CHICAGO () — Chicago Public Schools is preparing to cut hundreds of positions and require unpaid furlough days under a budget plan designed to close a projected $732 million shortfall, district officials said Wednesday.
The proposal calls for layoffs affecting roughly 760 teachers and 801 teacher aides. It also includes five furlough days scheduled on days when students are not in class. In addition, CPS plans to freeze spending and pursue more Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, dollars as part of its effort to bring the budget into balance.
The Chicago Teachers Union sharply rejected the plan, describing it as “dead on arrival.”
“What I can say is that this process is painful for everyone all the way around, and I understand how people, especially CTU knowing their members being impacted, might feel that way,” CPS CEO Dr. Macquline King said.
King said CPS would look to reverse the furlough days if new funding comes through from the city, state or federal government.
“We would want to prioritize the furlough days, but have to leave flexibility,” King said.
District leaders said some of the job cuts are tied to CPS lowering its student-to-teacher ratio by one. Other reductions will be made at the school level, with principals weighing staffing against each building’s enrollment and academic programming needs.
“A lot of these are local personnel decisions and they are driven by programmatic need. They are driven by enrollment at the school. If a school doesn’t need three fourth-grade classrooms, they might only need two,” CPS Chief Talent Officer Ben Felton said.
CPS officials said many laid-off teachers could eventually be rehired, a claim disputed by the Chicago Teachers Union.
“Unfortunately, when our teachers are laid off, a lot of them leave our district because people need job security. And not having that job security causes them to leave the profession,” said Tenesha Higgens, a CPS teacher and CTU delegate.
Beyond staffing reductions, the proposed budget calls for a midyear spending freeze, elimination of funding for assistant principals at schools with enrollment below 250 students and 162 layoffs at the district’s central office that were announced earlier.
District leaders said the budget proposal also includes increased funding for bilingual and special education educators.
“The budget that we have presented is one that does its absolute best to address the very diverse needs of our students, and so we center this budget around the students and the needs that they have in this given moment,” King said.
The budget maintains funding for CPS crossing guards and Safe Passage workers.
Public hearings are scheduled over the next several weeks, and CPS hopes the school board will vote on the proposal at its July 30 meeting.
