Chalkbeat Chicago

The graduation rate increased to 82.9 percent last year, up nearly 3 percent from the 2020-21 school year.

The schools have been beset by financial trouble and allegations of sexual misconduct from its founder, who resigned in August. CPS wants to keep the Englewood and Bronzeville campuses open under district management.

Chicago Public Schools’ vaccine sites will offer the updated vaccine this week. The district will alert families when the bivalent booster is available to 5- to 11-year-olds.

Despite being years behind on obligations to build more homes, the city’s public housing agency gets permission to sell, lease and swap its property in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Col. Daniel L. Baggio signed a severance agreement in March after an investigation by the school district’s watchdog exposed “systemic failures” regarding his oversight of JROTC. 

After 11 years of declining enrollment, Chicago Public Schools now serves 322,106 children, making it the nation’s fourth largest district after Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which serves 324,961 students.

The average school vaccination rate is 39.6 percent across all schools. Rates remain the lowest at predominantly Black schools on the South and West sides, according to a data analysis by Chalkbeat.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and schools CEO Pedro Martinez are hoping for a better year after two tumultuous ones navigating the pandemic’s massive disruption to learning.

Only 40 percent of alternative high school students in Chicago graduate, and those who do can face bleak career prospects. As Chicago and other urban districts expand these programs, advocates worry alternative school students may be left out.

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. 

CPS will continue its mask-optional policy and school-based COVID-19 testing, but there is no quarantine requirement for students exposed to coronavirus, unless they test positive.

CPS empowered local schools councils to make the decision to keep or remove police two years ago. Because the district has released few details about the impact, it’s hard to tell if a different approach to safety is working.

Chicago has so far spent the bulk of its COVID relief money on salaries and benefits, mostly for positions that existed before the pandemic hit.

Just six CPS schools have money allotted for athletic trainers. All are on the North Side and serve a lower proportion of low-income students than the rest of the district.

It's a $200 million increase over the previous year’s budget. But parents and union leaders say schools are still not getting what they need to address academic and mental health fallout from the pandemic.

The proposal would put a high school where the Harold Ickes Homes once stood near 24th and State streets. 

Just 15 percent of the district’s third through eighth graders who took the test this spring met state standards in math, and a fifth of students met standards in English language arts.

“Keeping it real: You have been cheated,” Richards principal Ellen Kennedy told graduates. “This pandemic robbed you of so many of the high school experiences you so richly deserve.” 

Public hearings on the budget start next week and the Chicago school board will vote on the spending plan at its June 22 meeting.

The district’s special education classroom assistant substitute pool has been stretched thin.