of rules, regulations, and processes that have to be followed before Chicagoans are voting in school board elections every two years.

Here’s a closer look at some of the details – and outstanding questions.

How will the Chicago Board of Education change?

According to the school board’s website, it is “responsible for the governance, organizational and financial oversight of Chicago Public Schools.” Its mission statement promises “to set goals and standards and make policies that make a high quality public education system available to the children of Chicago.”

Currently, seven people are appointed by the mayor. They can step down or be replaced at virtually any time. Under mayoral control, the school board has been criticized by some as a rubber stamp that made decisions behind closed doors.

Advocates who lobbied for the elected school board wanted to change that and after many years of lobbying, lawmakers passed a law in 2021 to transition to an elected school board. That law expands the size of the board from seven members to 21. For two years starting in January 2025, the board will be a mix of elected and appointed members. By January 2027, it will be fully elected.

At that point, the school board will resemble Chicago’s current City Council — except instead of 50 aldermen elected from 50 wards and one mayor elected by all of Chicago, there will be 20 members elected from 20 different districts and one school board president elected at-large.

When and how will school board members be elected?

The first Chicago school board elections will be held Nov. 5, 2024. Ten members will be elected from 10 yet-to-be-determined districts representing different areas of the city. Those members will each serve a four-year term and will be up for re-election in 2028.

By Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson must also appoint 10 members from those same 10 districts to serve two-year terms. The 10 mayoral-appointed seats will switch to being elected to four-year terms in November 2026. Those seats will represent different districts at that point and will be up for re-election in 2030.

The mayor will also appoint a school board president by Dec. 16, 2024 from anywhere in the city to serve for two years starting in 2024. In Nov. 2026, all Chicago voters will elect a school board president at-large. That person will also be up for re-election in 2030.

In all, 21 new school board members — half elected, half appointed — will be sworn into office in January 2025. By January 2027, all 21 members will have been elected. From that point on, school board elections will be staggered, with half the seats up for reelection every two years.

Who can — and cannot — run for the elected school board?

Chicagoans who want to run to represent their community on the school board will have to collect 250 signatures from voters who also live in their district. Candidates for school board president will have to collect 2,500 signatures from registered Chicago voters.

Similar to other elected offices, candidates will have to submit those petitions to the Chicago Board of Elections a few months before the election in order to get on the ballot and could face challenges to the validity of their signatures. However, the threshold is far lower than other offices, like mayor, which requires 12,500 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The dates for when school board candidates can start collecting signatures to get on the November 2024 ballot are not set yet, according to spokespeople with both the city and state Board of Elections.

A number of Chicagoans won’t be able to serve on the school board, according to the legislation.

School board members cannot be employees of Chicago Public Schools or employees or owners of companies that hold contracts with the school district. It is not clear, however, if a candidate could run and then resign from those jobs in order to serve. Like other school boards across Illinois, members also cannot hold other elected offices.

One point of contention that has come up during public hearings is that non-citizens are not allowed to vote in school board elections or run for office. This disqualifies many public school parents in Chicago and is a departure from a separate state law that allows non-citizens to vote in and serve on Local School Councils, which oversee budget and leadership decisions at individual schools. The law does call for the creation of a non-citizen advisory board appointed by the mayor, but it does not spell out what powers or responsibilities that group would have.

How will my school or community be represented?

This is perhaps the most critical — and most up-in-the-air question. The short answer is: No one knows yet.

State lawmakers from both the House and Senate have been hosting public hearings to gather feedback on how they should divide the city into districts from which school board members will be elected. The next hearing will be held virtually on Friday, May 5.

The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

It’s not clear if lawmakers plan to draw both a 10-district map and a 20-district map by the statutorily required July 1 deadline.

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and a handful of near western suburbs and is chairing the senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the group is evaluating input from the public, including “proposals that suggest a map with 10 districts, and submissions that call for 20 districts.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs a working group of House Democrats focused on Chicago’s elected school board maps, said the number of districts drawn in the next two months is still “to be determined.”

Like all electoral maps, the elected school board districts have to be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population and consistent with the Illinois Voting Rights Act.”

Several groups are already advocating for representation and have proposed maps, including Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and Kids First Chicago.

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

Urban Prep Academies could be turned over to Chicago Public Schools after state denies appeal

2023-04-19T21:44:09+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and statewide education policy.

Urban Prep Academies may soon no longer operate public charter high schools in Chicago after state education officials denied the nonprofit’s appeal of a decision by the Chicago Board of Education.

The Illinois State Board of Education’s ruling could mean the end of Urban Prep’s 17-year run as a nationally-recognized charter school network known for serving Black boys.

But Urban Prep officials said late Wednesday that they filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County “asserting that the Chicago Public Schools has violated state law that there be a moratorium on school closings until 2025.”

However, the district is not planning to close the schools. In October, when the Chicago Board of Education voted to revoke Urban Prep’s charter agreement to operate campuses in Englewood and Bronzeville, district officials – in a nod to the network’s unique mission and model – promised to continue operating the schools under district management.

At the time, the Chicago school board cited the charter network’s mismanaged finances and its response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving Urban Prep’s founder, which were uncovered by a report by Chicago Public Schools’ Inspector General.

That report alleged that the charter network’s founder, Tim King, groomed an underage student who later worked at the nonprofit and continued to receive paychecks and benefits after he stopped working there. King denies the allegations.

Board chair Steven Isoye said after Wednesday’s vote that “critical steps are already in motion” to communicate with current students and families about the transition. He said Chicago Public Schools will operate a new school with two campuses and an advisory group is already working on transition plans. A district spokesperson confirmed that plan and said the campuses would remain at their current locations.

Two state board members — Donna Leak and James Anderson — abstained from voting on Urban Prep’s appeal.

“As an African American woman and the mother of an African American son myself, I know there’s a need for a safe space that provides them with the chance to know your value and not how you are portrayed in the media on so many occasions,” Leak said. “We have to do better for African American young men.”

Over the last several months, parents and school leadership have fought to keep all three campuses open and under the operation of Urban Prep Academies. The school’s website also appears to still be accepting applications for new students.

“We trust that the courts will rule in favor of justice and Urban Prep students and families,” the statement from Urban Prep read.

The state board had also voted in November to revoke a charter it held with Urban Prep for a third campus — which the state took over in 2019 after the charter network appealed a decision by Chicago’s school board to close that campus. That campus is slated to close at the end of this school year.

Dennis Lacewell, Urban Prep’s chief academic officer, told state board members their decision will impact 400 current students and “hundreds of elementary and middle school black boys” who will “lose the Urban Prep option.” He called the Chicago school board’s October decision “erroneous” and accused the district of “moving the goalposts” as the network tried to address concerns about financial mismanagement.

“A decision to close our schools would eliminate this black institution which almost 20 years ago took on a challenge to successfully educate the most neglected demographic of students: Black boys,” Lacewell said prior to the vote. He also said the decision could result in roughly 100 people losing their jobs, 85% of whom are Black.

Isoye said Chicago Public Schools is committed to retaining as many current Urban Prep staff as possible.

As part of the appeals process with the state, a hearing officer issued a full report for each school in February and recommended the appeals be denied. The reports outlined concerns about Urban Prep’s financial management, noting “extensive borrowing practices via credit cards and predatory lenders.”

It also highlighted a finding by Chicago Public Schools Inspector General that the charter network obtained a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government that “made significant misrepresentations regarding the cost of its operations leading to the receipt of a loan larger than what it would have otherwise been qualified to receive.”

Last fall, Chicago school board members acknowledged that Urban Prep’s academic model has been successful for the Black teenage boys it serves. In the past, Urban Prep has received national recognition for graduating Black students at high rates and steering them into college.

The school’s leadership decided to appeal to the Illinois State Board of Education in November to prevent Chicago from taking over the schools.

After the vote, Isoye said the decision to deny Urban Prep’s appeal — effectively ending the once-lauded charter network — was “not an easy one to make.”

“Supporting the success of Urban Prep students through the transition and beyond is a top priority of all of us here,” Isoye said.

Mauricio Peña contributed to this report.

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

Chicago preschool applications are open. Here’s what you need to know.

2023-04-14T23:20:01+00:00

Chicago families can now apply for preschool for the 2023-24 school year — marking the culmination of a yearslong effort to offer free universal access to the city’s 4-year-olds.

The initial application period runs through May 2 and offers will be made on May 19. After that, people can apply and will be admitted on a rolling first-come, first-served basis.

The Chicago Early Learning portal includes all full-day and half-day programs for 3- and 4-year-olds operating within Chicago Public Schools, including public Montessori options, as well as early childhood programs run by community-based organizations through the city’s Department of Family and Support Services.

Families can also apply by calling 312-229-1690 or at select public libraries. Registration events will also be held across the city during the month of April.

Is there a spot in CPS preschools for everyone?

Four-year-olds living in the city, regardless of family income, can now attend preschool for free at most of the city’s public schools.

“We’re pretty close to being fully universal,” said Leslie McKinley, chief officer for the Office of Early Childhood with Chicago Public Schools.

The district said it has 15,755 full-day spots for 4-year-olds and 6,704 half-day spots for 3-year-olds in Chicago Public Schools. Additionally, the city is funding 13,091 seats in community-based programs, 7,424 of which are for children over the age of 3. The remaining are for babies and toddlers.

Last year, 12,460 4-year-olds and 3,943 3-year-olds enrolled in district preschool programs. That’s up since the first year of the COVID pandemic, but enrollment has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, when 14,300 4-year-olds and 3,192 4-year-olds attended pre-K in Chicago Public Schools.

Last year, roughly 3,500 spots went unfilled in the city’s public pre-K classrooms. Many were in high-poverty neighborhoods, an analysis by WBEZ found. Overall, birth rates and the number of school-aged children in Chicago has declined in the past decade. But a Chalkbeat analysis of census data indicates there are nearly 65,000 3- and 4-year-olds living in Chicago.

How do I find a preschool near me and apply?

Families can apply to up to five programs and are able to search what’s offered using an interactive map. The application can be submitted through GoCPS, which is also where results will come through.

Applicants should rank programs in order of preference. The application asks for demographic, residency, and income information, but no paperwork is required until you enroll. You can save your application and come back to it later if you aren’t ready to submit it right away or need to dig up information that you don’t have at your fingertips. This video provides a helpful walkthrough.

Many public schools are offering tours and information sessions April 24-28. The district recommends calling schools directly or visiting their websites to find out when they’ll be offering these sessions.

When will I know if my child got into a preschool program?

All applications submitted by May 2 will receive an offer on May 19. Families can still apply after that, and will get offers on a rolling first-come, first-served basis.

For full-day pre-K offered through Chicago Public Schools, 4-year-olds get priority. Children are also prioritized based on their proximity to a school, whether or not they have siblings enrolled, their family’s income, and whether or not they have a disability.

Unlike previous years, applicants will be given waitlist numbers for programs where they do not initially get offers. If an applicant gets waitlisted and wants to apply to a different program, they can call the Chicago Early Learning hotline at 312-229-1690.

Another word of caution: Waitlist numbers could change almost daily, McKinley said, because spots are prioritized based on need.

Once I get an offer from a pre-K program, then what?

Applicants can accept or decline offers through the GoCPS portal, using the hotline, or by calling or visiting the school directly.

In order to enroll, families will need to provide a birth certificate or passport to prove the child’s age. They will also be asked to provide documentation confirming income and showing they live in Chicago, though alternative forms are available if a family has no income or is in a temporary living situation. Proof of citizenship is not required.

If your 3- or 4-year-old attends their neighborhood school or is admitted into the public Montessori programs at Drummond or Suder for pre-K, they are guaranteed a spot in kindergarten and beyond. But if your child chooses a pre-K outside their neighborhood or at another magnet school, they may need to reapply for kindergarten.

More details are available on the Chicago Early Learning website. And if you still have questions, send them our way at chicago.tips@chalkbeat.org.

This story has been updated with new information from district officials clarifying how waitlists for preschool programs work.

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

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson’s win reflects local and national shifts on education

2023-04-12T20:35:00+00:00

The direction of public education in Chicago changed last week when voters elected a teachers union organizer and former middle school teacher to be the city’s next mayor over a former schools chief and education consultant.

Brandon Johnson, 47, clinched victory with 52% of the vote over Paul Vallas, 69, and will be sworn in as mayor on May 15.

He comes to the job with more experience in public education than most, if not all, previous mayors. Johnson will also be the first mayor in recent memory to hold the title of a public school parent. And he’ll be the last with the power to appoint the school board.

But most significantly, Johnson brings a teachers union-friendly perspective that rejects many of the education ideas that once dominated Democratic politics and defined Vallas’ career: a focus on accountability for schools, teachers, and students, market-based school choice, and top-down decision-making from the mayor. Support from Democrats for those ideas began to erode years ago, making Johnson’s rise part of a bigger national shift.

“The former bipartisan ground that the Paul Vallas-esque reformers used to occupy, where do they stand anymore?” said Sarah Reckhow, a political scientist at Michigan State University who studies education policy. “The ground has shifted beneath them.”

Brandon Johnson announced his bid for Chicago mayor on Oct. 27, 2022. His win over Paul Vallas on April 4, 2023 marked the culmination of a years-long effort by the Chicago Teachers Union to influence public policy beyond the classroom.

Johnson’s win is also a win for local progressives, who see it as the culmination of years of effort. His education agenda — which closely mirrors policy papers put out by the Chicago Teachers Union over the past several years — calls for more funding for traditional public schools, higher pay for teachers, and additional social services for students.

Emma Tai, executive director of United Working Families, which endorsed Johnson and helped turn out the vote with an army of field organizers, said Johnson’s victory comes after a “years-long journey” of “sustained, aspirational” organizing.

“Both (Donald) Trump’s secretary of education and (Barack) Obama’s secretary of education endorsed Paul Vallas and he lost,” said Tai. “A working-class majority defeated a bipartisan, wealthy donor consensus on public education. And I think that any Democrats with national aspirations or presidential aspirations need to pay pretty close attention to that.”

Johnson’s victory follows a decade of growing union strength

The start of Johnson’s political career can be traced to the summer of 2011, when he left the classroom to become an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union.

For more than a decade prior, Chicago had been a testing ground for a vision of school improvement that relied on accountability and pushed publicly-funded, privately-run charter schools as engines of improvement.

In this worldview, held by Democrats and Republicans alike, teachers unions were seen as stubborn barriers to progress, intent on preserving an adult-centered status quo.

When Johnson became an organizer, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s first chief of staff, had just been elected mayor and Illinois lawmakers had passed a new law reforming teacher tenure and limiting the Chicago Teachers Union’s ability to strike. It was one of dozens of laws passed across the country — in red and blue states alike — aimed at weakening the collective bargaining rights of teachers.

That did not sit well with classroom teachers.

A year earlier, a high school chemistry teacher named Karen Lewis had been elected as the new president of the Chicago Teachers Union on a platform promising to oppose charter school expansion, stop neighborhood school closures, and take on high-stakes testing and accountability.

The headquarters of Chicago Teachers Union sit on Chicago’s Near West Side.

Lewis and Emanuel became foils on the future of public education in Chicago — and nationally. They battled over seemingly everything — how long the school day and year should be; how teachers should be evaluated and compensated; and eventually, whether or not 50 public schools should be shuttered.

Though Emanuel succeeded in shuttering 50 schools, Lewis said the “fight for education justice” would “eventually move to the ballot box.”

“Clearly, we have to change the political landscape in this city,” Lewis said on the day the school board voted on the school closures in 2013.

That moment galvanized more than just the teachers union. Tai, now the head of United Working Families, said those closures prompted her to get into politics.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want them to be able to do this anymore,’” Tai said. “What’s it going to take so that I never have to be at a Board of Education meeting again, watching as Black parents are dragged out by white jacketed security guards while they’re crying? I never want to have to see that again.”

Johnson was one of the boots on the ground for the teachers union during this time, convening groups of teachers from schools on the South and West Sides and building coalitions with community organizations.

He helped elect City Council members in 2015 and supported Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s bid for mayor when Lewis was sidelined by a brain tumor. In 2018, Johnson ran for a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners and won — a victory Lewis applauded in a letter to teachers when she resigned as CTU president.

But in 2019, the union’s endorsed candidate for mayor, Toni Preckwinkle, lost to outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a landslide. That fall, teachers went on strike for 11 days and although the union secured some significant wins, the protracted fight left some teachers and parents frustrated. Still, this spring, the union’s existing leadership won re-election.

Chicago Teachers Union members rallied outside City Hall on the 11th day of their strike in 2019.

Johnson’s ascension to mayor is now an ironic — and perhaps fitting — end to three decades of mayoral control over Chicago Public Schools, a major priority of the union’s. In an interview last week, Johnson told Chalkbeat that he still supports eventually relinquishing control to an elected school board now that he’s been elected.

“Anyone else would say, ‘Well, now that we have it, we’re good because we have our mayor. So let’s keep it. Let’s keep mayoral control,’” he said. “That would miss the moment … We still believe that democracy is the best form of governance for our public school system.”

Mayoral campaign becomes an indictment of education reform

The union had tried and failed twice in the last decade to put an ally in the mayor’s office. But Vallas was a different kind of opponent, and the union capitalized on growing skepticism among Democrats about his education record.

He rose to prominence in 1995 as the first CEO of Chicago Public Schools after the state legislature handed control of the system to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. He became a leading advocate for and adopter of the education-reform playbook touted by both Democrats and Republicans throughout the early 2000s.

Defenders of Vallas say he fixed entrenched problems and improved outcomes for students. But others, including the CTU, say he left a “trail of destruction” in the places where he worked — which Johnson supporters highlighted during an event on the city’s South Side just weeks before the election. Vallas supporters disrupted that event and called their claims “completely untrue.”

Still, Johnson’s campaign continued to focus on Vallas’ complicated schools legacy, even releasing a two-minute ad with parents from New Orleans and Philadelphia talking about teachers being fired during Vallas’ time leading those districts.

Paul Vallas represented a different kind of opponent for the Chicago Teachers Union, which had tried twice to put an ally in the mayor’s office.

Peter Cunningham, founder and board chair of Education Post and former assistant secretary at the U. S. Department of Education, said Vallas — and his record on education running school systems in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Chicago — were mischaracterized and unfairly maligned. Vallas advocated for more than just school choice and high-stakes accountability, he said. For example, he started a program that still exists to provide Chicago Public Schools students with free eye exams and eyeglasses and developed a school-based teen pregnancy program. He built more than 70 new school buildings — including the one where Johnson eventually taught middle school.

“I would not say the reform movement was a failure in any sense,” Cunningham said. “I would say that it had considerable successes.”

And even though Johnson’s campaign criticized Chicago’s system of school choice that Vallas helped to build, he has taken advantage of it for his three children, two of whom attend a magnet elementary school and one who attends a neighborhood high school that is not his zoned school. That’s a reflection of the way Chicago Public Schools has been reshaped by the changes of the last two decades in ways that are likely to outlast any mayor.

“We’ve seen a lot of improvement in Chicago over the last 15 years,” said Elaine Allensworth, Lewis-Sebring director of the UChicago Consortium on School Research, which has studied Chicago Public Schools since 1990.

More students are graduating high school, going to, and finishing college. Student learning accelerated between 2009 to 2014 — with students gaining six years worth of education in five — according to research out of Stanford University. Out-of-school suspensions have decreased.

“No matter what you think about the reforms of the last 30 years, that’s not the question,” Cunningham said.

“The question is: What do you want to do in the next 10?”

The work beyond the classroom walls begins

The vision laid out by the teachers union more than a decade ago will come to fruition on May 15 when Johnson is sworn in as mayor.

Now, he will have the chance to tackle the issues beyond the classroom, beyond the school building, beyond the district administration. As he moves from an outsider advocating for a certain ideology to decision maker, Johnson will face the realities of governing a city known for its provincial politics, despite being dominated by Democrats.

Johnson will be responsible for a police department grappling with reforms mandated by the federal government and a public health department still dealing with a global pandemic. He’ll oversee multiple city agencies that determine when libraries are open, whether trains run on time, how businesses are licensed, and how to manage garbage pickup and alley rats.

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson spoke at a City Club of Chicago luncheon during his campaign for mayor.

Allensworth said educators have an “innate sense” of how those different sectors — such as transportation, public health, and safety — all impact public schools.

“I do hope that having that knowledge will help him be a good strong coordinator of all those different services in the service of young people in Chicago,” she said.

And although Chicago Public Schools has seen a lot of improvement, the pandemic stymied some of its progress. Chicago’s scores on the nation’s report card last year dropped in math and flat-lined in reading. Long-standing gaps between students of color and their white peers remain. The district’s handling of students with disabilities is being monitored by the state, after a 2018 report found it delayed and denied services to those children.

“There’s so much more work to do,” said former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who led Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008 and now heads a nonprofit focused on violence prevention.

Duncan endorsed Vallas and in doing so, didn’t mention education or schools. In an interview with Chalkbeat, he said the mayoral election was as much about education as it was about public safety, noting that when students drop out of high school, they’re more likely to be shot and killed.

“The consequences here in Chicago for educational failure are pretty staggering,” Duncan said. “This is absolutely about education. It’s absolutely about breaking cycles of poverty and helping people have upward mobility and enter the middle class.”

Now, he said the city needs to rally around Johnson. And he applauded the former teachers union organizer for promising to double the number of youth summer jobs from 30,000 to 60,000 and make that employment program year round.

Johnson has also promised to fund the city’s public schools based on need, not enrollment, which has been declining for the past decade. With schools slated to get their budgets this month, it’s not clear if the formula for doling out money will change in time for next school year. He’s vowed to continue investing in support staff — such as social workers, school nurses, and librarians — which Chicago Public Schools has already started doing using federal COVID recovery money.

He’ll have to negotiate a new contract with his former employer, the Chicago Teachers Union, and decide whether to keep current district leadership, including CEO Pedro Martinez, in place.

Tai, with United Working Families, said Johnson’s win does not mean their work is finished.

“I don’t think it’s ever really over,” she said. “But it’s a game changer, a conversation changer, and once again, Chicago’s in the center of it.”

Patrick Wall contributed reporting.

This story has been updated to correct Peter Cunningham’s title.

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

Q&A: Chicago’s Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson on how being a public school parent will guide him

2023-04-06T18:30:05+00:00

Brandon Johnson took an unconventional path to becoming Chicago’s next mayor.

A decade ago, Johnson, 47, was teaching middle school at Jenner Academy of the Arts, which served mostly low-income Black students from the Cabrini-Green public housing complex. In 2012, he became an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, and in 2018, he was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Now he will be the first mayor in recent memory with children in Chicago Public Schools and the last to have control of the school system before it transitions to an elected school board.

Chalkbeat Chicago sat down with Johnson for a brief interview Thursday. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you talk to your own children about becoming Chicago’s mayor?

I spoke with my children about them being children. Not about me running for mayor. Our conversations were more about, “What are the things that are important to them? What are the areas of support they need from me and their mother?” We had a thoughtful conversation about their own personal desires. And that conversation led into: “Daddy’s running for mayor. You all are an important part of Daddy’s story. But you’re not running for mayor. Daddy’s running for mayor.”

It was important for me to sort of lay some of the foundation around making sure that my children know that whatever adventure that I take on, it’s attached to my purpose, and that they too will have to find their purpose. I spoke to it and in the biblical sense. As Jesus said, “We don’t bury our talents. We double, we multiply them.”

It got them thinking more about their purpose, their talents, their gifts, and how they will make a contribution to society by utilizing their gifts. The transition from running for mayor and the conversation about being mayor was pretty similar. Obviously, there’s more details around security, but my children are chill.

You will be the first mayor in recent memory that has children attending the Chicago Public Schools, and I wonder what you think of that?

I think about that (in the context of) the question about my ability to negotiate contracts particularly for the Chicago Public Schools, because I am now responsible and tasked with negotiating from the perspective of the public schools, right?

The question came up repeatedly about my ability to do that. I’m going to be negotiating that not just as a mayor, but as a parent. I want parents and students to win a good school system, not a contract. That negotiation is actually far greater now as mayor of the city of Chicago having children in the public schools.

I’m not calling for a system to be better so that other people can experience it. I’m calling for a system to be better that works through the lens of someone who trusts the system to provide the education that will ultimately prepare (my children) to fulfill their purpose. I’m going to take the lived experience of not just as a teacher, as an organizer, but as a parent.

What were the things that were frustrating for me and my wife? I’m confident that whatever we were frustrated about, there are countless other parents who have that same frustration. That will be the impetus behind whatever decision is being made or whatever dynamics are being negotiated.

How do we not only help children fulfill their purpose? How do we make sure that parents that rely on this system for their children have an experience that is not just pleasant, but that motivates parents to continue to trust and believe in this system?

What do you think the election result and your win say about how Chicagoans feel about the approach to public education policy in this city under previous mayors?

I believe that my election sets us up to fulfill a promise of what public education should be about. There’s more of an acceptance and agreement around a system that is not just equitable and just, but a system that works for every single family in the city of Chicago.

That’s the message that they accepted — that you do not necessarily have to subscribe to a stratified system, where there are winners and losers, (but that) every parent who gets what they want out of the Chicago Public Schools.

If you talk to most parents, it’s a relief. Why? Why is it a relief? Why do parents make sort of the internal motion of: “Whew! I don’t have to worry about my child’s education!”? If that’s the response of parents where they have like this relief, generally speaking, then what’s the opposite response? When you don’t get what you want or need for your children?

This election is about really eliminating these pressure points. Where you can still be curious and searching juxtaposed to “Oh, my gosh, thank God we don’t gotta worry about that.” Do you understand what I’m trying to say? I hope so.

I think so. You’re saying that because we have a system where you “win” admission to a school, then you’re happy and relieved, but if you don’t, you are just in the struggle?

We want to eliminate the struggle and the pressure of: “How do I get to a release point where I can take a deep breath?” Because that in of itself is very hostile and traumatizing, as well. There’s this dynamic of you got to be grateful because you could be at this other place.

What are we saying? We literally have places in the city of Chicago that people dread going or they’re in fear of having to attend or somehow they’re going to lose the quality of instruction or won’t be offered the fulfillment of what education should be about.

I believe people have accepted that Brandon Johnson believes that public education is far more dynamic than a bubble sheet. It’s about the fulfillment of purpose, and what is available within our public school system that sets up all of our children to be able to find their purpose, discover their purpose, and be good to live it out.

You’ve been part of a movement, built by (the late CTU President) Karen Lewis, to kind of turn the tide in Chicago when it comes to public education and mayoral control of Chicago Public Schools. What do you think about being the last mayor with control of the city’s public schools?

Karen really loved the opera. As I understand opera — and I’m going down a rabbit hole here — there’s always tragedy and triumphs, right? That’s my general frame. And I know that’s a real simplistic way to look at an incredible art, so please be gentle, I do not want to piss off opera lovers. But there’s this tragedy. There is this tension. And then you start to get to a point where there’s going to be a very dramatic end to something that would have otherwise been a constant state of tragedy.

That’s how we look at mayoral control. And to know that our movement has culminated at the very time (mayoral control ends) and we are actually really true to our word. Because anyone else would say, “Well, now that we have it, we’re good. Because we have our mayor. So let’s keep it. Let’s keep mayoral control.”

And that would be a flat note, as Karen would say. That would miss the moment. I think it’s actually quite the crescendo of the movement that pushed the political dynamics around public education, and particularly the harm of mayoral control.

Even with us being in a position where we could impose our ideology onto an entire system, we are still saying that even with us having the ability to direct traffic, we still believe that democracy is the best form of governance for our public school system. So I think it’s an incredible crescendo to our movement.

You will have some chances to appoint members of the Chicago Board of Education. Do you have any shortlist of names? Do you plan to keep any current school board members?

Well, I don’t have a shortlist of names. What I do have, though, is a commitment to a process that is committed to equity in the distribution of the seats that I have the ability to assign. We will provide a process that allows for real community input. An equitable education really requires a dynamic, diverse makeup of experiences that I believe will be necessary to have the type of democratic structure that the city of Chicago has already united around.

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

Chicago 2023 mayoral election: Brandon Johnson defeats Paul Vallas

2023-04-05T04:26:20+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Chicago newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and state education policy.

Brandon Johnson, a teachers union organizer, county commissioner, and former middle school teacher, will become Chicago’s next mayor after winning 51.4% of the vote to defeat former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in a runoff election.

Johnson’s win marks a stunning achievement in the grassroots movement started by Chicago Teachers Union leadership roughly a decade ago to focus on issues beyond the classroom, such as affordable housing, public health, environmental justice, and police reform.

“We have ushered in a new chapter in the history of our city,” Johnson said. “Whether you wake up early to open the doors of your businesses, or teach middle school, or wear a badge to protect our streets, or nurse patients in need, or provide child care services, you have always worked for this city. And now Chicago will begin to work for its people.”

Brandon Johnson’s supporters celebrate during the winning mayoral candidate’s watch party.

Bankrolled by the teachers union and other labor groups, Johnson broke through a field of nine candidates, securing about 21% of the vote, finishing second to Vallas, who captured 33% of the vote in the first round of voting on Feb. 28. Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot finished third with 17% of the vote — dashing her hopes for a second term.

With 99% of precincts reporting, preliminary results posted by the Chicago Board of Elections had Johnson with 51.4% to Vallas’ 48.6%.

The two have spent the last five weeks knocking on doors, holding events, debating one another, visiting churches, and collecting endorsements in an effort to sway voters who may have picked another candidate or didn’t vote on Feb. 28. The narrow results illustrate how contentious and divisive the campaign had become and was a stark contrast to the Lightfoot’s runoff landslide in 2019.

“It’s clear based on the results tonight that the city is deeply divided,” Vallas said in a concession speech Tuesday night. “Even though, of course, we believe every vote should be counted, I called Brandon Johnson and told him that I absolutely expect him to be the next mayor of Chicago.”

Former principal of Whitney Young Magnet School Joyce D. Kenner, a Paul Vallas supporter, was holding out hope for a Vallas victory.

Johnson offered an olive branch to those who didn’t vote for him.

“To the Chicagoans who did not vote for me, here’s what I want you to know: that I care about you, I value you, and I want to hear from you. I want to work with you, and I’ll be the mayor for you too,” he said.

Both candidates’ deep ties to education propelled them into politics — though the two have been on opposite sides of the debates over public education policy in the past two decades and presented contrasting visions for the future of Chicago Public Schools.

Vallas, a torch bearer for school choice and charter schools who has supported voucher expansion, faced criticism and applause for his complicated schools’ legacy. Johnson taught at Jenner Academy of the Arts and Westinghouse College Prep before becoming a union organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union. His education platform, which aligns closely with the teachers union, promises more staff, free transit for students, and green schools.

Now, Johnson will be the last mayor to have control of the city’s public schools, a perhaps fitting irony for someone who advocated for an elected school board. He will oversee a number of challenges facing the nation’s fourth largest district including declining enrollment, closing pandemic-related academic declines, and the transition to an elected school board.

“On education, the contrast was clear,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the parent union of the CTU. “Brandon wants to ensure parents have a say, teachers can teach, and students can learn without the intrusion of those who measure their success by closing schools rather than strengthening them.”

Former Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said Johnson’s victory is a vindication of the union’s massive organizing push over the past decade. He said members threw themselves into campaigning for Johnson in a big way, from knocking on doors to making art for his campaign materials.

“There was an outpouring of creativity and organizing in this election,” he said. “It turned out it was just enough.”

Throughout the campaign, Johnson has faced questions over whether he would be impartial in negotiations with his own union, to which he responded: “Who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?”

“Brandon is going to have to govern,” Sharkey said. “I don’t think the CTU gets to decide what it wants. Brandon is a remarkable person who has a lot of principles and deeply believes in governance.”

As Johnson took the lead, the crowd at his election night watch party at the Marriott Marquis downtown pumped their fists and cheered. The volume of the dance music went way up, and supporters danced, snapped selfies, and hugged.

Nina Hike, a science teacher at Westinghouse College Prep and a teachers union leader, said the ground game that the union built was crucial. Teachers turned out to volunteer and campaign for Johnson in full force, she said.

Hike estimated she spent hundreds of hours phone banking, knocking on more than 500 doors, recording a podcast attacking Vallas’ education record, and talking with news reporters.

Wallace Wilbourn Jr., a middle school social studies teacher at DePriest Elementary in Austin on Chicago’s West Side, knocked on doors for Johnson and hosted a canvassing event in his East Garfield Park living room. Early on election night, he was taking deep breaths as the two candidates remained neck-and-neck with razor-thin margins.

“The whole city has been working toward this one progressive goal,” Wilbourn said.

Brandon Johnson was a middle school teacher before rising in the ranks at the Chicago Teachers Union. He was elected to Cook County Commission in 2018.

The CTU called Johnson a “protege” of the late former union president Karen Lewis, who almost ran for mayor herself in 2015 before being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“You don’t have a Brandon Johnson without a Karen Lewis,” said CTU president Stacy Davis Gates said. “She transformed the political debate in our city. She showed Chicagoans how to stand up and demand what their schools and their city need and deserve. Tonight affirms Karen’s dream of a city that works for us all, not just a privileged few.”

At the Vallas election night party at the Hyatt Regency, his supporters held on to hope even as the results showed Johnson taking the lead. Joyce D. Kenner, former principal of Whitney Young Magnet High School who endorsed Vallas, said she did not expect the race to be so close.

Paul Vallas, alongside his family, speaks to his supporters after conceding the race to Brandon Johnson.

Beverly Miles, a former aldermanic candidate and Vallas supporter, said she was “expecting a landslide for Vallas.”

Miles said she thought Johnson was “a nice guy but I don’t think he’s the right guy.” Despite being a county commissioner, she felt he hadn’t done enough for the West Side.

“We knew it was going to be a nail-biter,” Ald. Tom Tunney said earlier in the night when only about 1,000 votes separated the two.

Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Max Bever said earlier in the day there were still thousands of vote-by-mail ballots outstanding. The Chicago Board of Elections has until April 18 to count all ballots and certify the results.

The early voting and vote-by-mail numbers are double what they were in 2015 and 2019 and Monday’s early voting turnout set a municipal record, according to the Board. Turnout in the first round of voting on Feb. 28 was around 35%, with 566,973 people casting ballots out of roughly 1.6 million registered voters.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org. Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org. Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Like the candidates themselves, donors in Chicago’s mayoral race have deep education ties

2023-03-31T23:36:51+00:00

Like the candidates themselves, the people and organizations giving big money in Chicago’s mayoral election have strong ties to public education — and the debates around it for the past two decades.

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas’ campaign has been propelled by wealthy business executives, while county commissioner and union organizer Brandon Johnson has been fueled by labor unions.

The Chicago Teachers Union is Johnson’s biggest donor, while Vallas has received six-figure donations from wealthy individuals with ties to school choice and education reform, including some who have charter schools named after them. Vallas, a torch bearer for school choice and charter schools, has supported voucher expansion. Meanwhile, Johnson’s progressive platform aligns closely with the teachers union’s vision for the district.

While a full accounting of campaign donations and spending won’t be available until after the election, a Chalkbeat Chicago analysis of Illinois State Board of Elections records shows Vallas has received at least $15 million since October and Johnson has collected more than $10 million since October 1, 2022.

Johnson’s campaign fueled by labor unions and educators

Johnson received the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union, his largest donor, before officially launching his campaign last fall. Since then, the union’s Political Action Committee has donated almost $2.2 million to his campaign, according to state board of elections records.

The union has poured millions into aldermanic and mayoral campaigns in recent years as a way to influence broader policies that affect public schools. Some rank-and-file CTU members have filed a complaint against union leadership, alleging members’ dues were being funneled to the union’s political action committee, according to WTTW’s Paris Schutz.

A handful of other labor unions are among Johnson’s other top donors. The parent unions of the CTU — Illinois Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers — each gave $940,000 and $2.1 million respectively. The country’s other largest teachers union, the National Education Association, donated $50,000, and its Illinois counterpart gave $75,000. Several political committees connected to the unions that represent special education aides, classroom assistants, school bus aides, child care workers, and nurses, have collectively donated more than $2 million, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

United Working Families, a progressive group and CTU ally, has also donated almost $47,000 in in-kind contributions, usually in the form of staff help, to Johnson’s campaign and the national Working Families Party donated $70,000.

Aside from labor unions, Johnson’s campaign coffers have mostly been filled by smaller individual donations — many from teachers and educators. For example, he received $20,000 — one of his largest individual gifts — from Elizabeth Simons, a former bilingual education teacher, who now chairs the board of the Heising-Simons Foundation. The foundation provides grants to organizations aimed at strengthening early childhood education for low-income families.

Attorneys who have represented the Chicago Teachers Union at the bargaining table donated to Johnson. Robin Potter, mother of union Vice President Jackson Potter, gave $6,000 and Robert Bloch’s law firm donated $5,000.

Others who have advocated for more funding for public schools gave to Johnson, as well. Cassie Creswell of Illinois Families for Public Schools gave $5,000, and National Education Association President Rebecca Pringle donated $2,000. Kenneth Williams-Bennett, father of CPS graduate Chance the Rapper, also donated $8,000 to Johnson. Williams-Bennett was previously an aide to late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Chance donated $2.2 million to Chicago Public Schools in 2017, as the school district was fighting for more state funding.

Vallas backed by wealthy donors with ties to education reform

Vallas’ campaign war chest is bigger than Johnson’s and has been throughout the campaign. The former district CEO has seen an infusion of cash from corporate business executives, many of whom have ties to charter schools and other education organizations.

One of his largest individual donors is Paul J. Finnegan, co-founder and co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, a private investment equity firm in Chicago. Finnegan has donated $400,000 since October. He is a past chairman and current local advisory board member of Teach for America. Finnegan also sits on the board of CDW Corporation, a technology and services provider for businesses, governments, and school districts, including Chicago Public Schools, which has ramped up purchasing in recent years using COVID-19 recovery dollars.

According to tax filings from 2019, the Finnegan Family Foundation supports dozens of education nonprofits, including Teach for America and the Academy for Urban School Leadership, and charter schools networks, including Noble, LEARN, KIPP, and Intrinsic.

Golf resort owner Michael Keiser, who also sits on the local advisory board of Teach for America, and his wife, Rosalind, have donated $400,000 to Vallas’ campaign since October. He also made a $500,000 donation last summer, shortly after Vallas announced his bid. Finnegan and Keiser are also supporters of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute.

Other six-figure donations include Craig Duchossois, executive chairman of the Duchossois Group, has donated $760,000. The Duchossois Family Foundation has given grants to After School Matters, according to the foundation’s website.

Citadel executive Gerald Beeson has donated $300,000 since October. Beeson and his wife have an ongoing scholarship for students at Big Shoulders Fund, which provides support to Catholic elementary and high schools in low-income communities.

Two of Vallas’ top donors helped open charter schools in Chicago that now bear their names. Donald Wilson, CEO of DRW Holdings, supported the opening of the Noble Network of Charter Schools 12th campus — DRW College Prep —on the West Side in 2012. He has donated a combined $350,000 to Vallas’ campaign since January.

Joseph Mansueto, a billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Chicago Fire soccer team, donated $250,000 to Vallas’ campaign. In 2017, he donated $18 million that largely funded the construction of Noble’s 17th campus in Brighton Park, now named Mansueto High School.

Deborah Quazzo, a controversial ex-Chicago school board member, and her husband donated $7,500 and $10,000, respectively, to Vallas’ campaign, as first reported by WBEZ. Quazzo left her seat after the Sun-Times reported on her business dealings with the district. The district Office of Inspector General said Quazzo violated Chicago Public Schools’ ethics code, according to the Sun-Times.

Even though they have not given direct donations to Vallas’ campaign, two political action committees focused on school choice and education reform are backing his candidacy by running ads for his platform and against Johnson.

On March 23, the American Federation for Children, a group founded by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, donated $65,000 to the Illinois Federation for Children PAC. On the same day, the group gave $59,385 to a political strategic media firm Go Big Media, for digital media supporting Vallas, records show.

INCS Action Independent Committee, which supports candidates who are supportive of charter schools, spent $258,000 on television ads and $359,000 on digital media opposing Johnson, as first reported by WTTW.

INCS Action has received most of its funding since October from James S. Frank, who gave the committee a collective $1.5 million. Frank is on the boards of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Chicago Public Education Fund, in addition to Teach for America’s local advisory board. He has donated $225,000 directly to Vallas since January.

Campaigns have until April 17 to file a full accounting of their fundraising and spending activities through March 31.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

Chicago schools are at a crossroads. The new mayor will determine the district’s next steps.

2023-03-28T23:01:03+00:00

Public education in Chicago is about to enter a new era, defined by the person elected mayor on April 4.

Voters will choose between Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher turned county commissioner who is also an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union, or Paul Vallas, a former city budget director and Chicago Public Schools CEO turned education consultant.

Either candidate would bring more knowledge and experience in Chicago Public Schools to the job than most, if not all, previous mayors. It’s nearly impossible to untangle their identities from the debates over public education policy during the past two decades that have left Vallas and Johnson with different perspectives on critical education issues.

“You have two people who really come to this position largely as a result of their work in education,” said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment at University of Illinois.

Johnson has roots as a labor organizer and progressive politician focused on improving the lives of working class and low-income people. Vallas is a technocrat and policy wonk who built a career as a “fixer” and “turnaround specialist” for large, complex school systems.

Those experiences will shape their responses to the once-in-a-generation challenges and opportunities facing the nation’s fourth largest school district. The next mayor will write the final chapter in Chicago’s story with mayoral control, appointing school board members as the district shifts toward an elected school board. He will grapple with declining enrollment as federal COVID recovery money runs out and will negotiate the next Chicago Teachers Union contract.

Perhaps most importantly, the next mayor will shape how more than 300,000 students are educated — after three years of pandemic disruption and decades of inequity.

Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson faces former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in an April 4 runoff for Chicago mayor.

The challenge ahead: Moving to an elected school board

Chicago’s era of mayoral control will end in 2027, when the next mayor is up for re-election. Vallas or Johnson’s first term will be a period of transition in which he will oversee the school system and still appoint more than a dozen school board members, ahead of and during the transition to an elected school board.

If voters pick Johnson, his election would be the crowning achievement in a decade-long grassroots battle waged by the Chicago Teachers Union against mayoral control and many of the controversial policies that came with it, like school closures and charter expansion. Johnson opposes adding charter schools and closing small district schools, of which Chicago has a growing number.

Vallas would bring a long history of expanding school choice and remaking big-city school districts. He’s signaled his approach wouldn’t precisely mirror the past, though, and recently said Chicago had enough charter schools.

They have also expressed different priorities for future board member appointments. Vallas has said he would endorse candidates for school board who align with his vision for the district. He also told Chalkbeat that he would work with the school board “as an equally elected official that is representing the needs of the community that elected them.”

Johnson, who advocated for the legislation creating the school board, has said he wants it to represent Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods “who are deeply invested and knowledgeable” about the communities they serve.

“We cannot have uber rich, arch-conservatives usurping the power that working people in Chicago fought so hard to win,” he told Chalkbeat in a questionnaire published earlier this year.

Reversing enrollment declines in a changing city

Chicago has lost more than 100,000 students since Vallas was schools chief.

When he left the job in 2001, there were roughly 435,000 students. Now, there are just over 322,000. Because schools are largely funded based on enrollment, this trend puts pressure on the district’s budget, even as Illinois has overhauled and increased funding for public education.

Creg Williams, a Vallas supporter who worked with him in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, said the mayoral hopeful has experience re-enrolling students. After Hurricane Katrina hit, public school enrollment dropped from 65,000 students to 25,000, according to Louisiana state records.

“When we got to New Orleans, there were no student records, there were no teachers, there were no students,” Williams said. “We drove up and down streets, recruiting children who were walking up and down the streets with no place to stay, no schools to go in.” (Enrollment did increase under Vallas’ tenure in New Orleans, but it did not return to pre-Katrina levels.)

Chicago’s declining enrollment, like many cities across America, is driven not by a natural disaster but rather by declining birth rates and a confluence of factors pushing people to leave the city, including the loss of public housing, gentrification, crime, and past school closures.

These are problems the school system cannot fix by itself. City Hall, which has control over zoning, tax policy, and economic development, will play a key part.

Both candidates have talked a lot about making the city a place families want to live, but offer different paths for getting there. Vallas says neighborhoods need to be safe above all else and is proposing a crime-fighting strategy that staffs up the police department and keeps school buildings open on nights and weekends. Johnson has promised not to raise property taxes and wants to grow jobs for both the parents of public school students, and for teens and young adults.

Working with fewer federal dollars and a looming fiscal cliff

Those promises will cost money, and the next mayor will need to find it.

Last week, district officials warned that Chicago Public Schools is facing $600 million-plus budget deficits beginning in 2026, when a $2.8 billion windfall of COVID recovery money ends.

“These issues have been papered over by federal support, but we need to confront them head on,” district CEO Pedro Martinez said recently.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez recently warned school board members that the district is projecting annual deficits starting in 2026.

Johnson has said he will not raise property taxes, a primary source of funding for local schools. Vallas has not ruled out property tax increases, but has talked about pushing more money down to individual schools and cutting costs at the central office.

The mayor has other options.

Johnson has talked about getting state lawmakers to ramp up funding increases to the state’s funding formula so Chicago and all districts get to so-called “adequate funding” more quickly.

He – and district officials – have also suggested pushing the state to kick in more for Chicago teachers pensions, which have been underfunded since the mid- to late-2000s. Chicago Public Schools began skipping annual payments to the pension fund in 1995 under Vallas, and did so until 2004. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, state lawmakers again allowed the district to skip pension payments. Today, the fund is less than 50% funded and requires much larger annual payments, which also puts pressure on the district’s budget.

The next mayor could also undo decisions made by current Mayor Lori Lightfoot to shift costs for police in schools, crossing guards, and non-teaching staff pensions from the city’s budget to Chicago Public Schools. Neither candidate has signaled they would reverse those cost shifts.

Bargaining a high-stakes contract

The Chicago Teachers Union’s current contract expires in 2024. If history is any guide, negotiations will begin this winter under the leadership of the new mayor. Two of the last three contracts were settled only after teachers went on strike, and the next mayor will be under considerable pressure to avoid another one.

It’s clear from Johnson’s education platform that he would approach the demands of the teachers union as an ally.

“Now more than ever, we need a partner in City Hall willing to work with school communities to ensure smaller classes, adequate staffing for special and bilingual education and a school nurse in every school,” the union said in a recent press release. “Brandon Johnson is that candidate.”

Throughout the campaign, Johnson has faced questions over whether he would be impartial in negotiations with his own union, to which he recently responded: “Who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?”

Vallas has said he would be at the bargaining table with the teachers union if elected. He’s touted his experience negotiating contracts across multiple school districts, including two four-year deals in Chicago in the late 1990s. The city’s chief labor negotiator, Jim Franczek, recently told the Chicago Sun-Times those contracts provided “stability, flexibility, and predictability” to the school system, which had seen multiple work stoppages in the 1980s and early ‘90s.

“It wasn’t as if the Chicago Teachers Union were a bunch of pansies back then,” Franczek said. But even he acknowledged that the current teachers union is a different kind of bargaining partner now.

Since 2010 – under the leadership of the late former CTU president Karen Lewis — the CTU has pushed to negotiate more than just “bread and butter” issues like pay and benefits, to include broader social justice issues like affordable housing, homelessness, and environmental justice.

That broader approach to bargaining contributed to labor strife with newly-elected Lightfoot in 2019, when teachers went on strike for 11 days. Ultimately, the union secured significant wins to increase support staff, pay, and benefits.

Protesters with the Chicago Teachers Union march in downtown Chicago on Oct. 31, 2019.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan alluded to that strike in his recent endorsement of Vallas — arguing that the CTU went to war with Lightfoot after she defeated the union’s preferred candidate for mayor in 2019. The teachers union has been clear in their dislike for Vallas, highlighting what they say is a “record of failure” and a “path of destruction” he’s left behind in the public school systems he led.

Vallas has not been shy about his disagreements with the teachers union. But he said the 2019 strike and the COVID-related work stoppages could have been avoided and has vowed to bargain in “good faith.”

Deciding how to measure school and student performance

Early in the pandemic, district officials halted the annual school ratings based on test scores, attendance, and other metrics. And last spring, district leaders announced the old system, known as the School Quality Rating Policy, would no longer exist.

The decisions have prompted a broader conversation about how schools should be measured — or if they should at all — that will continue under the next mayor.

For some, the pause on high-stakes accountability has been a welcome reprieve. The teachers union and others have argued it put too much emphasis on test scores and penalized schools serving high-need populations. A low rating could turn off prospective new families, contributing to a cycle of declining enrollment and continued disinvestment.

But for others, the lack of a system for measuring quality can leave parents and the public wondering: How are students and schools doing?

For two years, the district, the union, and several stakeholders, including Kids First Chicago, have been working together to develop a new, more “holistic” accountability policy. Hal Woods, the chief of policy at Kids First Chicago, said the school board is expected to vote on it next month.

“A new mayor might come in and say, pump the brakes,” Woods said. “Obviously, we hope not.”

It’s not likely Vallas would do that. He created Chicago Public Schools’ first accountability system — putting more than 100 schools on probation for poor academic performance before the federal No Child Left Behind law required districts to do so.

Johnson is likely to be more skeptical. He has said the district does not need its own rating system since the state already has one, and has said schools need more support and resources, not accountability.

The new policy, Woods said, aims to do just that.

“It should be a tool to diagnose where extra support is needed and what that support looks like,” Woods said. “That could be financial, it could be other forms of support.”

Chicago students and schools are facing a pivotal moment. Test scores have fallen. Mental health concerns are rising, particularly among young girls. Additional social workers, counselors, and school staff worry the extra resources still won’t be enough.

The city’s next mayor will have to face these challenges — and decide how to respond.

Mauricio Peña contributed reporting.

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

Looking for a summer job? Applications for One Summer Chicago are open until Friday.

2023-06-05T21:15:00+00:00

Update: City officials extended the deadline to apply to Friday, June 9. This story has been updated to reflect the change.

Chicago teens looking for a summer job can now apply online through One Summer Chicago — the city’s youth employment program, which has seen a decline in participation in recent years.

Applications opened Feb. 28 and are due June 9. The program will run for six weeks, from June 26 to Aug. 4, and any Chicago resident ages 14 to 24 is eligible to apply.

Last summer, 20,544 youth participated in the program, which offers jobs, internships, service learning, and career exploration programs, according to a new report released by the Department of Children and Family Support Services. Just over 16,000 teens worked jobs and internships, while others enrolled in programs aimed at career exploration and service learning.

Those numbers have yet to recover from a steep drop in participation in 2020 — when summer programs were virtual or hybrid. Roughly 20,000 youth got jobs through One Summer Chicago during the first summer of the COVID pandemic, compared to more than 30,000 in 2019.

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had hoped last summer would see a rebound, calling for a “summer of joy” when the application opened.

Mayor Brandon Johnson promised to double the number of youth employed during his first 100 days in office. Summer jobs and youth employment more broadly were key issues in the mayoral runoff election between Johnson and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas.

Summer teen employment dropped across the country in 2020, but rebounded in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, the number of teens with summer jobs has been declining in recent decades. Prior to 2000, more than half of American teens worked summer gigs. Now, it’s around a third, the report found.

In addition to One Summer Chicago, Chicago Public Schools offers a wide range of summer programs — including academic catch-up required for students who failed certain grades — that got a big boost with federal COVID recovery money.

For more information about One Summer Chicago, the city has a list of frequently asked questions online.

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

Comparing Chicago’s 2023 mayoral candidates on 5 key education issues

2023-03-21T17:10:53+00:00

Chicago voters are facing a choice between two mayoral candidates with vastly different backgrounds and views on education.

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas has a long record managing urban school districts as an appointed bureaucrat. His opponent, Brandon Johnson, is a former middle school teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer.

The next mayor will be the last to have control of the school district before it transitions to being governed by an elected school board. The city’s runoff election will be held on April 4.

Here is a side-by-side breakdown on where Vallas and Johnson stand on five key education issues:

Mila Koumpilova contributed to this report.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org. Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Want to help draw Chicago’s elected school board maps? Here’s your chance.

2023-03-21T14:10:26+00:00

Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me an elected school board map for Chicago.

That’s what state lawmakers are asking the public to do using a new online mapmaking portal. The invite comes ahead of a July 1 deadline for drawing up districts for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected school board.

Starting with the November 2024 election, Chicago will begin the transition to having the country’s largest elected school board. Initially, 10 members will be elected and 11 will be appointed by the mayor. In November 2026, the appointed members will be elected. By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected, with a school board president voted on by all Chicagoans and 20 chosen by district.

According to senate Democrats, the maps submitted by the public through the portal will become public record. Also, a newly-convened Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board will hold hearings to gather input from parents, education advocates, and community groups.

“Transitioning the Chicago Board of Education from an appointed to an elected body is about empowering families with the ability to decide what is best for their children, especially Black, Latinx and minority students who are too often left behind,” Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford said in a statement. Lightford will also serve as chair of the special committee.

Chicago Public Schools is the nation’s fourth largest school district and serves roughly 322,000 students, most of them Black and Latino. It has faced more than a decade of declining enrollment that has left several schools struggling to provide a full academic experience to students. The district has subsidized those programs, but a partially elected school board will have to contend with whether to continue operating them when a moratorium on school closures ends in 2025, the same year elected members will be seated.

Chicago Public Schools currently has a $9.5 billion budget, but faces a fiscal cliff as federal COVID recovery money runs out. In recent years, the mayor and City Council have also shifted some costs to the school district. A report released last fall outlined a series of other financial entanglements it could unknot as the elected school board takes over.

The move toward an elected school board will end nearly four decades of mayoral control, which began in 1995.

The end of mayoral control has become a key issue in the current April 4 runoff election between former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson. Vallas was the district’s first CEO, serving from 1995 to 2001. Johnson became a middle school teacher in the district in 2007 and lobbied for the elected school board legislation.

Both support an elected school board, with Vallas pledging to run candidates in line with his vision for public education and Johnson supporting a board that represents the city’s diverse communities.

Clarification: This story was updated to clarify when and how Chicago’s school board will become fully elected.

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

Vallas supporters disrupt Johnson event focused on Vallas’ schools leadership

2023-03-17T00:19:35+00:00

A press conference denouncing Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas’ record running public schools devolved into a shouting match as his supporters interrupted an event for his opponent at Rainbow PUSH Coalition Thursday morning in Kenwood.

Supporters of Chicago Teachers Union organizer and county commissioner Brandon Johnson gathered ahead of the city’s April 4 runoff election to warn voters of what they called a “trail of destruction” Vallas left in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans — a narrative Vallas’ supporters said was “totally untrue.”

The dust-up underscored the stark differences between Vallas and Johnson — and highlighted a divided electorate. Both candidates are working to shore up support in majority-Black communities on the city’s South and West sides, where current Mayor Lori Lightfoot performed well in the Feb. 28 election.

Parent and activist Melissa Francis traveled to Chicago from New Orleans to share her experience navigating her hometown’s post-Katrina school system, which Vallas led from 2007 to 2011.

“Paul Vallas has never had families in his best interest,” Francis told the crowd of Johnson supporters. “Many citizens of New Orleans recognize Paul Vallas as a scammer.”

Others called Vallas “a thief and a liar” who left “a trail of destruction” in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

“He comes into our communities and pillages them and leaves,” said Gema Gaete, an activist who was part of a 19-day hunger strike in Little Village when Vallas ran Chicago Public Schools from 1995 to 2001. “We’re here to remind everybody that we don’t forget and he will be held accountable.”

As they began chanting “Vallas, Vallas, Vallas,” Johnson supporters bellowed, “We want Brandon,” in repetition.

Some Johnson supporters called Vallas backers “sellouts” and a few people got into one another’s faces. But the clash quickly ended and the Vallas supporters left the building.

On the sidewalk across the street, Vallas supporters held their own press conference to defend his education record and countered with their own experiences working with him in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

“Folks who are trying to paint him as a GOP, trying to paint him as a racist, it’s just totally untrue,” said Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County in Madison, Wisconsin.

“We weren’t being antagonists or anything like that,” said Caliph Muab-El, an organizer with the Midwest Coalition for Stopping Violence, the group that held the counter press conference in support of Vallas. “We just want to get the message across that there is a different side to this whole story that they’re painting.”

Vallas’ legacy in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans has been the longtime subject of scrutiny. Johnson and other candidates have criticized his record in Chicago for putting schools on academic probation and not paying into the teachers’ pension fund. State law at the time allowed Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration to use money earmarked for pensions to cover operating costs, as long as the fund remained healthy.

When Vallas left Chicago, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission hired him to run schools there after the state took over the public school system. He made dramatic changes, but left the system with a deficit.

Philadelphia City Councilwoman Kendra Brooks said school closures and destabilization of that city’s schools pushed her into politics.

“It was triggered by having someone as CEO come into our city, sell off properties, sell off buildings, steal money that is still unaccounted for, and walk away,” Brooks said.

Creg Williams, a former Chicago principal who was Chief of High Schools in Philadelphia under Vallas and also worked with Vallas in New Orleans, countered Brooks’ take on what happened in both cities.

“Paul did not devastate the community. The community was devastated when we arrived,” Williams said. He noted that in both Philadelphia and New Orleans, state lawmakers dictated some of the policies Vallas and other district officials put in place.

“There are stipulations in the law that you have to follow,” Williams said. “No matter what the people say, or no matter what you feel, or what you may want to do, you still have to follow those stipulations.”

In New Orleans, Vallas faced criticism over “lack of transparency, inattention to the most disadvantaged students,” according to the Times-Picayune. Ultimately, student test scores improved at schools converted into charter schools, but at district-run schools, progress was uneven, according to New Orleans magazine.

If elected mayor, Vallas said he wants to keep school buildings open on nights and weekends, push more funding down to individual schools, and support a system of choice for families. Johnson’s platform emphasizes staffing all schools with enough teachers, counselors, social workers, nurses, and librarians and bolstering youth jobs programs.

Mauricio Peña contributed to this story.

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

Were you impacted by Chicago’s 2013 school closures? Tell us your story.

2023-04-17T21:44:27+00:00

It’s been 10 years since Chicago Public Schools closed 50 schools at once.

The youngest students at those schools would now be in high school. What happened to them after their schools closed?

The promise from district officials and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the time was that students from the shuttered buildings would go to better schools with more resources. But the decision set off a mini-diaspora, with students enrolling at more than 280 different schools or leaving the city.

“The trauma that arose from the way in which those 50 schools were closed, still resonates today,” said outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose administration did not close schools due to a moratorium on school closures that was extended and is now set to end in 2025. That’s also when Chicago will begin to transition to a 21-member elected school board.

The dramatic mass school closures of 2013 marked the unofficial end of an era in which the city’s school board annually voted to shut down schools and open new ones — an approach to school reform known as a portfolio model. But enrollment has continued to decline, leaving some shrinking schools struggling to provide a full academic experience.

How school closures are handled in the future will be decided by that board and the city’s next mayor Brandon Johnson, a Cook County Commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer, who won in a runoff election with 52% of the vote.

With these seismic shifts on the horizon, Chalkbeat is looking back at the impact of the 2013 school closures and wants to hear from those impacted the most: students, staff, and families. Please share your experience using the form below.

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

Chicago mayoral election 2023: How Johnson, Vallas answered 10 important education questions

2023-03-01T18:23:38+00:00

Chicago voters will head to the polls once again on April 4 to vote for a new mayor, choosing between two candidates who are vastly different when it comes to public education.

Brandon Johnson is an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and Paul Vallas is the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Both are Democrats, but their views vary widely on everything from school choice to measuring academic performance to how campuses are funded.

Whoever wins will take office in late May and will get to appoint a school district CEO and seven school board members to oversee the nation’s fourth largest school district, its $9.5 billion budget, 635 schools, and the education of 322,000 children. They will also be the last mayor to have control of Chicago Public Schools before the district transitions to being governed by an elected school board.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked candidates 10 important questions about the city’s public schools in January — some of which came directly from our readers. Explore Johnson and Vallas’ answers below.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?
What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?
The Chicago Board of Education will expand from 7 appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?
The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?
Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?
What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?
The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?
During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?
Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?
Describe a high quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high quality school?

Chicago voters will now pick between former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas (left) and Cook County Commissioner and teachers union organizer Brandon Johnson (right) in the mayoral runoff election on April 4.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?

JOHNSON: If you recall, that decade began in 2013 with the greatest closure of Black and Latinx schools in Chicago’s history. If we can build sustainable community schools alongside quality affordable housing, we will reverse the trend. We must also tackle the violence epidemic with more holistic measures that provide resources and trauma intervention for students and families.

Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot have both presided over precipitous declines in pre-kindergarten enrollment. This is not simply a result of demographic change, but the district moving to an online, centralized application process for preschool that is elitist and prejudiced against families with little access to technology. Enrollment also decreases due to poor program design. This is also evident in a number of special education crises – from State monitor to transportation – over the last 10 years.

Schools communities need direct investment, guarantees of staffing and program offerings. Every school should have a library and librarian, adequate clinicians and counselors, thriving arts offerings and sports programs and teams. And the mayor of Chicago has an obligation to be actively fighting in partnership for the revenue required to fulfill those basic needs for every school in the city, not just some.

VALLAS: Making the schools more attractive to parents by allowing for schools to take on specialties as well as bring back the work study program for high school students. We must also make our schools safe, so students feel comfortable in their learning environment. We must also have the dollars make it down to the school level, right now only 60% of the budget makes it to the schools. In my career I have worked to make education meaningful to students allowing a greater trust in the system by not only the students but also their parents. I would also expand the alternative schools network to provide for the educational needs for high school students too old for the traditional high school program.

Reader question. What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?

JOHNSON: Let’s remember that students and families are still struggling with the pandemic, and there is much trauma and recovery that must occur – especially among Black and Brown students and families who make up the majority of CPS students (like my own).

First, we must address the trauma that existed pre-pandemic, and acknowledge that COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated conditions around cleanliness, bilingual education, access to technology, special education services and more, that city leaders left unaddressed for decades. Asking a student to catch up on math when they are still recovering from the death of a loved one, or a classmate, is inhumane.

Students and families must have trauma support, such as weekly cognitive behavioral therapy, and students need summer jobs and engaging programming. Support student and staff mental health by infusing schools with mental health professionals like counselors and clinicians so that unaddressed trauma is acknowledged, and treated, and learning is more of the focus from day to day. Teachers and staff need adequate time and professional development to help address student needs. And educators need to be empowered with planning time to reinvigorate curriculum and work with students to ensure instructional practices and pedagogy meet students’ needs and interests.

VALLAS: The loss of learning due to the COVID pandemic has been unprecedented. We must work to ensure that our children catch up and can be competitive in their future. In order to meet the gap our children are facing I will open all school buildings through the dinner hour, weekends and summers. We need to invite community organizations to provide enrichment to students in the CPS during these off hours as well as invite retired CPS Teachers to provide tutoring and academic support to the students.

The Chicago Board of Education will expand from seven appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?

JOHNSON: I support a map that ensures all communities in this tremendously diverse city have the opportunity to have their voices heard. This is why I worked so closely with Illinois Senate President Don Harmon and community organizations on the legislation to create this vibrant model of democracy for the first time ever in the history of Chicago Public Schools.

We need campaign finance rules to prevent those with no stake in our public schools, or our communities, from controlling our democracy. We cannot have uber rich, arch-conservatives usurping the power that working people in Chicago fought so hard to win. We need candidates who are deeply invested and knowledgeable from the communities served to have a fair chance to win races to influence the education of their children.

Democratic governance requires partnership. The city doesn’t absolve itself of any responsibility to schools just because there are democratically elected school community leaders sitting at the Board of Education. As mayor, I will continue to fight for resources in our schools, and maintain and build upon the coordinated support and services that the city has to offer children and families.

VALLAS: Like I have done all my career I will work with the elected board of education with the respect that is due to them as an equally elected official that is representing the needs of the community that elected them. In all CPS work I will put the needs of the students first and advocated with the board for any necessary resources. Before this board takes office it is important that they do not inherit a broken system, I will push the dollars to the school level and ensure that schools have the resources they need.

Reader question. The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?

JOHNSON: We need a mayor who can reasonably work with labor. We cannot have the type of leader who will promise something like, say, an elected representative school board and then fight tooth and nail to stop it from being enacted. We cannot have a mayor who, on the campaign trail, calls for a nurse and social worker in every school, then puts teachers on strike for two weeks when they ask for exactly that in writing. We cannot have a mayor who grants expanded parental leave to city workers, but blocks educators from receiving the same.

Just a shift in consistency and keeping one’s word will more than allow for a much more rational and collaborative process.

As mayor, I will be a partner in working with Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union to remove obstacles in the way of achieving excellent schools, rather than contributing to constant friction. The stakes are too high for our students and families for labor and leadership not to have a positive working relationship. And I will openly advocate and build coalitions to identify revenue sources and structures that, over time, will deliver the fully funded schools that families and communities deserve.

VALLAS: The previous CTU strike could have been avoided and we see the cost of that strike in the already exacerbated loss of learning from the pandemic. Over the course of my career I have negotiated 6 teacher contracts with teachers unions in the largest district in 4 different states that led to no strikes and members getting a pay raise. If all parties work in good faith there should be no need for a teacher strike this year which only leads to a greater negative impact of the education on Chicago’s children who are already struggling to regain confidence in the classroom.

Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?

JOHNSON: We cannot continue to punish schools that have suffered from decades of divestment, violence and destabilization. When a school struggles, we often give them more accountability, yet fewer resources. So any school rating formula must bring greater equity, and greater support, to ensure greater success.

Chicago Public Schools does not need its own rating structure, as the state still has and requires one. CPS’ time is better spent identifying sources of revenue to fill the gaps identified in programs, staffing, and services that we know hold schools back from meeting student needs and increasing enrollment. I live in Austin. My wife and I drive two children to Portage Park and another to Hyde Park every day because there are few schools in our community to meet their extracurricular needs. Families should not have to leave their community to find a school with a music program, a sports program, a nurse in every school, or a library with a librarian. We have to use what we already know about the strengths, weaknesses, and assets in our schools to ensure that we are directing resources to where they are needed to make every school excellent.

VALLAS: We should aspire for high standards, we cannot embrace the bigotry of soft expectations. We must set high standards, we have to measure school’s base on their improvement as a school. We must take every school uniquely and see their growth from where they were to where they are.

Reader question. What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?

JOHNSON: Student-based budgeting (SBB) and the former SQRP rating policy have had a devastating impact on our schools. SBB, in particular, has contributed to principals whose budgets are strapped to choose between keeping a veteran teacher or having a librarian and a functioning library. Schools struggling with enrollment need to have a process by which root causes are identified and resources are deployed to ensure students still have the richest possible education, and the school has an opportunity to grow its enrollment.

The state, in its evidence-based funding model, has recognized that student and community needs must drive school funding, and that all districts must be brought up to a certain level of resources to meet those needs. Yet CPS has not adopted that approach among its schools. We cannot keep supporting a system that favors choice, but does not provide schools with the same baseline resources and offerings – then punishes students who attend the less frequently chosen school.

VALLAS: The first priority is to push the funding down to the schools. We have to have the majority of the funding flow down to the local schools as of right now only 60% of the funds makes it to the local schools. My second priority is to make sure that the money that is allocated to the students encompasses the needs of the student, we need to make sure the school district is allocating Title I money directly to the school it is assigned too. This money needs to flow directly to the school with only minimal diversions because unfortunately funding due to poverty has been used as discretionary funds by the administration.

Reader question. The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?

JOHNSON: I do not, because this is the kind of thinking that continues to reinforce unequal educational opportunities. Until every Chicago public school and big-city public school has the baseline of resources provided in suburban districts with high property tax bases, the idea of “choice” is a fallacy.

Parents with resources are able to navigate the system for their students, which I don’t begrudge. What is concerning is that families without the means, time, resources, and access to navigating these same systems have no choice at all.

I am not interested in continuing to shift unequal resources around. I am interested in leveling the playing field for all families.

VALLAS: The tax credit scholarship program is beneficial in empowering parents to pick the school that best suits their child’s needs. Whether the students attend private, parochial, public or public charter schools they are students of the City and we need to ensure quality education regardless of their zip code.

During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?

JOHNSON: Teachers in Seattle last fall ratified a contract with a three adult (two teachers, one instructional assistant) to 10 student ratio to help address the needs of their special education population. Chicago must work toward something similar to address compensatory services and the particular needs of this incredibly vulnerable student population. We also need greater clinical support to properly diagnose and service the individualized education programs of these students. This includes the need to ramp up pipelines with state and local funding to hire many more teachers, special education classroom assistants, and teacher assistants to address the accumulated needs of students living with disabilities.

VALLAS: Students with disabilities are a priority even much more so after the loss of learning experienced due to the pandemic. The key to supporting these students is the availability of resources at the local school level. My administration will reallocate dollars in a way that the schools see the most benefit and allow principals to support all the students in their neighborhood schools.

Reader question. Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?

JOHNSON: We need to do much better to train Chicagoans to fill the jobs that exist today. Businesses are hiring and manufacturers are hiring. There may be somewhere around 30,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs across the state, and a good number of them are here in Chicago. But we’ve abandoned vocational training in our schools. Modern manufacturing jobs require tech skills, and it is our job to give our students the skills necessary to succeed. So I am all for trade and vocational education, commonly known as Career and Technical Education (CTE), in Chicago Public Schools. CTE is essential to closing the gap between our district, and skilled trade industries and employers.

There is potential in some of the plans the district and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez have around this. With an aviator simulator in Dunbar, and making Tilden, Phillips, Chicago Vocational, and Fenger sustainable community schools with specialized and relevant trades training, we will have education and apprenticeship pipelines to create the skills and engagement necessary for a CTE corridor that will empower our Black and Latinx students to become the next generation of unionized trade workers.

VALLAS: Yes I support trade and vocational education. However I believe on a broader scale that we need to integrate a work study program into all of our high schools and make elective programs more meaningful. We need to reestablish our VocEd and occupational training programs that were in our high schools during my time at the CPS. My administration will do this by partnering with local trade unions and businesses in our city. We have to leverage these connections in ways that attract our students to take interest in these programs that offer amazing opportunities for success after high school.

Describe a high-quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high-quality school?

JOHNSON: We have a model that works – the Sustainable Community School (SCS) model, which calls for collaborative and effective strategy for increasing educational equity. SCS builds on the traditional community school model to prioritize specific pillars and principles to make schools the anchors of their communities, and to share leadership around meeting student, family, educator, staff, and community needs.

We also have schools that have parent mentors, community programming, and partnerships to provide additional support for mental and physical health across the district. Neighborhood schools like Kelly High, National Teachers Academy, Hanson Park Elementary (despite a horrendous facility situation), Chavez Elementary, Beidler Elementary are all vibrant school communities using culturally relevant curriculum and community partnerships to advance the academic and social/emotional needs of countless children. However, we need to do more and better. That will require greater investments in addressing the needs of homeless children, students with disabilities and all the newcomers who do not speak English as their primary language. It also cannot continue to be the case that selective enrollment schools, which provide students with the most extensive course offerings, extracurriculars and sports opportunities, serve only the wealthiest students in the system.

VALLAS: A high quality is a medium sized neighborhood school that embraces high standards and offers the students a high quality curriculum that ensures students achieve a high level of proficiency in all core areas. The ideal quality school offers key enrichment opportunities in the academic year as well as continuing into the non-traditional school hours (weekends, evenings, summers and holidays) to support students in their growth. My ideal quality school offers key wrap-around services for students to ensure they are holistically growing. This school also needs a well trained and supported local school council that broadly represents the community and can provide a vehicle for community input in school governance and supplemental activities.

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

Chicago 2023 mayoral election: Former schools chief, teachers union organizer headed to runoff

2023-03-01T04:20:55+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free Chicago newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and state education policy.

Chicago’s next mayor will either be former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas or Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson. In a stunning upset, the two defeated incumbent Lori Lightfoot and are headed for a runoff on April 4 because neither secured more than 50% of the vote.

Lightfoot called both Vallas and Johnson to congratulate them, she said in a concession speech just before 9 p.m.

“I will be rooting and praying for our next mayor to deliver for the people of the city for years to come,” said Lightfoot.

Vallas led the field of nine candidates with 34% of the vote, according to unofficial preliminary results posted by the Chicago Board of Elections Tuesday night. Johnson secured the second spot with just over 20% of the vote while Lightfoot trailed at 17% as results rolled in.

Shortly before 9 p.m., Vallas gave an impassioned speech in which he congratulated Lightfoot and thanked his supporters, saying it was because of them that he secured a spot in the April run off.

“I want to thank the voters of Chicago for making this campaign about the issues and nothing but the issues,” Vallas said.

In a speech at 9:30 p.m., Johnson said people didn’t know who he was a few months ago. “If you didn’t know, now you know,” he said, before thanking his wife and the “workers of this city.”

Lightfoot made history in 2019 when she became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to be elected Chicago mayor.

“Four years ago, I looked into the camera and spoke directly to young people of color who looked like me and to every kid who felt like I did when I grew up,” Lightfoot said. “I’m going to do that again tonight. I told you back then that anything is possible with hard work. And I want you to know that no matter what happens along the way you should always believe that because it’s true.”

With 98% of precincts reporting as of 10 p.m., U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” García had just under 14% of the vote, businessman Willie Wilson had received 9%, and the remaining candidates each had less than 3% of the vote, according to unofficial results.

Though crime and safety eclipsed education as a top priority for voters this cycle, the candidates’ ties to education run deep. The winner of this election will also be the last Chicago mayor to have control of the city’s public schools — as the shift to an elected school board begins with 10 of 21 members elected in 2024.

As an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson advocated for an elected school board. In 2018, he was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Johnson taught at Jenner Academy and Westinghouse College Prep before moving into a union organizing role. His education platform promises more staff and free transit for students.

Vallas led Chicago Public Schools from 1995 until 2001 as the district’s first CEO under mayoral control. He later managed the public schools in Philadelphia, post-Katrina New Orleans, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, experience he touted Tuesday night.

“I’ve had success because I’ve always had the good sense to listen to the community, to empower the community and draw my leadership from the community,” Vallas said.

During his speech, Vallas also said schools needed to be part of addressing public safety, noting his platform promises to open school buildings on nights and weekends.

His complicated legacy has served as fodder for opponents who argue Vallas would be a “disaster” as mayor. But supporters have said Vallas’ reputation as a reformer is what Chicago needs. His education plan promises to expand school choice and open school buildings on nights and weekends.

In his speech, Johnson thanked his supporters and his wife, saying he “was so freakin’ proud.” Surrounded by supporters including Ald. Pat Dowell and Ald. Matt Martin, Johnson also thanked his union backers in the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU, and United Working Families.

“We get to turn the page of the politics of old,” Johnson said.

He said people deserved fully resourced public schools. “Every single child in the city gets to have their needs met,” Johnson said.

During his speech, Johnson attacked Vallas’ education record, saying “he has literally failed everywhere he has gone.”

The unofficial early results include more than 240,000 ballots cast during early voting and those returned by mail as of Monday night. When the polls closed, 507,852 total ballots had been cast, which is roughly 32% of all registered voters, according to Max Bever, spokesperson for the city’s Board of Elections.

Earlier Tuesday, election officials said more than 100,000 mail-in ballots had yet to arrive at the Chicago Board of Elections to be counted. Bever said election officials have until March 14 to “collect and count all stragglers.”

Early and mail-in voting rates surpassed previous years, while overall turnout lagged on election day.

In recent weeks, polls had indicated a four-way toss-up between Lightfoot, García, Johnson, and Vallas. Other candidates include State Rep. Kam Buckner, activist Ja’Mal Green, Ald. Sophia King, Ald. Roderick Sawyer, and Wilson.

In a concession speech shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday night, Buckner said the city couldn’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. “We need to invest in students and not undermine our neighborhood schools,” Buckner said.

Buckner was the first candidate to release an education platform, which called for funding schools based on need not enrollment. As a state legislator, Buckner co-sponsored the bill creating an elected school board. He is also a graduate of Morgan Park High School on the far South Side.

Lightfoot did not make education a central part of her 2019 campaign, but much of her time in office has been characterized by conflict with the Chicago Teachers Union and pandemic school closures that have impacted learning and student mental health.

Tuesday night, she said she was proud of her administration’s work making “record investments in our public schools, adding school social workers, nurses, and special education case managers” and their efforts to “connect youth to mental health services, housing, education, job training, and legal services.”

Though he appeared to finish fourth on Tuesday, García famously took former Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff in 2015, with the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union. But this time around, he relied on other unions for support as the teachers union backed Johnson’s bid for mayor. In announcing his late entry to the race last November, Garcia, a Democrat who represents Illinois’ 4th congressional district, said it was time for the city to “double down” on education. “Your ZIP code, race, and socioeconomic status should not determine your future,” he said.

Green called for universal preschool for 3-year-olds as part of his sweeping $5 billion public safety plan on the campaign trail. His plan also called for creating 10,000 apprenticeships for Chicagoans ages 13 to 25. “I’m a father who loves Chicago and I want a better future for my kids and yours,” Green said earlier this year.

King, who represents the 4th Ward which spans the South Side, serves as the vice chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development. She recently tried to push Chicago Public Schools officials to appear quarterly before aldermen or risk losing city money that supports school construction projects, but the measure failed. King helped found Ariel Community Academy, a public school created in 1996 under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley in partnership with Ariel Investments.

Sawyer, who has served as an alderman on the South Side for over a decade, sponsored a proposal in 2020 to remove Chicago police from public schools, but it was thwarted by one of Lightfoot’s allies and did not pass. His father became mayor in 1987 after the death of the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington. Sawyer served on the local school council at McDade Classical School, a public selective enrollment school.

Wilson, a high-profile businessman, has focused on rebuilding from the pandemic through “educational grants, trade and business recovery.” He promised to bolster vocational programs in high schools — a move already being undertaken by the district.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Lori Lightfoot could be the last mayor to control Chicago Public Schools. How has she done?

2023-02-16T20:55:50+00:00

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stood on a freshly-installed rubber wood floor in the gymnasium of the new Belmont-Cragin Elementary and delivered a long list of “thank-you’s” from behind a podium emblazoned with the seal of the City of Chicago.

“I can still smell the freshness and newness of this building,” Lightfoot said before using oversized scissors to cut a blue fabric ribbon at the Jan. 17 opening of the new $44 million school, a project set in motion by her predecessor Rahm Emanuel.

It is one of dozens of ribbon cuttings the incumbent mayor is doing in the weeks before the Feb. 28 election in which voters decide if she gets a second term. Lightfoot is facing eight challengers, some with strong ties to the city’s public schools, including former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and former teacher and current teachers union organizer Brandon Johnson.

“Our job is to come, like the calvary, to the rescue with those resources so we can help you fulfill your dreams and aspirations,” Lightfoot said at the Belmont-Cragin ribbon-cutting, where she was flanked by students, teachers, and other politicians. “This new building is absolutely what that is about.”

Since 1995, Chicago’s mayor has had control over the city’s public schools — deciding where and when to construct or repair school facilities, appointing school board members and a CEO, and negotiating contracts with the teachers union.

Lightfoot could be the last mayor — or one of the last — to wield this kind of power over education in Chicago as the city begins to transition to an elected school board in 2024.

“This is a pivotal or critical time for schools,” said Dick Simpson, a longtime observer and fixture in Chicago politics and retired professor of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago. “It’s also a critical time overall in Chicago’s history.”

Unlike her predecessors, Lightfoot did not come into office four years ago promising big changes at Chicago Public Schools. She kept existing leadership in place and continued implementing outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan for universal pre-K for 4-year-olds. The one promise Lightfoot did make – to support an elected school board – shifted once she was in office.

Ald. Scott Waguespack, an ally of the mayor, said Lightfoot deserves credit for leading the school system through a once in a generation pandemic.

“Navigating that was something that was done partially on the fly, but also had a good set of directives that we had to stick to to make sure that the institutions survived, including CPS,” Waguespack said.

But what has Lightfoot done so far when it comes to education and what will she do with another four years?

Lightfoot prioritizes city money for school facilities

Deciding when and where to build new or repair old schools has been a core role of Chicago mayors, past and present.

Richard M. Daley’s Modern Schools Across Chicago program spent $1 billion to build 17 new facilities and renovate two others, mostly on the South and West Sides. Lightfoot’s predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, built new annexes in overcrowded areas where students tended to be more affluent and more white than CPS as a whole. He also closed 50 schools and mothballed or sold off the facilities in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods, before implementing a property tax levy in 2017 to bankroll new school construction.

The newly-constructed $44 million Belmont-Cragin Elementary at 6112 W. Fullerton Ave. sits next door to the Riis Park Fieldhouse on Chicago’s Northwest side. The project was set in motion by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and completed under Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Lightfoot harnessed city funding for school projects, but focused spending on fixing up existing facilities, repairing aging roofs, and boilers.

“We’re picking off these projects that are long overdue all over the city,” Lightfoot said. “Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez is very committed to making sure that we really invest in the infrastructure, not just band aids and trying to patch things up.”

Waguespack, who is also chairman of the City Council’s powerful Committee on Finance, said the mayor wanted to focus more money from special taxing districts known as tax-increment-financing — or TIF — districts on public schools and public parks.

A Chalkbeat analysis of finance committee records shows roughly $215.8 million in TIF money was allocated to school construction projects between when Lightfoot took office in May 2019 and today. Roughly $128.5 million was allocated between May 2015 and May 2019. Many of the projects tackled in the past four years were for long-deferred maintenance, not new construction.

In response to a Chalkbeat Chicago candidate questionnaire, Lightfoot also touted “$600 million in investments for facility improvements at neighborhood schools” in Chicago Public Schools’ 2023 budget.

A review of Chicago Public Schools’ capital plan does show larger portions of the district’s construction budget coming from “outside funding sources,” which is primarily city TIF money and state grants. However, the capital budget has declined in the last four years.

Years ago, community advocates fought to have more say over school construction decisions in Chicago, even passing a state law that created a now-dormant task force to oversee and guide school facilities planning. The city is currently under moratorium on closing schools, which will lift in 2025.

Disagreements over school construction projects have heated up recently around a plan supported by Lightfoot to build a $150 million new high school on the Near South Side, even as the district continues to lose enrollment and grapple with severely underenrolled high schools, including those that currently serve students in the area and sit just south of the site where the new school is to be built.

In an interview with Chalkbeat Chicago, Lightfoot said she sees investments in school facilities as investments in the city as a whole.

“They’ve got to be done in coordination,” Lightfoot said of the city and the school district. “They’ve got to work hand in glove and that’s really what we’ve been trying to do.”

Clashes with the Chicago Teachers Union disrupt learning

By now, it’s no secret: the mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union are anything but allies. From an 11-day teachers strike in 2019 and a delayed return to schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 to five days of canceled classes at the height of the omicron surge in 2022, the relationship has been on a tightrope made worse with every labor strife and a war of words.

Robert Bruno, a labor education professor at University of Illinois, described Lightfoot and CTU’s relationship as “very, very hostile,” and “difficult and strained.”

The deep level of distrust between the mayor and the teachers union is not without consequences.

The fraught relationship between Lightfoot and the union may even have complicated the district’s response to COVID and the return to in-person learning.

Chicago students stayed with remote learning longer than many other cities and states. Data released last fall showed the city’s math and reading scores on the “Nation’s Report Card” fell to what they were about a decade ago.

At the time, Lightfoot argued that a return to in-person learning would curb the adverse impact of remote learning, but the union said remote learning would protect students, their families, and teachers from severe illness and death. The push to return, the union argued, was tied to pressure from the business community.

Bruno said the mayor views the teachers union as a political body with the goal of undermining her leadership, and the union believes she’s “too beholden to corporate interest and not someone who has the best interest” of the school district’s large low-income working class and multi-ethnic population.

But the mayor’s difficult relationship with the teachers union pre-dates the pandemic. The CTU supported Lightfoot’s opponent in 2019 and when she stepped into office in May 2019, the political newcomer fresh off a landslide victory found herself in contract negotiations that dramatically fizzled out, leading to an 11-day strike in October.

Despite the acrimony, the teachers union secured $1.5 billion worth of concessions from the Lightfoot administration in a five-year contract that included raises for educators and support staff, hundreds of new staff positions, and $35 million annually to help reduce overcrowding in some schools.

Five months later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools once again. Students didn’t return in-person until a year later — after an impasse over safety protocols, a threat to lock out teachers from remote platforms, and finally an agreement that made way for a hybrid model with staggered reopening starting in March 2021. But the following school year was again disrupted after holiday break, leaving parents frustrated and teachers feeling deflated.

These four years are going to be remembered as “dysfunctional,” Bruno said. “She obviously has to take some responsibility for that.”

Chicago teachers picket downtown in May 2022. Lightfoot’s conflicts with the Chicago Teachers Union characterized much of her first term.

Moving forward the person who wins the mayoral election will need “to pick up the pieces of that relationship” with the union, Bruno said.

Turning things around would not be unprecedented. Rahm Emanuel famously clashed with the teachers union early in his first term, prompting the first strike in 25 years. He reportedly used an expletive in a meeting with former CTU President Karen Lewis. But years later, she admitted their tensions had softened. After Lewis died, Emanuel told the Sun-Times that the two had even attended the ballet together.

Responding to the Chalkbeat candidate questionnaire regarding the acrimonious relationship and upcoming contract negotiations, Lightfoot wrote that regardless of their “previous differences,” her team was committed to ensuring Chicago teachers were among the “best compensated in the nation and have the resources and support they need to educate the next generation of Chicagoans.”

“Our children deserve no less,” she wrote.

Lightfoot changes tune on elected school board

While campaigning for mayor in 2019, Lightfoot supported a fully elected school board, saying parents deserved a seat at the table. Elected members should be parents with “skin in the game,” she told WBEZ at the time, and suggested requirements such as first serving on local school councils.

Lightfoot’s first appointees included a group with deep experience in education, including parents who previously served on local school councils, teachers, principals, and community advocates — a departure from her predecessors whose selections were often described as a “rubber stamp” by critics.

Lightfoot told WBEZ in 2019 there would need to be thoughtful discussions on the number of board members, criteria, and how elections for these seats were financed.

But Lightfoot’s support for a fully elected school board dwindled and she instead called for a hybrid model. As legislation moved through Springfield, the mayor criticized the bill, arguing that special interests would pour millions of dollars into the races as had happened in Los Angeles.

She also criticized the 21-seat board as a “recipe for disaster.” Nevertheless, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the approved bill in June 2021, setting the stage for a phased-in elected school board starting in 2025. Next year, the mayor will appoint 11 seats and 10 will be elected. Another election, in 2026, would elect the 11 appointed seats, resulting in a fully elected board by 2027.

Responding to a Chalkbeat election questionnaire, Lightfoot vowed to work with Pritzker to improve the existing law to “establish clarity and ensure that our schools, teachers, and students receive the representation and resources they deserve.” She added that non-citizens, in particular, should be allowed to serve on the school board.

“Non-citizens are a significant part of CPS communities as parents, Local School Council members, and elsewhere,” Lightfoot said. “In a welcoming city, it is unconscionable that Springfield banned non-citizens from serving on the elected school board.”

Her office has created a team focused on education and human services that will work in partnership with the new school board on shared priorities, she said.

The mayor’s record on education will be an important marker in this election, Bruno said.

“As long as mayors have control over the city schools,” he said, “then it’s going to be a big determinant, I think, of how people judge their record while in office.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

Mayoral hopeful Brandon Johnson promises students free transit, more staff

2023-02-08T23:19:30+00:00

Chicago Teachers Union organizer and former teacher Brandon Johnson released his formal education platform today — one of a few candidates for Chicago mayor to do so with only a few weeks left before the municipal election.

Johnson, a current Cook County commissioner, unveiled his vision for Chicago Public Schools Wednesday afternoon at a City Club of Chicago luncheon. His plan includes free bus and train rides for students on the Chicago Transit Authority, expanding opportunities for students through partnerships with City Colleges and trade schools, and having under-enrolled schools share space with child care and health clinics.

Johnson’s vision draws on the union’s decade-long push to tackle broader issues such as affordable housing and gun violence.

“Educating the whole child means dealing with the root causes,” Johnson said. “And all of the root causes are directly tied to the failures of political insiders and politicians who refuse to actually see people and recognize that poverty is one of the most isolating, awful, excruciating experiences that one could ever live through.”

His platform also calls for the overhaul of the district’s funding model, investments in bilingual educators and clinicians to better serve migrant and vulnerable students, and making school buildings greener and ADA accessible.

Mayoral opponent Kam Buckner, whose platform was released last fall, also called for an overhaul of the district’s funding model. He emphasized the need to fund schools based on need, not enrollment. Former district CEO Paul Vallas released his mayoral education vision last week. Vallas’ plan calls for school buildings to stay open on nights and weekends. He is also pushing for more school choice and wants to add more high school work study programs. Chicago Public Schools currently offers work study programs known as cooperative education.

In an email statement, Buckner said it was “good to see the field of candidates finally” presenting education plans in the last three weeks of the race.

“Chicago needs a new vision, which is why I’ve been having these serious conversations across the city for months,” Buckner said.

Johnson’s platform calls for many of the same things outlined in the union’s latest policy paper released last fall. That document was the third version of a document titled “The Schools Chicago Students Deserve” released by the union in 2012.

Johnson got into the race in late October with CTU’s backing. The union’s governing body voted a month prior to endorse him, even though he hadn’t made an announcement. The Chicago Teachers Union has donated over $764,000 to his campaign, according to Illinois’ Sunshine database.

Johnson took a moment during his speech to honor former CTU president Karen Lewis, who died three years ago yesterday after a years-long struggle with brain cancer. Lewis’s late 2014 diagnosis came as she was mulling a run for mayor against incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Sidelined by her illness, Lewis convinced Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia, then a Cook County Commissioner, to challenge Emanuel instead. Garcia took Emanuel into a runoff, but lost with 44% of the vote.

Garcia, now a congressman, is also running for mayor this year. A recent WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times poll puts Garcia in a dead heat with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas. Johnson trails in fifth place.

Lightfoot has not released a specific education plan, but much of her first term has been characterized by conflict with the CTU. Shortly after taking office in 2019, teachers went on an 11-day strike that garnered national attention.

Then the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic disrupted schools, and concerns over in-school safety mitigation led to persistent clashes between Lightfoot and the union. Like Lightfoot, Johnson held elected office for a short time. He became a Cook County commissioner serving the city’s West Side in 2018. He has been an organizer for the CTU since 2011 and helped organize the 2012 strike, according to his campaign website.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

If elected Chicago mayor, Paul Vallas promises to open schools on nights and weekends, expand choice

2023-02-03T13:35:00+00:00

Paul Vallas is reaching back to his tenure as Chicago Public Schools CEO in his bid to become Chicago’s next mayor.

The former district leader put out an education platform Thursday that promises to keep school buildings open on nights and weekends, put alternative high schools into empty or underenrolled buildings, and create more charter and magnet schools. He also said he would work to elect school board members in line with his agenda.

Until now, Vallas has largely focused on crime and safety on the campaign trail, not education. Even as he unveiled his plan for the city’s schools, he began by talking about homicide rates.

“Our schools can become sanctuaries for our kids – a place for them to go where they can be safe and secure and where they and their families can access the additional resources they need,” Vallas said, noting that outside community groups and the park district could run programs during non-school hours.

If elected, Vallas would be the last mayor with control of the city’s public school system — bookending an era he ushered in as the first CPS CEO, a role he held from 1995 to 2001.

Chicago begins its transition to an elected school board next year, with 10 elected in fall 2024 and 11 appointed by the mayor. By 2027, the mayor will no longer appoint any of the 21 school board members. Vallas vowed to “aggressively” support candidates who agree with his vision for the public schools.

“You can either complain that the school board is elected or you can get into the game and you can work to run candidates for the school board that you think are going to support your agenda,” he said.

That agenda harkens back to policies Vallas implemented in the past that have fallen out of favor in recent years — like expanding charter schools, funding schools based on enrollment, and holding students back if they don’t meet academic standards.

As schools chief, Vallas implemented an accountability system that placed schools with low test scores on probation — a label that in some cases eventually led to the schools’ closure or the entire staff being fired. He also ended the practice of “social promotion,” which allows kids of a certain age to move to the next grade regardless of whether they passed their classes or met standards.

“Promoting kids (to) high school, when they’re reading at the seventh or eighth grade reading level is just catastrophic, and it’s going to have catastrophic consequences,” Vallas said.

Last month, the Chicago Board of Education overhauled the district’s longstanding promotion policy, eliminating the use of test scores as a factor in holding students back and once again, allowing students to move to the next grade even if they fall short of meeting academic requirements.

Other candidates have criticized Vallas for helping create financial problems for the school district.

It was during Vallas’ tenure that Chicago Public Schools stopped making regular payments into the teachers’ pension fund. According to Politifact, the same state law that gave Mayor Richard M. Daley control of the schools also changed the tax levy that directly funded the pension system, allowing Daley and Vallas to use money once earmarked for pensions to help cover operating costs.

All of the pension funds for government workers in Chicago — teachers, policemen, and firefighters — are underfunded and require hundreds of millions of dollars in payments annually in order to meet their obligations to retirees.

When Vallas was CEO, Chicago Public Schools also enrolled over 430,000 students. That’s at least 100,000 more than it does now. The city’s school-age population has dropped at roughly the same rate. Declining enrollment is felt most acutely at some of the city’s shrinking neighborhood high schools, many of which get additional funding so they can offer a full course load.

The school board is not allowed to close schools until 2025 and most candidates have said they won’t close schools or would only do so as a last resort.

Vallas said he wants to expand work study programs for high schoolers and open “Adult High Schools” inside underenrolled or empty schools to serve people over 18 without a high school diploma. During his time as CEO, Vallas expanded alternative schools through the Youth Connection Charter School network.

After leaving Chicago, Vallas led school systems in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Bridgeport, Conn.

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission hired him in Philadelphia after the state took over the public school system. He made dramatic changes, but left the system with a deficit.

In New Orleans, Vallas closed neighborhood schools while charter schools reopened in their place. He faced criticism over “lack of transparency, inattention to the most disadvantaged students,” according to the Times-Picayune. But former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and other experts lauded his efforts as a model for school reform. Under Vallas, student test scores improved at schools converted into charter schools, but at district-run schools, progress was uneven, according to New Orleans magazine.

In Bridgeport, he was “both hailed as savior and demonized as an arrogant, inflexible dictator,” according to the Connecticut Post. Vallas left that position to run for Lt. Governor in Illinois and amid a controversy over whether he had the credentials required to run a school system in that state.

Vallas also built a career as an education consultant — moving between the public and private sectors. While still superintendent in New Orleans, his consulting group worked on contract in hurricane-ravaged Haiti and turned around schools in Chile after a 2010 earthquake.

The Vallas Group got a $1 million contract in 2012 from the Illinois State Board of Education to help with school turnaround efforts in the suburb of North Chicago and East St. Louis.

Mayoral candidate and state Rep. Kam Buckner called Vallas an “opportunist collecting titles.” Cook County Commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson, who is also running for mayor, criticized Vallas for “firing hundreds of Black teachers and school staff.”

“As mayor, Vallas would be laughable at best, and unmitigated disaster at worst – especially for Black and Brown educators and families,” Johnson said in a statement.

In a statement, mayoral candidate and U.S. Congressman Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia blasted Vallas’ record on education.

“His entire career he has gone from city to city ruining the school systems that children and families depend on, while he made hundreds of thousands of dollars and gave questionable contracts to politically connected firms,” Garcia said.

Vallas defended his record saying it “speaks for itself” and called criticism from other candidates “a sign of desperation.”

This story has been updated to clarify why Vallas left his position as Superintendent of Bridgeport Public Schools.

Mauricio Peña contributed reporting.

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

Where do the candidates for Chicago mayor stand on education? We asked them 10 questions.

2023-01-26T22:36:19+00:00

Chicago voters will head to the polls Feb. 28 to vote for a new mayor. There are nine candidates on the ballot and if nobody gets more than 50%, the top two will head to a runoff on April 4. The winner will be the last mayor to have control of Chicago Public Schools before the district transitions to being governed by an elected school board.

Once elected, the new or returning mayor will appoint a school district CEO and seven school board members to oversee the nation’s fourth largest school district, its $9.5 billion budget, 635 schools, and the education of 322,000 children.

All nine candidates come to the race with varying experience in education. To better understand how each one would tackle the challenges facing Chicago Public Schools, Chalkbeat asked each candidate the same ten questions — some of which came directly from our readers.

Readers can find the candidates’ answers using the interactive feature below.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

Lightfoot campaign facing scrutiny for emailing teachers to recruit student volunteers

2023-01-12T15:05:03+00:00

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign asked public school teachers to recruit student volunteers to “help Mayor Lightfoot win this spring,” a possible violation of the district’s code of ethics.

According to the Chicago Teachers Union, a Lightfoot campaign staffer sent an email to teachers on their work emails ending in cps.edu asking them tell students the campaign is “looking for enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people” to volunteer 12 hours per week and said students would be “eligible to earn class credit.”

It’s not clear how many teachers received the email.

Guidance on political activity issued by the school district last April said campaigns “should not be using the CPS email system to solicit volunteers and donations” and asked staff to report that behavior to the school board’s ethics adviser.

In a statement, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Mary Fergus said the district “does not coordinate with any political candidates or campaigns. It has not done so to date and will not be doing so.”

A Lightfoot campaign spokesperson initially issued a statement characterizing its efforts to involve young people as a “common practice that has been utilized in city, state, and federal level campaigns for decades.”

Later, the campaign issued another statement saying its staff has been alerted that a “solid wall must exist between campaign and official activities.” The statement said contacting “city of Chicago, or other sister agency employees, including CPS employees, even through publicly available sources is off limits. Period.”

Lightfoot’s challengers swiftly condemned the move shortly after Chicago’s local public television station WTTW first reported the news.

Alderman Sophia King, who represents the 4th Ward on the South side, called it “pay to play except with unsuspecting and vulnerable victims.”

“As a teacher, I’d give her an F,” King, who previously taught at Latin School of Chicago, wrote on Twitter. “Actually she’d be expelled.”

State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas demanded investigations by the City’s Inspector General, the Board of Elections, and Chicago Public Schools’ Inspector General.

“The manipulation of teachers and children is unspeakable,” Vallas wrote in an email. “Mayor Lightfoot should be ashamed of herself for allowing her campaign to violate her own ethics policy by contacting city government employees on their official email accounts for political purposes.”

Alderman Roderick Sawyer, of the 6th Ward on the South side, said it was a “hypocritical contradiction” to her campaign promise of better government.

“I don’t know what kind of lesson Lightfoot believes she is teaching, but the extra credit must be in government corruption,” he said in a statement.

Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson both said on Twitter the mayor should be more focused on fully funding schools, not recruiting from them.

Ja’Mal Green, the youngest candidate in the race, tweeted: “Young people aren’t going to vote for you with class credits, gas cards, or anything else.”

Some non-profit organizations in Chicago, including Mikva Challenge, encourage students to get involved in politics and work closely with high school teachers. In Chicago, high school students work the polls on election day, as well. But there are rules for elected officials to keep their political activities and government duties separate.

Over the summer, the Chicago Board of Education voted against a district recommendation to fire two teachers at Washington High School on the city’s Southeast side for offering students incentives to protest General Iron’s plan to move its metal scrapping operations to their neighborhood.

The current head of Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, Troy LaRaviere, also came under scrutiny in 2016 for possibly violating district policy on political activity in 2016 when he appeared in a campaign ad for Sen. Bernie Sanders during his presidential bid.

In 2015, a high school teacher running for 33rd Ward alderman was also reprimanded for offering students credit for volunteering on his campaign or others.

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

Nine people are running for Chicago mayor. Here’s a look at their education records.

2023-01-11T22:15:09+00:00

Get the latest news on education and Chicago Public Schools in our free newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday.

A drop in test scores. Declining enrollment. The COVID pandemic’s impact on student mental health. The transition to a 21-member elected school board.

These are just a handful of the challenges facing Chicago’s next mayor.

Nine people, including incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are running to lead the city for the next four years. All have some tie to Chicago Public Schools. Chalkbeat Chicago took a look at each mayoral hopeful’s track record on education.

We also surveyed readers and created a list of 10 important education questions for the Chicago mayoral candidates. Read through their answers and remember to cast your ballot on or before Feb. 28.

Here’s more information about each candidate and their records on education:

Kam Buckner

Illinois State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) represents a district that extends from Chicago’s Gold Coast to the South Shore. He cosponsored legislation to set a minimum salary for teachers, limit police in arresting or questioning students at school, and create an elected school board in Chicago.

Buckner jumped into the mayor’s race last May and unveiled a sweeping education platform last fall outside a vacant elementary school in Garfield Park.

Standing alongside former school board member Dwayne Truss, Buckner promised to expand universal preschool to 3-year-olds; hire at least one nurse, one librarian, and one social worker per school, and do an external audit of CPS special education practices to improve services.

Buckner, the son of a school teacher and a police officer, also said he would recruit teachers from Chicago neighborhoods.

Before being elected to the Illinois legislature, Buckner sat on the board of trustees for Chicago State University and led World Sport Chicago, a nonprofit aimed at bringing Olympic sports to underserved youth in Chicago. According to WBEZ, he later oversaw the dissolution of the program in 2018.

Jesús “Chuy” García

U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, a Democrat who represents Illinois’ 4th congressional district, is well known in Chicago politics and education. He’s served as alderman, Cook County commissioner, and Illinois state senator.

In announcing his bid for mayor last November, Garcia said it was time for the city to “double down” on education.

“Your ZIP code, race, and socioeconomic status should not determine your future,” he said.

Garcia also promised to support teachers, saying, “It’s time that we treat them with dignity and respect — and the value they have earned and deserve.”

Garcia forced former Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff election in 2015 after being nudged into the race by the late Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. This time, the teachers union has endorsed one of their own members, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, instead.

But Garcia has a long history advocating for public schools. As a community organizer in Little Village, Garcia helped lead a 19-day hunger strike in 2001 to get a new high school built. Fellow mayoral hopeful Paul Vallas was the school district’s CEO at the time. The campus, Little Village Lawndale High School, opened in 2005 and has four schools: Infinity STEM, World Language, Social Justice, and Multicultural Arts.

Ja’Mal Green

After dropping out of the mayoral race in 2019, activist Ja’Mal Green will be listed at the top of the ballot in 2023. He also is the youngest candidate at age 27.

In a campaign video, Green champions universal preschool for 3-year-olds — a promise also outlined in a sweeping $5 billion public safety plan he released last week. That plan also calls for creating 10,000 apprenticeships for Chicagoans ages 13 to 25.

“I’m a father who loves Chicago and I want a better future for my kids and yours,” Green says in the video. He also opens up about being kicked out of nine schools that he said didn’t have the resources to meet his needs while growing up on the city’s South and West sides.

Green rose to prominence as an activist with the Black Lives Matter movement, protesting throughout Chicago after a video recording showed police officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. In 2016, Green faced felony charges after being accused of hitting a police officer during a protest at Taste of Chicago.

Brandon Johnson

Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson entered the mayoral race last fall with endorsements from the Chicago Teachers Union and other independent political organizations.

During a kickoff rally, Johnson recalled his time as a teacher at Jenner Academy and Westinghouse College Prep, detailing conversations with students displaced by the demolition of Cabrini Green high-rises.

“I experienced the painful impact of disinvestment on my students and their families,” Johnson said. “And this personal experience seeing children endure inequity fuels my commitment to building a stronger, safer, and more equitable Chicago.”

Johnson said in October the pathway to revitalizing the city is fully funding neighborhood schools, providing students health care services, and ensuring they have affordable housing.

He promises to expand “Sustainable Community Schools” from prekindergarten to city colleges, while also providing academic, health and social support beyond the school day, according to his campaign website.

Sophia King

Ald. Sophia King, 4th Ward, represents many of the same south lakefront neighborhoods as Buckner does on Chicago’s City Council. King was appointed to the seat in 2016 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and went on to win reelection in 2019.

As vice chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development, she recently pushed to have Chicago Public Schools officials appear before aldermen on a quarterly basis or risk losing city money that supports school construction projects. The measure failed on a split vote and came after Lightfoot declined to promote her to chair of the committee.

Before entering politics, King helped found Ariel Community Academy, a public school created in 1996 under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley in partnership with Ariel Investments. According to her campaign, she taught at Latin School of Chicago in Lincoln Park. King has a master’s degree in education and social policy from Northwestern University.

King has not yet released an education plan, but has outlined a public safety strategy on her campaign website that promises to invest more in schools in communities experiencing the most gun violence and vows to “enlist both public and private sector employers to hire more high school students, disconnected youth, young adults, and formerly incarcerated citizens.”

Lori Lightfoot

Current Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2019 unveiled a 15-point education plan to transform Chicago Public Schools. It outlined her support for an elected school board; a nurse, social worker, and librarian at every school; and early childhood education zones to promote equity at public schools.

But in October 2019, just months into her tenure, union contract negotiations stalled and the Chicago Teachers Union led an 11-day strike. The two sides got stuck on teacher prep time and sick days, and also on the union’s push to discuss broader topics like affordable housing and an elected school board versus Lightfoot’s desire to focus on pay and benefits.

After backing an elected school board on the campaign trail, Lightfoot pushed for a hybrid board, allowing for the mayor to continue to appoint some seats. Ultimately, the state legislature passed a bill allowing for a 21-member, fully elected school board. The mayor had raised concerns about the size of the board, representation for undocumented families, and campaign financing.

Lightfoot finished the rollout of universal 4-year-old preschool promised by her predecessor and on her campaign website touts a continued rise in graduation rates during her first term.

Last summer, Lightfoot unveiled a comprehensive blueprint for Chicago that included hubs for Lifelong Learning. It proposed an Office of Learning, which would transform shuttered school buildings into learning hubs in every neighborhood.

The plan aims to increase education resources and coordinate existing programs across Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Library, and other education-focused agencies and organizations.

Roderick Sawyer

Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th Ward, has served for over a decade, after being elected in 2011 to represent South Side neighborhoods, including Chatham, Greater Grand Crossing, and Auburn Gresham.

His campaign website does not outline a plan for the city’s public school system. On the City Council, Sawyer sponsored a proposal in 2020 to remove Chicago police from public schools, but it was thwarted by one of Mayor Lightfoot’s allies and did not pass.

Sawyer’s father, Eugene, became mayor in 1987 after the sudden death of the city’s first Black mayor Harold Washington. Growing up, Sawyer attended private school, first at Howalton Day School, a now-shuttered unique school founded during the Black Renaissance. He graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep and DePaul University and is a licensed attorney.

According to his aldermanic website, Sawyer served on the local school council at McDade Classical School, a public selective enrollment school. He also co-chairs a fundraiser to provide “financial assistance for disadvantaged African-Americans who attend his high school alma mater.”

Paul Vallas

Paul Vallas is a familiar name to Chicagoans — particularly those in education. Vallas ran Chicago Public Schools from 1995 to 2001, taking the helm after the state legislature gave control of the school system to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. Vallas oversaw the system during an era characterized by more stringent academic accountability for students and schools and more stability with the teachers union, which had gone on strike repeatedly in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Though he finished ninth in the crowded 2019 mayoral race, Vallas is running once again with a promise to make Chicago safer and expand school choice. As CPS CEO, he oversaw the early growth of charter schools and advocated for turning around so-called failing schools.

Vallas’ political ambitions led to him stepping down from Chicago Public Schools to run for Illinois governor in 2002. After an unsuccessful bid, he was appointed as CEO of the School District of Philadelphia, where he implemented a standardized curriculum, created small high schools, sold district headquarters and updated aging buildings. After four years, he headed to New Orleans to lead the city’s new Recovery School District in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. His last job as a schools chief in Bridgeport, Connecticut ended in controversy amid a court battle over whether he had the credentials needed to serve as a superintendent in Connecticut.

He returned to Illinois and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor alongside Pat Quinn in 2014. In 2017, then-Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed Vallas to turn around Chicago State University, but the institution cut its contract with Vallas after he confirmed plans to run for mayor in 2019.

Willie Wilson

Willie Wilson, a high-profile businessman, launched his campaign for mayor last spring. His campaign focuses on rebuilding from the pandemic through “educational grants, trade and business recovery,” according to his campaign website.

Wilson told the Chicago Crusader last fall that, if elected mayor, he wants to work with state legislators to bring back vocational education to high schools, churches, and Illinois prisons. He also wants to “establish a trade school at CTA bus terminals,” according to the publication. Current Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez has talked about revamping the district’s career and technical education programs in coming years.

When running for mayor in 2019, Wilson promised to reopen all 50 Chicago Public Schools closed by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, he called the mass closings a “racist move.”

“If I had closed 50 schools in the white community, they would have hung me on State and Madison upside down,” Wilson said at the time. He also ran unsuccessfully for Chicago mayor in 2015, for the presidency in 2016, and U.S. Senate in 2020.

This story has been updated to clarify why Vallas left his position as Superintendent of Bridgeport Public Schools.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker promises free college, preschool for all in second term

2023-01-10T02:00:31+00:00

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is promising to expand preschool to all Illinois families and make college tuition free for working-class people by the end of his second term.

In a speech after being sworn in Monday, Pritzker said the state’s “long-term ambitions must begin with a focus on the people for whom we are building.”

“No policy proposal I could advance will have a greater impact on our future than the quality care and education we afford to our very youngest residents,” he said. “It’s time for Illinois to lead.”

The governor didn’t give specifics about how much it would cost to expand preschool and make college more affordable. The inauguration is mostly pomp and circumstance, but in early February, Pritzker is expected to release a budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year. The legislature must approve a state budget by June 30.

For decades before becoming governor in 2018, Pritzker supported early childhood education through his family foundation. His education platform both in 2018 and 2022 focused on expanding programs that serve children under 5. He has said he would work to lower Illinois’ mandatory school attendance age from 6 to 5.

Chicago began expanding public preschool in 2014 with help from Pritzker’s foundation and Goldman Sachs. In 2018, then-mayor Rahm Emanuel promised universal preschool for all 4-year-olds, which officials now say is a reality.

Many Illinois families struggle with the cost of child care, which has been deemed one of the least affordable among states.

In an interview with Chalkbeat last October, Pritzker said he would once again offer more families financial assistance for child care. Currently, any family earning 225% of federal poverty level income is eligible, up from 185% when he took office. He said he plans to raise that to 300% of the federal poverty level.

Last week, Pritzker visited two early childhood programs — a non-profit in Chicago and a public preschool downstate — to tout investments his administration made during his first term. They claimed to have increased funding by about $1 billion.

But during the first three years of Pritzker’s first term, there were no increases to the Illinois State Board of Education’s early childhood block grant, one the largest sources of early childhood funding. This year, it got a 10% increase to nearly $600 million.

Though he gave no details in his inaugural address, Pritzker said it’s the state’s “obligation to make college more affordable” and said he wanted to “focus on making tuition free for every working-class family.”

The state’s key financial aid program for college students is known as the Monetary Award Program, or MAP. Those scholarships grew to $601 million in the most recent budget. The maximum annual award increased from $6,438 to $8,508. In-state tuition at the University of Illinois this year ranged from $17,000 to $22,000.

Despite increasing costs and declining college enrollment nationwide, Illinois saw a 5% increase in students enrolling in college this fall, according to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

In his speech Monday, Pritzker also took a moment to acknowledge the victims of gun violence, citing specific high-profile events, including a shooting just before winter break outside Benito Juarez Community Academy High School.

“I’m tired of living in a world where a mass shooting needs a title so you know which one we’re referring to,” Pritzker said, noting that he campaigned on a promise to ban assault weapons. The Illinois legislature is debating a measure during its lame-duck session, which is scheduled to end this week.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that lame-duck session ends this week, not on Monday.

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

Chicago Public Schools’ watchdog flags unchecked overtime pay, lost students, sexual misconduct

2023-01-05T06:05:00+00:00

Chicago Public Schools’ watchdog is raising red flags about sharply increasing extra pay for school staff in recent years, rising sexual misconduct complaints, and a troubling practice of schools mislabeling students as transfers when they’re missing school.

The district’s Office of Inspector General detailed these and dozens of other instances of fraud, misconduct, and wrongdoing in a sweeping 120-page annual report released Thursday.

Inspector General Will Fletcher said his office received 1,825 complaints and opened investigations into 725 — or about 40% — of them. Hundreds were allegations of sexual misconduct taken up by a special unit of investigators created in 2018, which also is investigating complaints received in previous years.

In response to the annual report, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Mary Fergus said in an email that the district supports the inspector general’s work.

“As a District, we take seriously our responsibility to serve our families with integrity and to address individuals who breach CPS policies and the public’s trust — and hold them accountable,” Fergus wrote. “CPS will continue to ensure our District policies and procedures support the highest ethical standards to ensure our valued team members act in the best interest of our students.”

Here are five highlights from the inspector general’s 2022 report.

Truant students have been mislabeled as transfers

Chicago Public Schools has a “chronic problem” of mislabeling students who are not showing up to school, according to the inspector general’s latest report. Since 2014, there have been five other investigations into the issue. This year, the inspector general found “extensive evidence” schools across the district are mislabeling students as transfers when they are truant, lost, or have dropped out.

Fletcher said the district’s own Office of Internal Audit and Advisory Service audited dozens of schools in 2019 and 2020. His office’s review of those audits found a “districtwide problem of schools failing to document transfers and lost children as required by law and CPS policy.”

More troubling, Fletcher said, is the district’s lack of follow-up to correct these problems.

“We have not been able to confirm or see any evidence that CPS is taking adequate corrective actions even when these audits bear out that schools are not in compliance with what they’re supposed to be doing to verify transfers or missing students,” Fletcher said. “When you have the information, by way of an audit, then you need to correct the problem.”

When students are mislabeled as transfers, they are removed from data used to measure how well schools are doing — including their attendance and graduation rates. Besides compromising data quality, this miscoding also means students may not receive support to get back into class and on track with learning.

The inspector general’s report outlined one case at an elementary school, where 20 students were incorrectly labeled as having transferred without evidence that these students requested transfers. In emails, school staff discussed “dropping” a student who didn’t return after winter break. The report said the school’s principal retired and one of two clerks resigned during the investigation. The other school clerk received extra training and the school culture coordinator -– who the report said was “most responsible” for the issue — was suspended for one day and got extra training.

The audits reviewed by Fletcher’s office were from before the pandemic, and data shows students have been missing more school in the two years since then. The inspector general recommends that the district spot-check transfer verification data and create a process to hold schools accountable for reporting false data to the district.

A district spokesperson said they are creating a new team within the Office of Student Support and Engagement to “address the improper use of leave codes and the documentation of transfers and dropouts.”

Surge in overtime pay, stipends raises red flags

The Inspector General is calling on the district to increase transparency and overhaul how it tracks the way staff earn extra pay beyond their salaries.

The watchdog found a dramatic surge in overtime, stipends and other extra pay that staff earn for taking on extra work, including coaching and after-school supervision. According to the report, Chicago Public Schools paid $73.9 million in extra pay, overtime, and stipends in 2021 — a 74% increase over the previous five years.

Amid this increase, the inspector general’s office cited “recurring problems and a lack of internal controls” with how extra work is tracked. Investigators found payments with no supporting documentation like digital or paper time sheets. The report noted the problem is not being properly audited because the district lacks rules to limit overpayment and staffing to correct issues.

“There’s no one set of rules or directions for how some of these extra pay categories are earned,” Fletcher said. “And then after they’ve been paid out, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of central monitoring or oversight on you know, to deter fraud for certain but then also just to make certain that the district is getting the bang for its buck.”

Since 2019, investigators found staff engaged in so-called “buddy punching” where they would clock in or out for other employees. The report highlights several egregious cases of fraud, including an employee who collected $150,000 in extra pay over four years with video evidence showing they were at a casino or elsewhere.

The watchdog called on the district to implement “clear, concise, organized guidelines” that include written penalties and corrective actions for violating rules. Other recommendations include: mandatory online training sessions for staff; warning and consequences for failing to clock in and out; restrictions on stipend payments; and considering video surveillance of schools’ digital time sheet machines, biometric swipes, or other timekeeping upgrades.

A spokesperson said the district will begin training on the “Timekeeper and Supplemental Payment System” Jan. 31 and will require all school clerks to complete it by Feb. 24. The payroll department is also beginning quarterly audits of extended day pay, overtime pay, and stipends, the spokesperson said.

No preferential treatment for Lightfoot donor in emergency computer purchase

The district watchdog is closely tracking the district’s spending of $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief dollars, the bulk of which is going toward salaries and benefits for current and some new staff. The district recently has begun to spell out more clearly how it’s using these dollars — and a state dashboard allows the public to look up district spending — but the inspector general seeks more transparency.

One of the office’s investigations into spending federal COVID relief money stemmed from a 2020 report by Chalkbeat Chicago and the Better Government Association about the $1.6 million purchase of roughly 5,000 computers for remote learning from Meeting Tomorrow, a local company owned by a campaign contributor to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Chalkbeat and the BGA found that Lightfoot personally reached out to Janice Jackson, the district CEO at the time, about the company’s interest in providing computers, calling its president and CEO, Mark Aistrope, “truly genuine and very generous.”

The inspector general’s office found that the email from Lightfoot, referred to as Elected Official A in the IG report, did not improperly influence district officials or result in preferential treatment for the company. The office found that the district was facing “an extraordinary demand for computers” amid the abrupt shift to virtual learning and its established technology vendors, CDW and Apple, grappled with delays in delivering tens of thousands of devices the district ordered that spring.

Based on Chalkbeat and BGA’s reporting, most of the used laptops and tablets the district bought from the company did not meet district purchasing standards. Officials said that the purchase was largely meant to help out charter schools, and district technology purchasing specifications do not apply to them.

The report found Meeting Tomorrow sold the used devices at reasonable prices: at a discount or “only slightly higher” than the new computers bought in bulk from established vendors; it helped set them up and delivered quickly. And although a fraction were missing cameras — an issue that district officials at the time said they discovered after Chalkbeat and the BGA’s inquiry — or had other issues, the company replaced them at no cost to the district.

According to the inspector general, the company initially cooperated with its inquiry, but its CEO Mark Aistrope ultimately declined to be interviewed, in violation of district purchasing requirements that vendors cooperate with its watchdog’s investigations. As a result, the inspector general recommended that the district bar the company from future contracts, a step the district has not initiated.

Automatic assignment to military programs ends

After a 2021 Chalkbeat Chicago investigation revealed a dozen high schools were automatically assigning students to the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, the inspector general opened an investigation into the practice.

The district signaled in May it would end the practice of automatic enrollment in JROTC programs, which disproportionately impacted Black and Latino students on the south and west sides.

The inspector general’s report confirms there’s been a sharp drop in enrollment at neighborhood schools where more than 90% of freshmen were enrolled in the military education program without parent consent or notification. The investigation found that a key factor for automatic enrollment into JROTC was the school’s lack of a regular physical education program. In Illinois, enrollment in JROTC satisfies the physical education credit required for graduation.

“I didn’t like being forced to have the class,” one student is quoted as saying in the OIG report. “JROTC is not for everyone. It should not be forced on people.”

The district said it is committed to making sure every school offers standard physical education and gives students a choice between the two. The report said the changes appear to have had an impact.

The report singles out one South Side neighborhood high school where JROTC enrollment dropped from 100% of freshmen to just 9% this fall. The report quotes the principal as saying he hired a physical education teacher and now “students are requesting physical education.”

A district spokesperson confirmed that all 37 of the high schools that have JROTC programs also have physical education teachers on staff. Across all schools, there are 911 physical education positions and 32 are vacant, the spokesperson said.

Progress investigating flood of sexual misconduct allegations

The most complaints fielded by the inspector general’s office this year alleged sexual abuse and misconduct against students. These complaints go directly to a 30-person team of investigators in the watchdog’s Sexual Allegations Unit, which was created in 2018 after a 2018 Chicago Tribune investigation that found Chicago Public Schools had failed to protect students against sexual misconduct and abuse from adults in the system.

Fletcher said the special unit in his office was “flooded with complaints” since it was created and has been staffing up and improving how it handles allegations.

Since 2018, the special investigative unit has confirmed policy violations in 302 instances and its investigations have led to at least 16 criminal charges for sex-related crimes against Chicago Public Schools students.

This year alone, more than 600 of these cases were closed — double what was closed last year.

One involved the head of Urban Prep Charter Academy, who resigned abruptly this summer amid sexual misconduct allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student while he attended one of the school’s campuses and after he graduated. Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois State Board of Education have since revoked Urban Prep’s charter agreements.

The report also highlighted an investigation at Marine Leadership Academy, which substantiated allegations against 12 employees and a volunteer for sexual abuse, failing to safeguard students, or helping cover up misconduct.

The watchdog opened an investigation in 2019 following an anonymous tip and issued two reports in 2021. During the investigation, investigators warned district officials and child protective services of pervasive sexual abuse at a West Side school since the start of a 2019 investigation into allegations of misconduct, according to the reports.

The report describes a school employee having a sexual relationship with a student after that student turned 18. Another staffer groomed a student and began a sexual relationship after that student graduated. Another employee sexually harassed and retaliated against a student after the student filed a report. A separate employee groomed a student and crossed boundaries with others.

Seven other staffers failed to report and actively hid suspected violations including the principal, the assistant principal, head of security, a counselor, and a teacher’s assistant. They were alleged to have known about the abuses but failed to report, according to the OIG.

The OIG recommended termination, disciplinary actions for staff and administrators, and permanently blocking a volunteer. Most staff resigned and were placed on the Chicago Board of Education’s do not hire list, according to the report. Chalkbeat Chicago and WBEZ reported in October that the district’s top military officer quietly resigned over the summer in the wake of the investigation and another involving a teacher and student at Roosevelt High School.

Other recommendations include an active role by the district to correct culture, training related to mandatory reporting, and evaluate the training for JROTC staff and military instructors.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org. Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org. Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@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.

School closures, COVID spending, gun violence: 12 of Chalkbeat Chicago’s top stories of 2022

2022-12-22T15:45:16+00:00

The past year started much like the previous two years for students, parents, and educators in Illinois: tumultuous and uncertain.

In January, a clash over COVID safety measures between Chicago Public Schools, its teachers union, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot led to five days of canceled classes. The remainder of the school year was marred by staffing shortages, stubborn transportation issues, and budget-related layoffs that were met with criticism from people arguing that students needed more staff, not less to help them recover from the pandemic.

The ebb and flow of COVID quarantines crimped efforts to boost student attendance and contributed to high absenteeism rates. Legal challenges prompted school districts across the state to lift mask mandates and eventually, other COVID mitigations in schools were relaxed.

When students returned this fall, students, parents, and school leaders expressed cautious optimism. But a decade-long trend of enrollment losses continued in Chicago Public Schools, and the district lost its title as the nation’s third largest school district. By October, parents and educators had a clearer picture of the educational fallout from remote learning and COVID-19 when national and state test results showed a steep drop in reading and math — wiping out a decade of progress.

As we approach the end of 2022 and look ahead to 2023, here are some of the biggest education stories we covered this past year:

January: How Chicago schools became an outlier in the latest COVID disruption

The abrupt cancellation of classes for five days after returning from winter break grabbed headlines in January — with parents, students, and teachers wondering nightly if and when classes would resume. But after the dust settled, reporter Mila Koumpilova dug into what happened behind the scenes, the logistical realities, and the political drama that played out. This story is worth a reread — especially as the 2023 mayoral election looms.

February: Free college for 4,000 students and their parents: ‘This means so much’

The tragic shooting outside Benito Juarez Community Academy has rocked the Pilsen high school in recent days. But in February, the entire senior class — and their parents — were awarded full college scholarships covering tuition, room and board, books, and fees at 20 Illinois institutions. The giveaway from Hope Chicago, a nonprofit run by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, went to 4,000 students at five separate high schools. “This is going to open the door to this generation, a generation of immigrants, and future generations,” Maria Vazquez, then a senior at Juarez, told Chalkbeat’s Mauricio Peña.

March: Inside a Chicago high school’s year of uncertainty

Last school year was supposed to be a time to reinvent public education for students across Chicago and the country. But at Richards Career Academy — and countless other schools — the push to re-engage students with innovative new approaches to learning collided with the need to “just make it through another trying week.” This vivid portrait from inside one of the city’s public neighborhood high schools illustrates the challenges and small victories of a recovery year that never was.

April: Which education bills made it through the Illinois legislature?

Before election season was in full swing, Gov. J. B. Pritzker and the state legislature passed several new laws — and debated dozens of others — that would have an impact on public education throughout the state. Chalkbeat Chicago’s state education reporter Samantha Smylie tracked the ins-and-outs of policy-making in real time and then compiled a recap of what went down in Springfield. The list also includes bills that didn’t make it to the Governor’s desk, such as the “Right to Read Act,” which would set literacy standards for the youngest learners. But it’s possible those reemerge in 2023.

May: Chicago’s Virtual Academy will return this fall, but little is known after its first year: ‘It’s been a black box.’

Though Chicago Public Schools had returned to in-person learning last year, the district continued to offer a virtual option to medically fragile students. As Mauricio Peña reported, advocates and parents had concerns about curriculum, support for English language learners, and meeting the needs of students with disabilities. The Chicago Virtual Academy is now in its second year and currently serves 413 students, a district spokesperson said. The school now uses the universal digital Skyline curriculum, launched in 2021, and has a long list of support staff for students with disabilities. More than 1,200 high school students are also taking Advanced Placement and dual credit courses through the Virtual Academy, according to the district.

June: ‘Ignore the negativity’: 16 Chicago valedictorians on finishing high school in the COVID era

Chicago’s graduating seniors were in their sophomore year of high school when schools shuttered in 2020. Despite the uncertainty and upheaval of their pivotal high school years, the Class of 2022 earned their diplomas and got to walk across the stage in June. They reflect in this piece on their experiences of going to school during the COVID era.

July: After Highland Park shooting, local schools became healing centers to help grieving community

What started as a joyful, patriotic summer celebration turned into a tragic mass shooting that thrust an otherwise quiet Chicago suburb into the national spotlight. Though classes were not in session, Highland Park’s public schools transformed into local healing centers for the community about 45 minutes north of downtown. School staff and students offered support and mental health services to anyone who needed it.

August: In Chicago and other urban districts, a new embrace of career and technical programs

As a new school year began, district CEO Pedro Martinez unveiled some details of a three-year blueprint he hopes will help Chicago students bounce back from the pandemic. One key element of that plan is a revitalization of its career education programs. This deep-dive, two-part series examines why some students still lack access to career programs and probes the limited data on student outcomes. Plus, a bonus look at what Chicago might learn from Nashville.

September: Can Chicago revitalize its tiny high schools?

Chicago’s decade-long decline in enrollment has undoubtedly hit neighborhood high schools the hardest. In fact, enrollment drops in grades nine through 12 are happening almost exclusively at schools with fewer than 250 students. This phenomenon has been written about since 2011 – and again year, after year, after year, after year. Though the problem seems to be intractable, fresh eyes are looking for creative solutions, including transforming these shrinking high schools into career academies, community hubs, or incubators for democracy. With a moratorium on school closures in place until 2025, CEO Martinez might have plans for 2023.

October: Illinois uses federal COVID money to expand high-impact tutoring & At some high-poverty Illinois districts, a slower pace in spending federal COVID relief

With a historic amount of federal funding flowing into Illinois schools, officials have a chance to dramatically impact public education. One of the key elements of the state’s plan for using those federal COVID recovery dollars is the Illinois Tutoring Initiative. It intends to reach 3,000 students across 72 districts. As for how school districts are spending their federal money? It’s been slow, a Chalkbeat and Better Government Association analysis found. Spending in high-poverty districts, particularly those in Chicago’s south suburbs, stand out for how little they’ve used. Now, the state has a dashboard where people can track the spending.

November: How high school students in Chicago’s Little Village are giving back by tutoring

While the state is ramping up its massive high-impact tutoring program, one school on Chicago’s Southwest side is growing its own tutors. Every Thursday at Infinity Math, Science & Technology High School, upperclassmen volunteer to help underclassmen catch up on their studies. This heartwarming story shows how Little Village teens are “not giving in to the stereotypes,” said Infinity senior Lisett Avalos. “We are going above and beyond.”

December: Chicago Public Schools says it now has a computer for each student. But the hard work is just beginning.

Chicago Public Schools saw a historic investment in technology thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and federal dollars. This Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation found that the district has struggled to keep track of its inventory of laptops, iPads, and other devices. It also lacks a cohesive plan for using the new devices to accelerate learning. This story goes deep into how Chicago schools went from device disparities to having more laptops and iPads than they know what to do with — at a time of “PTSD with the screens.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

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

As COVID cases rise, Chicago students encouraged to get vaccinated, wear masks over break

2022-12-20T19:30:00+00:00

Ahead of winter break, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and city public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady encouraged students and families to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and flu, take at-home tests before gathering, and mask in crowded spaces.

The two made the plea during a weekly online health segment and shared the latest Chicago data on COVID-19, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus cases.

“It’s a complicated time knowing that this is respiratory virus season, and that that surge that is coming is likely to hit across the whole city,” Arwady said.

She noted last week was the two-year anniversary of the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines and said Chicagoans of all ages have a higher vaccination rate than the rest of the country. But rates for the youngest children are still very low. Roughly 10% of children under 5 in Chicago have gotten their initial COVID-19 vaccine series.

“I’m glad we’re doing better than the U.S., but this is nothing to brag about,” Arwady said.

About half of all students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools — roughly 154,000 children — have gotten their initial COVID-19 vaccination series as of Dec. 19, data shows. But a Chalkbeat analysis shows vaccination rates vary widely by school, with predominantly Black schools lagging behind.

It’s unclear how many Chicago Public School students have received the updated booster. But city data show about 51,184, or 28.3% of 12- to 17-year-olds and 29,206 or 13.9% of 5- to 11-year-old Chicagoans have received the booster as of Dec. 19.

Martinez urged families to get their shots over the holidays and take advantage of the city’s at-home vaccination program, which brings COVID-19 and flu vaccines directly to people’s homes to be administered to anyone 6 months and older.

“I’m just going to be a broken record: We know they’re safe,” Martinez said. “We know they give you the best protection. They lessen the symptoms.”

Since school started, there have been about 9,137 COVID cases among students and 5,382 cases among staff, according to district data.

But COVID-19 isn’t the only concern this holiday season, which comes as flu, respiratory syncytial virus, and other respiratory infections are on the rise nationally. In Chicago, hospitals have seen fewer RSV cases but an increase in flu among children.

“We’re just seeing a lot of respiratory viruses right now because we didn’t see them for a couple of years,” Arwady said. “RSV thankfully is very much on the way back down. But in the meantime, some extra care and caution, especially in the holiday season, to limit some of that risk is important.”

It’s likely Chicago will move into a high level of COVID-19 community transmission, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 600 people are testing positive daily in pharmacies, doctor’s offices, and laboratories, and thousands more are testing positive at home, Arwady said.

“We are not out of the woods,” Arwady said Tuesday. “Know that if and when we move to a high level, we will be asking you to put those masks back on.”

Chicago Public Schools opened this fall with fewer mitigations, including a mask optional policy. Despite an initial uptick in cases, the district has seen fewer laboratory confirmed cases compared to schools reopening last fall in August 2021.

On Tuesday, Arwady and Martinez said the school district would follow the health department’s lead in implementing a mask requirement. However, students will be on break starting Friday and classes are not scheduled to resume until January 9.

Last winter, a surge in COVID-19 cases raised concerns among teachers over the district’s safety measures. The Chicago Teachers Union voted to teach remote, prompting a weeklong standoff and canceled classes.

Martinez said the district continues to “heavily encourage masking” and provides masks to “every single school, every single classroom.” He also urged parents to keep sick children home.

“If your child feels sick, please just let them stay home,” Martinez said. “It’s an excused absence.”

Arwady encouraged families to take at-home rapid tests before gathering to celebrate the holidays. Martinez said the district continues to offer at-home tests at schools. The federal government is again offering four free at-home tests per household.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

Here’s how to help Chicago students after shooting outside Juarez High School

2022-12-20T00:05:04+00:00

Chicago Public Schools sent crisis teams to Benito Juarez Community Academy High School Monday to provide grief counseling after a shooting outside the school Friday left two students dead and two hospitalized.

District officials said they are offering an adjusted schedule — with an early release each day this week — to give students and staff time to process what happened and get help. In a letter sent to families Saturday, Juarez Principal Juan Carlos Ocon said the school would provide “counseling, healing circles, and other resources designed to help students and staff to process and begin the healing process.”

Outside the Pilsen high school on Monday, additional security and police were present. In the afternoon, students gathered to release white, red, and black balloons to honor their classmates.

The trauma of gun violence is all too common in Chicago and can ripple through other school communities. In this case, the four victims attended three different schools — Juarez, Chicago Bulls College Prep, and UIC College Prep. Chicago Bulls College Prep and UIC College Prep are both campuses of the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

Chalkbeat has put together a list of resources where parents, students, and school staff can find mental health support and heal from the trauma surrounding this incident and broader gun violence in Chicago.

How to support the victims and their families

Both families of the boys who were killed have launched GoFundMe pages to raise money to support memorial and funeral costs. The Cook County Medical Examiner identified the two victims as 14-year-old Nathan Billegas and 15-year-old Brandon Perez.

A GoFundMe page for Nathan had raised nearly $9,000 as of Monday afternoon. Nathan attended Noble’s Chicago Bulls College Prep, his sister wrote. She described him as a “very intelligent, outgoing, and a kindhearted young boy.”

A GoFundMe page for Brandon had raised more than $10,000 as of Monday afternoon.

According to his family, Brandon attended Juarez and “aspired to become a tradesman in general construction and electricity and hoped to one day become a business owner with multiple trade certificates.” Juarez has seen a revival of its trade programs in recent years.

Help hotlines available to Chicago students

Chicago Public Schools has a crisis hotline for students at 773-553-1792 and a Student Safety Center where people can report an emergency by calling 773-553-3335.

Numerous national helplines also help youth connect with crisis counselors 24/7. The National Youth Crisis Hotline is at 1-800-448-3000. Students can also text HOME to 741741.

The school district also lists the following numbers on its website for students to use to get help:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Chicago: 1-833-626-4244
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: 1-800-662-4357
The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ Support): 1-866-488-7386
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

Students can now take mental health days

All students are allowed to take up to five mental health days under a new Illinois law. A medical note is not required and the absence is considered excused, according to district policy.

That policy — adopted earlier this year in March — requires all schools to have a team of people to address student mental health. According to the district’s staffing data, Juarez has seven school counselors and two school social workers for more than 1,500 students. That’s up from 2019, when there were six and one, respectively.

Juarez also has a school-based health center run by Alivio Medical Center that offers some behavioral health services. A district spokesperson said telehealth is also available through Alivio and other community partners to all Juarez students who may be staying home this week to process Friday’s events.

Dozens of other schools have similar health centers to provide medical and other health services to students, families, and, in some cases, the broader community.

How to talk to young people in the wake of trauma

It can be difficult to know what to say to a child or teen after a shooting. The National Association of School Psychologists has helpful guidance for how to talk with children about gun violence. They say it’s important to take time to talk and listen and keep an eye on how a child is responding — looking out for unusual behaviors such as loss of appetite or disrupted sleep patterns.

The organization also says it’s important to keep conversations age-appropriate and reassure children they are safe. Listening to and allowing young people to ask questions can be powerful too. If your child does not want to talk, being present is enough. Be open to other forms of expression, such as music and art, as well.

Limit media consumption and unplug

There can be a barrage of news and a rush of information and activism in the wake of a shooting. But it’s also important to unplug and limit media consumption to reduce anxiety and confusion, according to the National Association of School Psychologists. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network also recommends parents and other guardians take time to rest and encourage their children to do the same.

Tips for healing and processing trauma

After a shooting killed Chicago-born, Memphis-raised rapper Young Dolph on Nov. 17, 2021, school psychologist Dr. Kay Streeter talked to Chalkbeat Tennessee and offered strategies for helping students process trauma from gun violence. Streeter’s “Five Ks of Being OK” are:

Keep talking: You have to keep getting those feelings out of your head, out of your mouth, and into the atmosphere so you can get some of what you’re thinking outside of your body.
Keep thanking: That’s having an attitude of gratitude, being grateful for things that are happening around you, that ground you in the here and the now. That takes away the anxiety of thinking about the future and the depression of thinking about the past.
Keep planning: That gives you hope. That gives you a strategy to move forward if you keep planning for tomorrow and keep planning for when things are going to be better.
Keep forgiving: Forgiving yourself, forgiving other people. A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
Keep breathing: I like to teach little breathing exercises because breathing deeply, studies have shown, decreases stress and anxiety for both adults and children.

Look up Chicago Public Schools’ safety plans

Until two years ago, most Chicago high schools had police officers stationed inside. In 2020, local school councils began voting to remove the officers in favor of alternative approaches to discipline and safety. Juarez was one of the schools that removed school-based officers.

Now, several schools have something called a Whole School Safety Plan that replaces police with alternative support staff, such as climate and culture coordinators, restorative justice coordinators, social workers, and security guards. Not all schools have them, but you can search if yours does here.

Chicago Public Schools also operates a program to help students walk to and from school safely. Many schools have these Safe Passage routes, which place trained adults in yellow vests along routes around a school during arrival and dismissal. You can look up whether your school has a route here.

City money available to families of gun violence victims

On Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s health department announced nearly $275,000 emergency fund for families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.

Under the pilot program, victims with physical injuries can get $1,000 in financial assistance, families can get $1,500 to help offset funeral and burial costs, and families can also get $1,000 in relocation costs.

A press release from the mayor’s office said those funds will be distributed through four community organizations: Centers for New Horizons, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, and Universal Family Connection, Inc. A city spokesperson said the money is only available to victims of gun violence living in West Garfield Park, East Garfield Park, Englewood, West Englewood, and New City on or after October 1, 2022.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

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

New tool allows people to see how much federal COVID money Illinois schools have spent

2022-12-15T21:45:00+00:00

Illinois school districts have spent less than half of the roughly $7.8 billion the state got in federal COVID recovery money, according to a new spending dashboard launched today.

The Illinois State Board of Education published the data Thursday and said it would provide “real-time updates” on how districts have reported spending the money aimed at helping students recover from the pandemic.

“These funds are providing an unparalleled opportunity to transform systems of learning in Illinois that are more equitable, more inclusive, and more responsive to student needs,” State Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala said in a press release.

So far, federal COVID recovery money has been spent on existing staff, technology, tutoring, and transportation. Some districts in Illinois and around the country are using the influx of cash to fix aging buildings. Others are using the money to expand pre-school and give high school students jobs.

A recent Chalkbeat and Better Government Association investigation found low-income districts, which got the most federal COVID money, have been slower to spend their allocations. Data obtained at that time showed about 40% of the money had been reported as spent. The new dashboard indicates about 47% has been spent. There may still be lags in when districts report spending the money.

Earlier this year, Chicago school board members raised concerns about how little COVID recovery money had been spent, particularly on student mental health. The new data indicates Chicago Public Schools has spent 52% of its federal COVID money.

The federal government approved three separate rounds of stimulus funding for schools as part of sweeping government aid doled out across the country in 2020 and 2021. The first wave of $569.5 million came one month into the pandemic under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act. The new dashboard shows nearly all of that money has been spent.

Congress authorized another massive infusion of money in 2021 to help districts recover from the academic and mental health setbacks spurred by the pandemic. Illinois received about $7 billion in these subsequent rounds. States and school districts must allocate the money by fall 2024.

According to the state’s press release, school districts are also required to “solicit local stakeholder input” and “make spending plans publicly available” for the most recent round of stimulus.

The state is also allowed to spend 10% of the money flowing to Illinois school districts. A large portion of that will go toward a high-impact tutoring program that hopes to reach more than 3,200 students.

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

Chicago Public Schools’ application deadline is next week. Here’s what you need to know.

2022-11-30T00:49:11+00:00

Updated November 29, 2022 to reflect that Chicago Public Schools shifted the deadline back one week from Friday, December 2 to Thursday, December 8.

The deadline to apply for a public school in Chicago for next fall is fast approaching.

Chicago Public Schools has tried to simplify the process for going to a school that’s different from your assigned neighborhood school. Since 2017, there’s been a single online application known as GoCPS.

Still, the task of researching options, preparing required documents, and finalizing school choices dominates the minds of many parents and students every fall.

“It’s really confusing before you understand it,” said Grace Lee Sawin, founder of Chicago School GPS, which helps families navigate the public and private school application process in Chicago.

Whether you’ve been working on reviewing and fine-tuning your application since September 21 (when the portal first opened), or you’re just getting started, here’s what you need to know before hitting submit next Thursday, Dec. 8 by 5 p.m.

Preschool

If you’re the parent or guardian of a child who will be 3 or 4 next September, hang tight! You don’t need to worry about getting a spot in a public Chicago preschool until spring.

Chicago Public Schools used to require families hoping for a preschool seat at one of the sought-after public Montessori schools – Drummond, Oscar Mayer, and Suder – and Inter-American Magnet School to apply in December for the following school year. But now those schools will be part of the city’s universal preschool application used for all 4-year-old programs at neighborhood elementary schools and community-based preschools that serve mostly 3-year-olds.

While some programs may fill up quickly, officials have said there are now enough seats for all families who want a spot.

Elementary School

Half of all public elementary school students in Chicago go to a school that’s different from their zoned one. Chicago Public Schools has operated dozens of sought-after magnet schools for decades, most of which were created to promote integration.

Even after a federal judge ended the desegregation consent decree in 2009, CPS has continued to offer open enrollment. Families can choose from magnets, charters, gifted, and classical schools, and even neighborhood schools with space to take students who do not live in their attendance boundary.

A full list of magnet and neighborhood schools available online details any specialty programs offered, such as dual language and International Baccalaureate. Applicants can choose up to 20 of these schools and may get multiple offers next spring.

CPS also operates gifted and classical schools – also known as selective enrollment elementary schools – that require a test to get in. These tests are done in-person and can be scheduled once you hit submit. Families can rank up to six of these programs on their application.

Charter schools admit students via lottery. For magnet and selective enrollment elementary schools, students are admitted by a lottery that also takes into account the neighborhood a student lives in. This replaced race-based admissions. Every neighborhood is assigned to one of four socioeconomic tiers based on several factors, including median income and homeownership rates. You can look up your tier using the district’s school locator map. (Select “CPS Tiers” as an overlay.)

Middle School

Chicago sixth graders can apply to seven advanced middle school programs. These Academic Centers operate inside existing high schools, some of which are also selective enrollment: Brooks, Kenwood, Lane Tech, Lindblom, Morgan Park, Taft, and Whitney Young.

Students have to have at least a 2.5 GPA and take a test that is similar to – but not the same as – the high school entrance exam. Applicants can rank up to six of these programs and will get one or zero offers.

Once enrolled, students essentially work on their high school coursework beginning in seventh grade and can usually finish all their basic graduation requirements by the end of sophomore year. They also do not have to reapply in ninth grade to stay enrolled at the high school that houses the Academic Center.

High School

According to district enrollment data, 70% of teens in CPS attend a high school that is not their zoned school. This system of choice has been in place for many years and offers dozens of options from rigorous college prep programs to fine and performing arts to career and technical education.

Students used to have to sign up to take the high school entrance exam on one of several weekend dates. Now, all current CPS eighth grade students take the exam on the same day at their elementary school. This year, everyone took it on Oct. 26 and private school students took the test on one of two weekends in early November. Results started arriving in students’ inboxes last Friday.

At the 11 selective enrollment schools, students are admitted based on their score on the admissions exam and their grades in seventh grade. The first 30% of seats go to the top scoring students. The remaining 70% seats are divided among four socioeconomic tiers. Offers are still made to the top scoring students in each of the four tiers. The scores needed to get into each school last year are now posted online.

Earlier this year, CPS said it plans to overhaul the admissions policy for the selective enrollment high schools to make it more equitable. But the board of education has yet to vote on any changes.

Not all high schools require a test and, like elementary schools, students can choose to go to a neighborhood high school that’s not their assigned one. There is a list of all high school options and their admissions requirements online. Applicants can rank up to six selective enrollment schools and 20 other choices.

Come spring, eighth grade students can get up to two offers – one from a selective enrollment high school and one from among their other high school choices. It is possible they get no offers. A second application round occurs after offers go out in the spring, and students can always attend their zoned neighborhood school.

Transfers

While kindergarten and ninth grade are the main years when students enroll in a new school, students can apply through GoCPS at any grade.

“You are never stuck at a school,” Sawin, with Chicago School GPS, said. “If it’s not a good fit for whatever reason, then this is the beauty of Chicago, you have so many options.”

While fewer spots may be available in other non-entry grades, there are also fewer applicants.

“You’re never too late,” Sawin said. “There’s always attrition and people do make changes.”

For selective enrollment high schools, transfers can still be competitive, but students don’t have to take the high school entrance exam again. Usually, applicants are required to submit their transcript, a personal essay, and letters of recommendation. These schools, such as Whitney Young, post information about transferring in 10th through 12th grade on their websites.

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

Illinois State Superintendent Carmen Ayala announces retirement

2022-11-18T16:15:52+00:00

This story has been updated with a statement from Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Illinois State Superintendent Carmen Ayala announced Thursday she will retire in February.

Gov. J. B. Pritzker appointed Ayala to serve as the state’s top education official in 2019 – making her the first woman and person of color to hold the position.

“For the last almost 40 years, I have been so blessed to serve the students in Illinois,” Ayala said to board members at the state board of education meeting on Thursday. “If anyone knows me, they know that equity is my passion. I’ve been referred to as an equity warrior.”

In a statement, Pritzker said Ayala “has positively impacted thousands of Illinois students.”

“Not only did Dr. Ayala’s steadfast leadership guide our schools through an unprecedented pandemic, but she also kick-started students’ academic recovery,” Pritzker said.

The governor’s office noted that Ayala’s contract expires Jan. 31, 2023. Pritzker will appoint a replacement to serve alongside him in a second term.

As state superintendent, Ayala oversaw more than 850 school districts serving more than 2 million children. She helped navigate the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when Pritzker ordered all schools to close amid the outbreak. She worked with the administration on the state’s guidance for reopening schools and has led the state board as districts have experienced two difficult recovery years.

Before the pandemic hit, Ayala embarked on a yet-to-be realized overhaul of state standardized testing. Earlier this year, the state board decided against making changes to how it assesses student learning. Like the rest of the country, Illinois students’ math and reading scores dropped during the pandemic and have yet to recover, according to the latest data.

Ayala previously served as superintendent of west suburban Berwyn North School District 98 and was assistant superintendent at Plainfield District 202 in the far western suburbs. She led diversity and inclusion work while in Plainfield at a time when the district had become increasingly racially diverse.

Steven Isoye, chairman of the Illinois state board of education, applauded Ayala’s work on equity and encouraged her to “pick up the phone” if the board does not continue focusing on that.

“You sent a strong message to all of the leaders across the state about how we really need to embrace the work on equity for all students and it was loud and clear,” Isoye said. “And it reverberates and will continue to reverberate even as you retire.”

Ayala started her career at Chicago Public Schools, where she was a teacher for five years, and worked as both a teacher and administrator at Community Consolidated School District 300 in Algonquin and Aurora East School District 131.

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

Fate of Urban Prep’s third campus in the hands of Illinois Board of Education

2022-11-16T22:09:24+00:00

A third Urban Prep campus is facing an uncertain future amid allegations of financial mismanagement and sexual misconduct at the charter school.

The Illinois Board of Education is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether or not to revoke the charter agreement for Urban Prep’s West campus. If approved, Urban Prep will not be able to operate as a public charter school effective at the end of the 2022-23 school year.

The move comes after the Chicago Board of Education voted in October to end its charter agreement with Urban Prep to operate two other campuses in Bronzeville and Englewood after the district watchdog substantiated misconduct allegations against the charter network’s founder.

The state has had oversight of Urban Prep’s West campus since 2019 after the Chicago Board of Education voted to revoke the organization’s charter for the West campus citing concerns over financial mismanagement and dwindling enrollment.

The school board allowed two other Urban Prep schools in Bronzeville and Englewood to continue operating under its oversight until last month. That’s when the board revoked Urban Prep’s charter and set in motion a plan to take over the schools.

Once considered a darling of the charter school movement for its success graduating Black boys, Urban Prep’s stunning fall comes after an investigation issued this summer by the district’s watchdog substantiated allegations that Urban Prep’s founder, Tim King, had an inappropriate relationship with a student during his time at the school and in the years that followed when the student was employed by the charter network. King resigned in June, but strongly denies the allegations.

Current Urban Prep leadership sent a letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Nov. 4, asking him to intervene and stop the Chicago school board’s actions.

Dennis Lacewell, chief academic officer, and Troy Boyd, Jr., chief operating officer, wrote that Chicago Public Schools’ actions are “an attempt to substitute our success operating the district’s only charter schools founded and led by Black men focused on the educational outcomes of Black males with a quasi-district school program that does not serve our community.”

“If equity is a priority in Chicago and Illinois where we want positive outcomes for our young, intelligent, Black and beautiful men then the future existence and independence of Urban Prep Academies must be preserved,” they wrote.

Both Lacewell and Boyd were interviewed during the watchdog investigation. The report states that Boyd confirmed he went on a trip to Las Vegas with King and the student after the student had graduated. Lacewell is mentioned as being the principal of one of Urban Prep’s campuses during some of the alleged interactions. The report states that Lacewell said it was “not unusual for King to provide financial assistance to former students, even if they were not employed by Urban Prep.”

How a successful charter school stumbled

Urban Prep opened its first campus in 2006, before expanding to two more campuses. The charter school received national recognition for ensuring each of its graduates were admitted to college.

Urban Prep founder King was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2009, named a “Chicagoan of the Year” by Chicago Magazine in 2010, and spoke about changing the narrative about Black boys at SXSW in 2016.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel touted the schools’ success during his time as mayor between 2011 and 2019 and local media frequently covered Urban Prep’s college signing day.

But in 2018, the network’s West campus was placed on an “academic watch” list and subsequently recommended for closure. The school board revoked the charter for Urban Prep’s West campus, also citing concerns with financial mismanagement and low enrollment.

Urban Prep appealed to the Illinois State Charter School Commission, which overturned Chicago Public Schools decision to shutter the West campus in March 2019.

At the time, Commissioner Bill Farmer said the school was “not set up to be successful.

“We are potentially just delaying a school closure because they’re not going to be able to do the turnaround that needs to happen,” Farmer said.

The Illinois State Charter School Commission was dissolved by the state legislature in August 2019 and the responsibility of hearing charter school appeals returned to the Illinois State Board of Education.

With two campuses under the oversight of the Chicago school board and one authorized by the state, Urban Prep continued educating nearly 400 Chicago teens, most of them Black boys. In 2021, teachers at the two CPS-authorized campuses went on strike for two days in early June as the school year was ending.

Then this summer, WBEZ reported King’s resignation after an investigation by Chicago Public Schools’ Inspector General substantiated the sexual misconduct allegations and financial mismanagement issues.

The report alleged King groomed and sexually touched an underage student while he was enrolled. The report states the relationship continued after the student graduated, with the two taking trips to Vegas, Ibiza, London, and Los Angeles, and King paying the student’s rent and co-signing for leases on multiple Chicago apartments. The student also went on to work at Urban Prep and continued to receive paychecks and benefits even after he stopped working there in 2018, the report said.

At the Chicago school board meeting in October, Urban Prep school leaders, students, and staff lobbied the board not to revoke the charter’s license, but members were unmoved.

“It’s an egregious report, and it should make everybody upset,” said board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland in October, referring to the investigation’s findings about King. “It’s shameful to me that the Urban Prep board had this information and did not act swiftly.”

During the meeting, district leaders acknowledged Urban Prep’s strong academic record for Black boys. But they also noted the schools failed to provide federally mandated services to students with disabilities and did not have enough licensed educators staffed at the school, according to documents.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said the district believes in keeping the two campuses open. Urban Prep Bronzeville enrolled 222 students this fall and the Englewood location has 161 students enrolled. Martinez said the district also expects to keep current school staff.

“We want to make sure high-quality programs continue for children in Bronzeville and Englewood — it’s essential,” Martinez said. But, he added, “We cannot compromise. We need ethical behavior, and we need to make sure we are protecting our children.”

According to state data, the West campus enrolled 91 students last year. The state board is expected to make a decision on what happens there on Thursday.

Correction: Nov. 17, 2022: This story has been updated to reflect that 91 students were enrolled at Urban Prep’s West campus last year, not this fall.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

MacKenzie Scott donates nearly $50 million to public schools in Chicago

2022-11-15T20:50:00+00:00

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is donating a combined $48 million to public schools in Chicago as part of her ongoing efforts to give away her wealth.

The grants have no restrictions and can be used by the schools however they want.

Chicago Public Schools received $25 million, the Noble Network of Charter Schools got $16 million, and LEARN Charter School Network will see $7 million.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” said Greg White, president & CEO of LEARN. “We’re thrilled. We’ve been working 20 years for this kind of opportunity.”

Scott has given away more than $14 billion of her fortune since she first pledged to do so in 2019. Most of her wealth comes from her stake in Amazon, the company founded by her ex-husband Jeff Bezos. In a post about the latest donations on Monday, Scott outlined why she puts no strings on the money.

“I recently learned a saying used in disability communities: ‘Nothing about us without us.’” Scott wrote. “For me, it’s another beautiful and powerful reminder. I needn’t ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves.”

In a statement, Chicago Public Schools spokesperson Mary Fergus confirmed the donation and said the district plans to spend the money on some of the efforts outlined in a yet-to-be-released blueprint.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said the blueprint will focus on improving services for students with disabilities, strengthening career and technical education, and making school admissions more fair.

“This very generous donation will most certainly help change lives,” Fergus said.

Noble Network of Charter Schools CEO Constance Jones said the $16 million grant is the largest unrestricted donation the network has ever received. She said the money will “fuel Noble’s mission as we strive to become an antiracist organization that unapologetically prepares students from underserved communities to complete college and lead choice-filled lives.”

The LEARN Charter School Network is planning to use the $7 million it received from Scott to help its elementary school graduates make it to and through college and train and “hire, retain, support and grow” its teaching staff, according to White.

“We believe that the academic foundation and ambition to earn a college degree begins early,” White said, noting their network has a multi-year, $20 million fundraising campaign underway aimed at increasing the college completion rates for their graduates from around 30% to 50%.

“The relationship does not end in the eighth grade,” White said. He said he plans to hire a full-time alumni manager soon.

The list of nearly 350 organizations Scott gave nearly $2 billion to over the last several months also includes more than a dozen traditional school districts, including Detroit Public Schools, and charter school networks from across the country.

It also includes several Chicago-based nonprofits who work with children. Access Living, which advocates for students with disabilities, received $8 million; Friends of the Children - Chicago, which focuses on ending generational poverty, got $1.4 million, and Chicago-area Girl Scouts was given $4.2 million. One Million Degrees, which provides “wraparound” support to community college students is also on the list, but it’s not clear how much money the organization received.

Last year, Scott also gave $40 million to the University of Illinois at Chicago and $5 million to Kennedy-King College.

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

More Chicago City Colleges students to get mentoring, ‘wraparound’ support

2022-11-15T13:00:00+00:00

Stephanie Meeks graduated high school in 2020 and wasn’t sure what would come next.

Then, that summer, she got an email from her advisor at Carver Military Academy telling her about a program called One Million Degrees that would help her academically, connect her with a career coach, and give her a $1,000 stipend.

Meeks applied and was accepted about a month later. Since then, her mentor and the staff at One Million Degrees have helped her with everything from term papers to bus fare.

“One Million Degrees helped me grow as a person – to get myself out of my shell,” Meeks said.

Now in her final semester at Olive-Harvey College, Meeks hopes to be a labor and delivery nurse or a marriage and family therapist and – thanks to One Million Degrees – she has a plan for how to get there.

The wraparound support provided to Meeks will now be provided to all of her peers at Olive-Harvey on the Far South Side. No application necessary.

Under a four-year, $20 million expansion announced today, all students taking at least nine credits at Olive-Harvey will be automatically enrolled in One Million Degrees, unless they say they don’t want to participate. The goal is to reach 3,000 students across multiple City College campuses by 2026.

“Why should it be by chance or luck that somebody finds out about these support services?” said Aneesh Sohoni, CEO of One Million Degrees.

The nonprofit launched in 2006 to provide low-income community college students with wraparound support to help them stay in school and complete their degrees. Students are paired with a mentor, provided tutoring, and given a $1,000 annual stipend. The organization’s former CEO Paige Ponder – now a member of the Chicago Board of Education – likened it to “helicopter-parenting” in a 2016 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

And so far, it’s worked.

Only about a quarter of City Colleges students earn a degree in three years. But an ongoing study by the University of Inclusive Economy Lab has found that students who participated in One Million Degrees were far more likely to finish a community college program and get a job or continue pursuing a four-year degree than students who were not part of the program. Researchers will continue to study the program through the next four years as it expands.

City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado said expanding the number of students served by One Million Degrees is a key part of the community college system’s recruitment and retention efforts. This fall, the seven-campus system enrolled around 35,000 students, but only a portion are full-time.

“We want to invest in what works,” Salgado. “We want it to work for more students – dramatically more students.”

Sohoni said four new staff members known as program coordinators have been hired to work with Olive-Harvey’s degree-seeking students. Each coordinator works with about 65 students. The students will also be paired with a volunteer mentor or coach who can help them with everything from their course work to building their credit score to networking for their career.

“It’s that extra human being that is assigned uniquely to you,” Salgado said. “That’s very meaningful to a young person.”

Salgado said that kind of mentoring is not something the City Colleges can do on its own.

“They can run around the whole city and recruit thousands and thousands of these mentors from the private sector and create the system for them to be matched with our students,” Salgado said. “That’s something that – at big public institutions like ours – would be hard to do.”

The four-year expansion effort will be funded with $5 million from City Colleges of Chicago, $5 million from the Pritzker Foundation, $1 million from One Million Degrees, and $9 million from other private philanthropy.

Students at campuses other than Olive-Harvey can continue to apply to One Million Degrees and the roughly 900 students already participating will still have support.

Salgado said starting with Olive-Harvey is an “important statement” because the school is one of the furthest from the central business district and is a predominantly black institution. He said the leadership there is committed to the program and it’s a manageable place to start scaling the program since it is a smaller campus.

“We oftentimes celebrate these models that work and yet fail to take them to scale,” Salgado said.

“While there are no guarantees of success, I think we’ve positioned ourselves for success.”

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

Push to get Chicago Public Schools officials to appear regularly at City Council fails

2022-11-09T19:10:00+00:00

Some Chicago aldermen want school district officials to meet with City Council quarterly, but a proposal to make that happen failed to pass Wednesday.

Under the ordinance, the measure would have temporarily withheld city money for certain school projects if Chicago Public Schools officials didn’t show up. That turned out to be a deal breaker for many aldermen on the committee, which held a virtual meeting Wednesday.

The vote was tied — and therefore, failed — with seven voting in favor and seven voting against.

“I currently have three projects in the hopper and I don’t want to get in the way of my own best interest,” said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, a former school counselor and Chicago Teachers Union member. She said quarterly meetings are “not a huge ask.”

Ald. Sophia King, who is running for mayor, put forward the ordinance during a committee meeting after being frustrated with the district’s lack of response to her budget questions.

“The threats of resources being withheld could very easily be waylaid, if CPS would just show up,” King said, noting that she reached out to district chief Pedro Martinez “quietly and subtly” to try to get questions answered about the school district’s budget “to no avail.”

Chuck Swirsky, senior advisor to Martinez, called it a “harmful ordinance” that would jeopardize school construction and infrastructure projects.

“You have our numbers, and we answer each time you call and I mean no matter what time of day it is,” Swirsky said. “We wholeheartedly value the genuine relationships and partnerships that we have fostered with City Council members.”

But Chicago Public Schools officials rarely appear before aldermen in public meetings. The Committee on Education and Child Development also rarely meets, despite attempts by council members to call meetings.

It was the first time King led a meeting as the vice chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development, which has been without a leader since June when Ald. Michael Scott Jr. resigned to take a job in the private sector. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has since appointed Scott to the school board and attempted to appoint an ally and bypass King.

The discussion comes after a report, prepared by the district with help from a consulting firm, released last week outlined the costs the city could shift to the school district once it transitions to an elected school board. It outlines hypothetical cost shifts on everything from school construction funding to water bills to summer programs.

The city already started shifting costs to Chicago Public Schools in 2020 when it started requiring the school district to pay into a city pension fund that covers some school employees.

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

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker defeats state Sen. Darren Bailey to win reelection

2022-11-09T04:31:35+00:00

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker defeated Republican challenger state Sen. Darren Bailey on Tuesday to win a second term. The Associated Press called the race for Pritzker shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m.

In his victory speech, Pritzker promised to fight for “a quality education that’s not just a prize you win for growing up in the right part of town or being born to the right set of parents.”

Speaking at the Marriott Marquis in the city’s Near South Side, he vowed to work toward a world where “books are not banned, nor children are shielded from the truth about all of our American history.”

Bailey conceded just before 10 p.m. and challenged Pritzker to “be better for Illinois” and “be better for our children.”

“Republicans need to be the loyal opposition in Springfield: loyal to our state, loyal to our country, loyal to our Constitution, in opposition to the radical policies of the Democrats,” he added.

Public education in Illinois has been one of the key issues separating the two candidates during this election season as they staked out opposing positions on everything from mask mandates in schools to what is taught to how much money schools should get from the state.

Pritzker told Chalkbeat before the election that if he wins a second term, he plans to increase state funding for education for K-12 schools and expand access to higher education. He also said that he wants to make early education more affordable for families and increase pay for early childhood teachers.

Bailey, R-Louisville, served 17 years on the North Clay Board of Education and founded a private Christian school that his wife still runs. He was elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 2018 and opposed Pritzker throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which dominated the governor’s first term.

Bailey easily won the primary against five opponents despite being significantly out-fundraised. On the campaign trail, he has appealed to “parental rights” voters and promised to ban “critical race theory” — a legal framework taught in law school that conservatives started using as a catchall phrase to oppose schools teaching about racism and the legacy of slavery.

He also railed against a new sex education law and said he would cut funding to education and fire the current state board of education members. In a rally Monday night, Bailey spoke to a group of suburban mothers about Democrats imposing vaccine mandates for school-age children if they were to be re-elected, ABC7 reported. Pritzker has not indicated he plans to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for public school students.

Pritzker came into office in 2019 after beating Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner with more than 54% of the vote in 2018.

Just over a year later, Pritzker’s administration had to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. He decided on March 13, 2020 to close all of the state’s more than 800 school districts. Schools rushed to get students learning online to continue the school year.

Backlash from conservatives soon followed. Early in the pandemic, Bailey made a name for himself opposing Pritzker’s executive orders in the courts. He filed a restraining order against Pritzker’s stay-at-home order and refused to wear a mask during the spring legislative session in 2020.

The state continued to adjust public health requirements for students and school employees to keep up with the shifting pandemic for the last couple of school years. Pritzker issued several executive orders requiring school employees to receive a coronavirus vaccine or test weekly, quarantining students and staff who tested positive for COVID-19 or were close contacts, and implementing universal mask mandate for K-12 schools. Most mandates were contested by parents during state school board meetings and in court.

While the COVID-19 pandemic dominated much of Pritzker’s first term, he also increased the state’s education budget by more than $1 billion, and signed laws to create an elected school board for Chicago, ban hairstyle discrimination in schools, and require Illinois schools to teach Asian American history.

Prior to Pritzker taking office, the state created an evidence-based school funding formula in 2017 with the intention of adding $350 million to the state’s education budget every year. The goal is to get the state’s 800 school districts to adequate funding by 2027 in an effort to address inequities across the state. The formula was signed into law after a budget impasse that lasted between 2015 to 2017 under the Rauner administration and resulted in funding cuts to K-12 schools and a decrease in funding for the state’s tuition assistance program for low-income students.

During Pritzker’s first term, he kept a bipartisan promise to add at least $350 million toward K-12 education in 2019, 2021, and 2022. In 2020, however, the budget remained flat due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the 2022 budget, the governor increased funding for early childhood education and for the Monetary Assistance Program that allows students from low-income families to attend college.

In 2021, Pritzker signed into law a bill that made Illinois the first state to require public elementary and high schools to teach Asian American history. He also signed the Jett Hawkins bill that prevents private and public schools from discriminating against students based on hairstyles historically associated with race, ethnicity, or texture.

Pritzker also signed bills that expand the Chicago Teachers Union bargaining rights, which has been a point of contention for over two decades, and will give Chicago a fully elected school board with 21 seats by 2027.

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.

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

Nearly 3,700 migrants have been bused to Chicago from Texas. 425 are school-aged children.

2022-11-07T22:45:00+00:00

It’s been two months since migrants began arriving in Chicago by busload from Texas — part of a move by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to send migrants arriving at his state’s border to Democratic-led cities.

Among the nearly 3,700 migrants who have been bused to Chicago, at least 425 are school-aged children. Many of these migrants are seeking asylum.

State records indicate these students have enrolled in 12 different school districts, including Chicago Public Schools and several suburban districts. Data on children under age 5 was not provided, but a spokesperson for the Illinois governor’s office said they are being offered child care and access to early learning programs.

More than 150 of the students are in Chicago Public Schools, but a district spokesperson did not say which schools have seen an influx of migrant students.

In a letter to elected officials, Chuck Swirsky, senior advisor to CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, wrote that migrant families are being “placed in hotels outside of the city by the State and students have also enrolled in the appropriate suburban districts.”

Swirsky’s letter came in response to one sent by aldermen, teachers, and activists to Martinez and Mayor Lori Lightfoot asking them to live up to their promise to make Chicago a “Sanctuary City.”

That letter listed several demands, including that the mayor and the school district use federal COVID recovery money to help asylum-seeking students, provide translated curriculum, and hire more bilingual staff and a translator for every school.

“We’re talking about an unfolding humanitarian crisis of children and families who arrive with no shoes. That is on the daily at our schools and we’re supposed to make do?” said Gabriel Paez, a bilingual coordinator at Cameron Elementary in Humboldt Park.

The number of bilingual teachers, assistants, and other staff who work with bilingual students has declined steadily over the last five years, according to district staffing data. Specifically, there are around 350 fewer bilingual teachers than there were in 2018.

Meanwhile, bilingual students now make up 22% of the district’s student population. Despite declining enrollment, the number of bilingual students has grown from 69,282 students during the 2018-19 school year to 72,029 this year.

Linda Perales, a Chicago Teachers Union organizer and bilingual special education teacher, said the union contract settled in 2019 included an agreement that the union and school district would release a joint letter declaring schools “sanctuary spaces,” but the district has not yet done so.

“We need the support to make sure that our students have what they need no matter whether they’ve been the students for five days or five years or their entire life,” Perales said at a press conference outside City Hall last week.

Rebecca Martinez, the union’s director of organizing, said she was aware of one elementary school in Belmont Cragin that welcomed 14 migrant students. She noted that the buses arriving from Texas are not the only migrants who are coming to Chicago.

“We’ve heard from members that are saying, ‘We’ve had more newcomers this year than we’ve ever had in a given year,’” Martinez said.

Martinez said the district could apply for federal grants under the Refugee School Impact Program. She said that money could have helped build an infrastructure for supporting migrant students. But a city spokesperson noted that grant is specifically for refugees. District budget data show CPS only got around $50,000 annually from that program until 2020.

Schools that have enrolled new students are being offered additional money or staff, according to the district’s letter to elected officials. Both Chicago and Illinois officials indicated that schools are also able to use money earmarked for homeless students to support migrants.

Chicago Public Schools has also convened a Newcomer Strategy Team that works with the Mayor’s Office of New Americans and community organizations to provide additional support to asylum-seekers, according to the district’s letter. In addition, district officials meet once a month with the union on issues related to bilingual education.

CORRECTION: Nov. 10, 2022: This article has been updated to clarify the amount and nature of the Refugee School Impact Program.

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

Chicago Public Schools no longer nation’s third largest district

2022-09-28T22:05:56+00:00

After 11 years of declining enrollment, Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district.

There are now 322,106 children attending the city’s public schools, roughly 9,000 fewer than last year, according to the official enrollment count released Wednesday during a school board meeting. That’s more than 80,000 fewer students than there were a decade ago, when city officials shuttered 50 schools citing low enrollment, and more than 115,000 fewer than were enrolled 20 years ago.

The stunning contraction in size raises important questions about the future of the public school system and the city as a whole.

“Our enrollment numbers reflect many changes including declining birth rates, but they also present us with an opportunity to review our practices and to ensure that we’re providing the best programming and services to our students,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said at the board meeting.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools has overtaken CPS as the third largest school district in the nation. The Florida district enrolled 324,961 as of Sept. 1, a district spokesman confirmed. Clark County in Nevada remains the fifth largest school district with just over 305,000 enrolled. New York City Public Schools is the largest with more than 950,000 students enrolled last fall and Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest with more than 430,000 last year.

The decades-long decline in enrollment accelerated during the pandemic, with more than 33,000 students leaving the district since the fall of 2020.

The pandemic-related closures and remote learning put unprecedented pressure on public schools across the country. But the reasons for Chicago’s declines are varied and in some cases, murky, according to a presentation given to school board members Wednesday.

Most students that left Chicago schools – for reasons other than graduating – went to schools outside the city or transferred to private schools though both of those moves happened less this year than they did last year. The number of students switching to homeschooling went up during the pandemic, but those numbers came back down this year.

District officials did see an uptick in the number of students considered dropouts and those who simply did not show up at school.

As the district has contracted in size, the racial demographics haven’t shifted significantly. Chicago schools still serve mostly Latino and Black students, but the percentage of white and Asian American students have increased. However, all groups are seeing declines.

District officials noted that some parts of the city saw steeper losses than others, including the predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village.

Despite shrinking enrollment, the district’s budget has grown to $9.4 billion, up from around $5 billion a decade ago. A new state funding formula and a wave of pandemic recovery money have helped. CPS is in a position to spend more money per student at a time of incredible need.

Still, schools were hit with budget cuts this spring. Union leaders, activists, and parents urged Chicago Public Schools to rethink its school-based funding model that they say ultimately results in declining enrollment and the closing of more schools.

But with a moratorium on school closures until 2025, a key question for the current administration is whether budgets will – and even can – continue to be tied so tightly to enrollment.

“It shouldn’t matter if we have 500 students or 300 students, those 300 students deserve quality,” said Carolina Gaete, executive director of Blocks Together, which is part of a coalition of community groups organizing parents around the issue.

Gaete talked with parents outside Beidler Elementary on September 19, the 20th day of the academic year when the district takes its official enrollment count. It was a sunny September afternoon as students spilled out of the red brick, two-story building in Garfield Park. Beidler fought back against a proposed closure in 2011 and Gaete said closures do nothing for communities but create boarded-up vacant eyesores.

On the same day, Dixon Romeo talked to parents outside Manley Career Academy High School. The West Side high school has 70 students enrolled this fall, down from about 250 in 2015.

As students trickled out of the building, Romeo approached a handful of parents waiting in their cars. He discussed Manley’s enrollment numbers, the district’s school-based budgeting system, and invited them to an upcoming virtual meeting on the district’s funding system.

United Working Families and Blocks Together are part of a larger coalition of community groups working to do away with the school-based budgeting model that the group says destabilizes communities. The budgeting system pits groups against one another, he told one parent.

“For any fight, you have to have an informed army,” Gaete said. “Part of that is really informing parents so they could really truly understand what this is and how it works and who benefits from it and who’s been negatively impacted.”

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

5 takeaways from the Chicago Teachers Union’s latest policy paper

2022-09-28T14:37:01+00:00

Mandate COVID vaccines. Hire more parents. Electrify all school buses. These are just a few of the proposals the Chicago Teachers Union is putting forward in a sweeping policy paper released today.

The document – “From Pandemic to a Real Path Forward” – is the third version of a policy brief first issued by the union in 2012. That paper – “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve” – was a first-of-its-kind move from a then-newly elected union leadership team led by the late Karen Lewis and became a roadmap for the union to move beyond bargaining over pay and benefits to advocating for broader political issues, such as affordable housing and violence prevention.

Now, as Chicago Public Schools continues its recovery from the pandemic that upended education and exacerbated pre-existing disparities for Black and Latino students, the union is calling on the district to make long-term investments by fully staffing schools, offering robust art programs, eliminating student-based budgeting, and more. Read the full report here.

“Short-term fixes for ‘recovery’ are not enough to mitigate both the harm of the pandemic and the harm of decades of segregation and disinvestment,” union leaders and some members wrote in the report. “Instead, the path forward requires a long-term commitment to students’ real needs, done in a way that recognizes the fundamental humanity of all students, not just those who happen to live in a select few zip codes.”

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

Require COVID vaccine mandate, other mitigation

In the face of emerging COVID variants, the union is recommending students, staff, families, and visitors entering any school building be vaccinated and boosted, if eligible. The union cited vaccination requirements for other deadly diseases as a reason to implement the requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine. The union also called for masking indoors and randomized testing unless students opt out.

The district has struggled to get students vaccinated. Across all district-run schools, the average school vaccination rate is 39.6%, a drop from May when the average school rate was 44.7%.

Majority Black elementary and high schools had an average vaccination rate of 23%, compared to majority Latino elementary and high schools, which averaged about 48.5%, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Address student mental health

School districts across the country are grappling with how to deal with the mental health fallout from the pandemic. The Centers for Disease and Control Prevention released a survey in the spring that found 1 in 3 high school students experienced poor mental health during the pandemic. About 44% of students nationwide also reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless,” according to the survey.

Chicago students have also had to contend with the impact of gun violence. Last year, more than 50 school-aged children were shot and killed and hundreds more were wounded, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Since January, 42 people 17 and younger have been shot and killed this year.

Chicago Public Schools must create school-based mental health clinics staffed by clinicians to address the multiple traumas, the report recommends. School disciplinary policies should be “trauma-informed and supportive,” the union writes.

The union’s recommendations also include: staffing each school with enough social workers and counselors to meet professional standards, training these clinicians in trauma-informed care, and staffing schools with restorative justice coordinators.

The district should also partner with community-based groups already providing mental health services, according to the union.

Put electric school buses and solar panels at every school

Chicago Public Schools has over $3 billion in deferred maintenance of buildings, some of which are nearly 150 years old. In the report, the union calls for long-range planning to prioritize capital improvements to campuses and building maintenance.

The union calls on the district to incorporate green building initiatives such as expanding solar panels to all school buildings and to train students in solar technology as part of an expansion of a solar manufacturing career technical education program. The CTE program could help train students to build and install solar panels at every school, according to the union’s vision.

Beyond the classroom, the union is also calling on the district to use clean energy by adopting a fleet of electric school buses. Funding for electric school buses could come from the recently passed bipartisan federal infrastructure bill and Illinois’s new climate and equitable jobs act.

The electric fleet, the union says, would help reduce carbon emission and reduce health consequences associated with diesel pollution.

Guarantee every school a librarian, nurse, counselor, and technology coordinator

The union’s initial policy paper in 2012 demanded CPS increase the number of counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists. This was a key issue – and win – during the latest round of bargaining in 2019. Building off the district’s agreement to ensure every school has one social worker and one nurse, the union is adding positions it deems essential: librarians and technology coordinators.

The goal, the union says, is to provide more individualized support to every student.

Key to guaranteeing every school has these positions, the union says, is funding them centrally, not from school budgets and regardless of enrollment. This is how district officials currently fund principals, for example.

Convert vacant schools to mental health clinics and affordable housing

There are dozens of vacant, boarded-up former schools across Chicago, most of them shuttered in 2013. The district put several up for sale and some were purchased by nonprofits, private schools, or developers, who converted them to luxury apartments.

But the majority remain vacant.

The union puts forward two ideas for reuse: Reopen mental health clinics shuttered by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel or turn them into affordable housing. At least one of the vacant school buildings – the former Von Humboldt school – was sold with the understanding it would become affordable housing for teachers. The project has stalled several times, but appears to be moving forward again.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Mayoral candidate wants to fund Chicago Public Schools based on need, not enrollment

2022-09-22T20:27:40+00:00

Mayoral hopeful Kambium “Kam” Buckner is promising to transform Chicago Public Schools by funding schools based on need, not enrollment; staffing every school with a nurse, librarian, and social worker; and expanding universal preschool to all 3-year-olds.

Buckner is the first 2023 mayoral candidate to hold an event releasing his education platform. He detailed the plan outside the shuttered Laura S. Ward Elementary School in Garfield Park on the West Side, one of the 50 schools closed in 2013 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Buckner is one of seven people planning to challenge Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term. Three aldermen and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas are among the candidates.

The Chicago Teachers Union has yet to throw their support behind a candidate. Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer, last month said he was exploring a possible run for mayor.

If elected mayor, Buckner said he plans to change how schools within the district are funded.

“As mayor, I will continue to work with Springfield to hold CPS accountable for directing state funds to schools based on need, and not on any other criteria,” Buckner said, adding that funding should not be strictly based on enrollment.

Currently, schools get a set amount of money per student, plus a few centrally-funded positions, such as principal and school clerk. This system – implemented in the wake of the 2013 closings – has been criticized by the Chicago Teachers Union because it penalizes schools with fewer students and sets them on a downward spiral of declining enrollment and disinvestment. Others – including former CPS CEO Janice Jackson – have said the method is more equitable because money follows students.

Chicago’s schools have seen a significant decline in enrollment over the past two decades. Though this year’s official enrollment numbers have yet to be released, preliminary data posted to the city’s data portal and first reported by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times indicates there are roughly 320,000 students in CPS. Twenty years ago, there were more than 438,000.

“We have to have a plan forward on how we maintain the number,” Buckner said. “But to bring more young people into our school system, we have to provide better options, better choices in our neighborhood schools.”

The proposed switch in how schools are funded also comes with a promise to staff every school with at least one nurse, one librarian, and one social worker. Currently, many social workers and nurses split time across two or more schools and librarians are becoming something of an endangered species in CPS, with about 90 librarians across more than 650 schools.

Chicago Public Schools has added about 90 school social workers since 2020, going from around 500 positions to roughly 590 this summer, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of staffing files posted on the district’s website. The number of nurses on staff is more difficult to track because the district hires different types of school nurses and relies on outside agencies to provide school nurses.

Buckner’s promise to expand universal preschool to 3-year-olds comes as the school district continues to recruit families to enroll their 4-year-olds. This is the first year Chicago has offered universal access to preschool, regardless of income, a push set in motion in 2018 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also expanded public preschool to 3-year-olds, using a windfall of federal stimulus money.

The plan outlined on Thursday also calls for an external audit of CPS special education practices to improve services, a leadership academy for principals to address morale, and targeted recruitment for teachers from Chicago communities.

Dwayne Truss, a former member of the Chicago Board of Education, introduced Buckner, who stood in a vacant lot across from the abandoned elementary school, and endorsed Buckner’s education plan. Truss previously told Chalkbeat he was asked to continue on the board after his term expired, but was replaced by Lightfoot. Truss was critical of a plan for a new high school on land intended for public housing.

Buckner declined to comment specifically about Truss’ ouster but said the school board should be composed of representative voices that reflect the community, are passionate about education, and who aren’t afraid to push back.

“Dawyne Truss is a lifelong Chicagoan,” Buckner said. “He understands the South Side and the West Side. He has worked to better education around the city for a very long time. Not listening to somebody like him is a huge detriment to all of us in the city.”

Buckner currently serves as Illinois House of Representative for the 26th District, which includes Bronzeville, Douglas, the Gold Coast, Near South Side, South Chicago, and South Shore. He has been in office since 2019.

The state representative was raised in Roseland and Washington Heights. His mother was a public school teacher for more than 30 years. She worked at Scott Joplin Elementary School in Auburn Gresham and Alcott Elementary in Lincoln Park before retiring about five years ago, he said.

Buckner previously worked as an aide for Sen. Dick Durbin and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. He also worked as a manager of neighborhood and government relations for the Chicago Cubs, and executive director of a youth development nonprofit World Sport Chicago.

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

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools’ first-day attendance rebounds as 93% of students show up

2022-09-02T20:01:59+00:00

Attendance on the first day of classes in Chicago Public Schools almost rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, according to numbers released by the district Friday.

The district said 93.4% of students showed up on the first day, an uptick from last year when 91% did and far more than the 84% who logged on for a virtual first day in fall 2020. The increase came even as students returned earlier than usual on Aug. 22, two weeks before Labor Day.

First-day attendance is typically higher than the district’s average daily attendance rate by about 2 percentage points.

Overall average daily attendance rates have hovered above 90% since 2003, but dipped below that in 2021 — a stark reminder of the challenges spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. Whether daily attendance this year rebounds is yet to be seen, but the first-day numbers could foreshadow improvement.

Daily attendance also varies by grade, with fourth graders attending school the most and 12th graders attending the least.

In a press release, the district credited the rebound in first-day attendance to summer programing such as academic recovery classes and grade-level transition camps. Schools chief Pedro Martinez said he was “thrilled to see a higher percentage of students” in the classroom when school started last week.

“I am grateful to our amazing CPS families for allowing us to work with more than 91,000 students over the summer and to all our faculty and staff who provided great learning experiences,” Martinez said. “Now we must continue to keep students in school where they can continue to learn, grow, and succeed with their classmates.”

The attendance rates reflect the proportion of students enrolled and in school on the first day. The district did not provide school-level attendance data for the first day, but average daily attendance data show rates also vary widely by school.

Chicago and other school districts have been working through challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic, including student disengagement and a steep drop in enrollment. CPS has been bolstering its efforts to re-engage students in the last few years.

Attendance is not only important for learning, but it’s also a factor used by the state to determine how much state funding a school district will get. However, legislation passed in 2021 means districts won’t be punished for attendance dips during the pandemic.

Chicago Public Schools will also take an official enrollment count on the 20th day of school – data that will likely not be available until late September or early October. But researchers are predicting another significant drop.

Thomas Wilburn contributed to this report.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

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

It’s the first day of school in Chicago. Here’s what we’re watching.

2022-08-22T10:00:00+00:00

“One of the district’s best years yet.”

That’s what Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez is promising to more than 300,000 students as they walk through the school doors this year.

Two-and-a-half tumultuous years of shuttered buildings, quarantines, virtual learning, and budget cuts have taken a toll on the city’s school system.

As classes get underway, COVID mitigations loosen, and district leaders start reimagining school, Chalkbeat Chicago will be there.

Here are some of the issues we will be watching:

How many students show up?

Fewer students have been walking through the doors of public schools in Chicago every year for the past decade. The last time Chicago saw an uptick in public school enrollment was in 2010, in the wake of the Great Recession.

Because the district currently funds schools based on enrollment, some schools have gotten so small they struggle to provide a full, robust education. But the trauma of a generation of school closings in Chicago still lingers, and state law prevents the district from shuttering schools until 2025. Martinez has signaled that he’s searching for alternatives.

“We have under-enrolled schools, but I see it as an opportunity,” he said at a recent City Club speech. “I really do. I see it as an opportunity to create innovative school models.”

Chicago Public Schools doesn’t take an official enrollment count until the 20th day of school, and the data won’t likely be available until late September or early October. But researchers are predicting another significant drop.

“We have lower birth rates. We have more and more families living in the suburbs,” Martinez said, noting that his focus is on making sure every neighborhood has schools and programs that are attractive to students and their families.

Will students make it to school safely and on time?

Chicago Public Schools provides transportation to more than 10,000 students every year.

But last year, it struggled to provide busing for students requesting transportation, a problem that hit districts across the state and country amid bus driver shortages.

At the beginning of the school year, the district had only 500 of the 1,200 bus drivers needed. School officials also attributed busing snarls to new transportation requests, enrollment changes, and route assignments by the bus companies. But almost two months into the school year, CPS still had 4,000 students with outstanding transportation requests; more than half were students with disabilities.

Some families received subsidies to provide their own transportation, and the district partnered with taxi companies and vendors such as RideAlong to try to close the gap. The district also sought to hire more drivers throughout the year. It was finally able to meet transportation obligations for students with disabilities in February.

In an effort to avoid repeating last year’s mess, the Board of Education adopted a resolution that prioritized transportation for students with individualized education programs and those who lived in temporary housing before general education students who qualify for busing to get to magnet and other selective schools.

But some questioned whether the district will be able to meet the needs for vulnerable students.

Will there be enough staff?

The district has added more than 3,000 new positions since the pandemic started, according to publicly available staffing data. It’s not uncommon for positions to be unfilled on the first day of school. As of June 30, about 9% were vacant, up from 6% in June 2020.

Data show openings this summer were most common among bus aides, lunchroom workers, and special education staff. But staffing struggles are complex and can’t be attributed to any one factor, such as people quitting due to stress.

Chicago Public Schools has committed $5 million to hire more social workers and $6 million to fund counselor positions at 53 schools that need them the most. Additionally, staffing data show the district has added more case managers, counselors, social workers, and special education teachers and aides since 2020.

Are the kids all right?

The pandemic has taken a toll on everybody, but leading researchers are sounding the alarm on how it has affected young children and teenagers, with some calling it a crisis or just the tip of the iceberg. So what does that mean for schools?

It means teachers and school staff will be doing even more than they long have to make sure students are healthy and emotionally supported. Increasing the number of social workers and counselors is a vital step in a system that’s frequently understaffed in these positions.

But in addition to hiring staff, Chicago Public Schools is pouring millions of dollars into various efforts aimed at making sure the kids are, in fact, all right. This includes $5 million for a universal social-emotional curriculum that includes bullying prevention; $13 million for mentorship and partnerships with the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children’s Hospital, DePaul University, and others; and $2 million to hire staff dedicated to helping homeless students at 35 schools.

Also, thanks to a new state law, students are now able to take up to five mental health days if they need a break.

How many families take advantage of universal preschool?

It’s been five years since then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel first promised Chicagoans free, universal preschool. The goal was to serve all interested families by fall 2021, but the pandemic threw a wrench in that timeline.

Preschool enrollment saw a significant drop in 2020, with families wary of virtual learning for their 3- and 4-year-olds. This spring, the district launched a new registration portal and advertised the availability of preschool for all families, regardless of income.

Officials say they can serve 14,500 preschoolers this year, and there are still thousands of available spots for the littlest learners.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org. Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago schools get smaller share of state money after enrollment drop, property wealth bump

2022-08-05T22:04:07+00:00

Chicago is getting a smaller share of new state education funding this year, in part due to a loss of low-income students and an increased property tax base.

New calculations released by the Illinois Board of Education this morning give Chicago Public Schools $1.75 billion in state money, an overall increase of roughly 1.5% over last year.

But the state’s complex formula for determining how to fund public school districts recategorized Chicago in a way that could mean less state money in the future and a longer road to be considered fully funded.

“They’re still getting money from the state, it’s just less money than they would have,” said Ralph Martire, executive director with the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and one of the architects of the state law that created the so-called evidence-based funding formula in 2017.

The state is adding $350 million to the billions it is distributing to districts this year. Of that new money, Chicago will get a little more than $27 million of the additional dollars. But district officials say they expected to get around $50 million.

In a statement, a CPS spokesperson said the shift puts more pressure on the district at a time “when our needs have never been greater.”

“Public schools are serving a wider scope of needs than ever before as we emerge from the pandemic and we need all the resources we can get,” the statement said.

The state’s formula for determining how to fund schools looks at a variety of factors, including the percentage of low-income students and wealth of the property surrounding schools. Chicago saw a 4% loss of low-income students and a 3% increase in the city’s property tax base, according to state data.

Chicago lost 10,000 students last school year, continuing a decade-long trend of shrinking enrollment. While nearly 70% of Chicago students are low-income, those numbers have also dipped as parts of the city have grown wealthier.

“They’re sitting on a lot of property wealth and they don’t necessarily tap that property wealth to the level they could,” Martire said of Chicago. He also noted that districts, including Chicago, are getting a windfall this year from a tax on corporate profits, which affects the formula but is not as reliable as a source of revenue.

The state legislature overhauled how it funds public schools in 2017 and promised to equitably fund the state’s 852 school districts by 2027. To get there, the formula prioritizes every district into four tiers. Tier 1 districts get the most help from the state to fund their schools and Tier 4 districts get the least. For the coming fiscal year, Chicago moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2, which effectively puts it further back in line for new money.

Jessica Handy, director of government affairs at Stand for Children, said she didn’t anticipate Chicago Public Schools would be recategorized this year because the district still serves a large population of students from low-income families.

Handy said the evidence-based funding formula is better than the system it replaced, but the state needs to increase its contribution to get all districts to adequate funding.

“Illinois was a deeply inequitable school funding system,” Handy said. “Evidence-based funding made it better because we’ve set up a framework to get ourselves to adequacy. But at a rate of $350 million per year, it’s not enough to fully fund the many needs of our school districts, especially our neediest school districts.”

Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, said the formula is designed to provide a base amount that districts can count on year after year. Any new evidence-based funding a district receives becomes part of its base funding in the future year.

“This predictability can be quite helpful to districts for planning purposes,” said Steans. “For many districts, including CPS, their base funding minimums have grown over the past five years as they have received new evidence-based funding.”

Nearly 60 school districts, including many surrounding Chicago, will get a larger share of the $350 million in new money after being reclassified due to enrollment shifts and property wealth adjustments.

Among them is Lincoln Way Community High School District 210, which saw a 131% increase in the number of students identified as English Language Learners. Similarly, Warren Township High School District 121 saw a 20% increase in students learning English.

Another district getting a larger share of the new state education money is Homewood Flossmoor District 233, which saw declining enrollment but also had a drop in property wealth, according to the formula.

Last year, an analysis released by a group of legislators, superintendents, and experts tasked with overseeing the new funding model estimated that it would take until 2042 to fully fund schools if the state continues to invest $350 million — considered the base amount.

Pritzker and the general assembly hoped that the more than $7 billion in emergency COVID federal funding the state received will make up for not being able to add more than $350 million toward the state funding formula.

State education advocates have warned that without an increase in state funding schools will be seeing a cut in services because districts base long-term staffing positions on state funding, not short-term federal funding.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org. Becky Vevea is Chalkbeat Chicago’s Bureau Chief. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkeat.org.