CPS Cuts Staffing Slightly But Special Education Positions Will Rise At Some Campuses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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