Chicago Public Schools will spend $290 million more on its schools next school year, or $4 billion total, officials said, continuing a trend of boosting campus funding even as enrollment dips.
But unlike the current school year, when roughly 95% of schools saw budget hikes, some campuses with steep enrollment declines will see those losses reflected in shrinking budgets. Overall, officials said, 60% of schools will have budget increases next year, while the remaining 40% will have flat or decreasing allocations. Not all $290 million will go directly into school budgets, with some of the money, including $45 million for educator professional development, budgeted in central pots campuses can draw from.
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The district has steadily increased the amount of money that goes directly to schools in recent years. Last year, it added $225 million, a move officials said was possible because of an influx of federal COVID relief dollars. The district got roughly $2.8 billion across three federal stimulus packages that it has to spend by fall of 2024.
The district has repeatedly increased school budget funding earmarked for special education, early childhood programs and its equity grants, cash infusions for campuses dealing with steep enrollment declines or those in neighborhoods facing economic and other hardships. The district is doing away with the term “equity grant,” which was confusing to families, officials said, but Chicago will spend $50 million to prop up the budgets of schools with small or steeply declining enrollments, a $14 million increase over last year.
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Next year’s budget is the first that CEO Pedro Martinez, who arrived after the school year started last fall, gets to shape, offering a glimpse at his priorities and longer-term vision for the district. He said the budget release, which comes earlier than in recent years, is the first step in a three-year district overhaul plan he is gearing up to unveil soon.
“These budgets will help our students to return to the record-breaking academic gains we saw before the pandemic,” he said at a virtual press conference, adding, “Our financial outlook is very strong.”
The district announces draft school budgets in the spring and a final, districtwide budget in the summer. The additional school funding will include $72 million for new teaching positions that will help reduce class sizes at some schools.
The district provided an overview, saying it will share school-by-school budget data later Friday.
School budgets generally make up about 60% of Chicago’s overall district operating budget. This current school year, that operating budget is $7.8 billion, part of a total $9.3 billion budget that also includes facilities and debt service expenditures.
The district has experienced a net loss of about 25,000 students during the pandemic, with current enrollment at 330,400 students. An unprecedented number of students — more than 53,000 — left Chicago Public Schools for other districts, private schools, and homeschooling.
The district will spend $21 million to continue to add nurse, social worker positions, and case workers, with officials saying they aim to go beyond goals spelled out in the district’s contract with the Chicago Teachers Union.
The newly unveiled school budgets also include:
- $39 million more for special education.
- $10 million more for all-day pre-kindergarten programs.
- $6 million to add 53 new counselor positions, in addition to 64 positions the district announced last year.
- $3 million more for bilingual education.
- $2 million to create new staff positions to support unhoused students.
Over the years, the union and others critics have taken aim at a school budget formula in which student enrollment still looms fairly large. They say the district’s approach sends…
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