Overview
- CPS, which rolled out preliminary campus budgets Tuesday, will raise the student‑teacher ratio used to assign staff and will stop funding assistant principals at schools with fewer than 250 students.
- The district says each school will keep at least 10 teachers and face caps on educator reductions, and it plans to add special education staff and open 60 new cluster classrooms for students with higher needs.
- Officials estimate about $96 million in savings from school‑level changes, and the $732 million shortfall assumes no CPS payment into a city pension for support staff and only $100 million from a development tax fund.
- Principals can appeal their allocations through June 9, and the Board of Education must approve a balanced district budget by Aug. 29.
- Board members and unions are pressing Springfield for progressive revenue and warning against a Bears stadium financing push, while CPS points to years of enrollment decline, nearly 9,700 added jobs during the pandemic, and funding at roughly 73% of the state’s adequacy level.