Chicago Public Schools told principals Tuesday that the district is planning to cut the number of regular teachers who work in schools next year, a change that will result in bigger class sizes.
CPS is raising the student-to-teacher ratio it uses to provide funding to schools by 1 for every grade. For example, high-poverty elementary schools will get one teacher for every 23 students in the coming school year, up from one for 22 students this year.
It marks the first time in three years that CPS, facing a deficit, is proposing cuts that will directly hit classrooms. Prior to that, the school district was flush with federal COVID relief funding and did not face big shortfalls.
CPS officials refused, in a media briefing, to provide an estimate of how much less money schools will receive, how many total teachers will be laid off or how much the district stands to save.
But an analysis by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times shows that between 700 and 800 classroom teachers could be laid off under the district’s new staffing formula. Based on the average teacher’s salary of about $100,000, that would reduce spending by $70 million to $80 million. CPS also said some small schools will lose their assistant principal position, but they did not say how many AP jobs would be cut or what enrollment constitutes a small school.
The district is planning to increase spending on special education teachers, classroom assistants, physical and occupational therapists and speech pathologists, but officials didn’t say how much those increases would be.
Because the district only provided broad outlines of what schools are getting, other cuts may surface once spending plans are finalized by Local School Councils. Schools must submit final budgets by June 9.
CPS officials said they are projecting a $732 million deficit next school year and that, to reduce costs, they are adjusting the staffing in schools to align with a continued decrease in enrollment. The district had projected a deficit of $520 million for next year, but its latest figure is based on an updated analysis.
CPS has 45,000 fewer students this school year compared to 2019, but still has around more than 8,000 additional staff positions, many of which were added with federal COVID relief funds.
Macquline King, the district’s CEO and superintendent, said the additional staff was needed at the time and helped the district counter pandemic-related learning loss. But she said “the relief funding is now gone and it’s difficult for the district to support and sustain that same level of staffing.”
She also noted that in recent years, CPS is serving a greater number of students who require special education services and who are English language learners.
King said the budget for next year tries to balance these factors.
“Despite all of these challenges, we have a budget that successfully meets the moment,” she said. “It acknowledges our financial reality and our full responsibilities to our highest need learners, and it protects the resources and supports that have the most direct impact on our students’ daily learning experience.”
CPS officials said they didn’t want to provide estimates of how many staff could be cut because principals, working with LSCs, can choose to use discretionary money to keep teachers and assistant principals.
CPS officials also stressed that the information shared on Tuesday was just for school-level budgets. They won’t announce CPS’ entire budget, including what the district plans to spend on central office and operations, such as custodians and building engineers, until mid-summer. As was the case last year, the final budget approval might not happen until the August school board meeting.
CPS deficit could change if city, state kick in more funds
The projected $732.5 million deficit could change, depending on a number of factors. The calculation assumes CPS will receive $100 million dollars in revenue from special taxing districts called TIFs. How much can be pulled out of TIFs is determined by the mayor’s office and approved by the City Council as part of the budget.
It also does not include the cost of reimbursing the city for a pension payment for non-teaching CPS staff. While CPS’ refusal to make this payment has been controversial in the past, the city is not expecting it as part of its budget.
The payment is solely the responsibility of the city but former Mayor Lori Lightfoot shifted some of that responsibility to CPS. Whether to reimburse the city or not was a big point of contention in CPS’ budget process last year.
The mayor’s office called CPS’ new TIF estimates “in line with the conservative approach CPS has used in their prior budgets.” But the exact amount available won’t be clear for months .
The district says its budget gap is driven by higher costs, including maintenance of the district’s aging facilities, labor agreements and CPS’ debt payments. That’s in addition to the growing expenses for students with disabilities and students who are learning English.
The deficit could shrink if CPS gets more money from TIFs than it anticipates. Mayor Brandon Johnson pulled a record $1 billion out of these special taxing districts last year and some think he will do it again. CPS gets 52% of all money taken from TIFs.
The district also could get more money from the state. King and CPS board members have traveled to Springfield to lobby lawmakers for more school funding. Even after state funding reform, CPS gets 73% of what it needs to provide an “adequate” education, according to the state’s formula.
“CPS is facing a billion-dollar deficit for one reason alone – the governor and the general assembly have refused to enact the evidence-based funding formula that Illinois law demands,” Jackson Potter, Chicago Teachers Union vice president, said in a statement on Tuesday. If the state truly followed its evidence-based model, he said, CPS would have a surplus and “would not be staring down cuts right now.”
King said lawmakers need to know what’s at stake, but the district has to make plans as if it won’t get additional funding.
“We have to make decisions based on the revenue sources that we have, and not the revenue we wish we had,” she said.
CPS plans to cap teacher cuts, but other staffing levels still unclear
Two years ago, CPS switched from a funding model that gave schools a set amount of money for each student enrolled to one that allocates positions, so every school gets a minimum number of administrators, support staff and specialty teachers, such as art and physical education teachers.
But regular classroom teachers are still allocated based on student enrollment, while factoring in the needs of the students.
Karime Asaf, the chief education officer, said any teacher losses will be capped, with a maximum of four teachers per elementary school and six for high schools.
The cap “will help to minimize the impact on the student experience and ensure that we are still providing a strong foundation for every school regardless of size or enrollment trends,” Asaf said.
Asaf added that even though staffing levels will change, they will not go above the limits set in the most recent Chicago Teachers Union contract.
That 2025 agreement caps kindergarten classes at 25 students per teacher, first through third grade maxes out at 28 and fourth through eighth grade goes up to 30. High school classes are not supposed to go over 28 students.
CPS officials said funding will also be set aside to allow schools to hire additional teachers or assistant teachers if they’re needed to meet the class size limits in the CTU contract.
It’s unclear what the allocation for other positions looks like. For example, after the COVID-19 pandemic, CPS provided each school with an interventionist teacher, whose job was to help struggling students.
Some schools lost their interventionist position last year, but nearly 400 schools still had at least one.
CPS officials noted that, like last year, the district plans to make cuts to its central office and the networks that oversee groups of schools. And they’ll continue to look at other areas where they can save money.
“Just really everything is on the table,” King said.