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Enrollment at Chicago Public Schools continued to decline rapidly this fall, dipping by more than 11,500 students compared with last year.
The district is serving about 304,000 students on the heels of losing roughly 76,000 pupils over the past decade. Despite the drop, CPS officials said the district has reclaimed its spot as the country’s third largest from Miami-Dade, as other large urban districts across the country also are grappling with enrollment declines. “It’s like winning because somebody tripped,” CPS Superintendent Macquline King said.
The district’s small West and South Side high schools were once again some of the hardest hit by enrollment losses, according to preliminary, unofficial school-level data Chalkbeat reviewed. A handful lost more than a fifth of their enrollments compared with last year, and two of them, Spry and Douglass, are serving fewer than 40 students each.
Against that backdrop, the Chicago Teachers Union and several community nonprofits held a press conference calling for the board to extend a school closure moratorium that expires at the end of 2026-27. They argued that closing schools destabilizes neighborhoods and disproportionately affects Black students, and they pointed to recent research showing gun violence spiked in the vicinity of vacant Chicago school buildings.
Following the disruptive shuttering of 50 schools under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013 — the largest mass school closures in the country — the issue of mergers has been toxic in Chicago politics and studiously avoided by district and city leaders.
But some candidates in this fall’s historic race to elect all 21 members of the school board have spoken about a need to address declining enrollment, with input from communities and with closures on the table. Some have argued that students in many of the district’s small schools get a subpar academic and social experience at a relatively high per-pupil price tag.
CPS saw enrollment stabilize for a couple of years after the arrival of thousands of migrant families in 2022, but it started declining again last year. The student losses have resulted in a growing number of severely underenrolled schools, many of them housed in large, aging buildings — an issue that’s slated to come to a head in the coming year as the school board-imposed moratorium on closing schools expires.
Chicago’s plummeting birth rates, slowing immigration, and a massive outmigration from the city have been key drivers in CPS’s enrollment declines. The city’s falling births — which decreased by 37% between 2010 and 2023 — are poised to continue putting pressure on CPS enrollment in the coming years.
“The district is left with 135,000 plus seats with no children to put in them,” said Annise Lewis, CPS’s deputy chief education officer.
A report by the advocacy group Kids First Chicago earlier this year also found the district has lost some “market share” since the pandemic started — the portion of school-aged children whose families choose the district rather than private schools or homeschooling. That share had remained stable for years even as overall enrollment numbers slipped.
The district said its racial makeup remains largely unchanged this fall, with Latino students representing about 46% of the student body. The number of students with disabilities continued to increase, now making up more than 18% of the district’s enrollment. The portion of low-income students dipped just below 70%, though the district said decreases in low-income, homeless, and English learner students could shrink as schools are working to update demographic data.
The Lower West Side lost more than half of its student enrollment. South Lawndale, Avondale, Brighton Park, Gage Park, and McKinley Park were also hard hit. O’Hare, the Loop, and Lincoln Park saw the largest increases in enrollment.
Based on preliminary school-based data, also especially hard hit were former Acero schools and Chicago Arts High School — formerly privately run public schools that the district absorbed to avert their closure. All but one Acero school lost significant enrollment, with Cisneros losing almost a third of its students.
A principal at a high-needs neighborhood high school said the campus welcomed its smallest freshman class ever this fall, significantly below what it had projected. The principal, who spoke anonymously because CPS hadn’t authorized an interview, said the school has pushed hard to get the word out about recent academic growth and persuade nearby elementary campuses to stop steering their students away.
“At some point, you just don’t have enough kids to provide a full, well-rounded education and a joyful environment,” the principal said. “More money is not the answer.”
That school leader said district leaders should consider policy changes such as limiting the number of students neighborhood high schools can poach from each other.
At the press conference, union and nonprofit leaders said they are circulating a pledge for school board candidates that if signed, means they would oppose any school closings. Hilario Dominguez, the union-backed candidate for school board president, tried to get his opponents to sign the document during a Wednesday evening debate hosted by FOX32.
Speakers at the Thursday event argued that very small schools can offer a robust, personalized learning experience and can grow their enrollments if the district invests more money. They pointed to Dyett High School, which reopened in 2016 after community leaders went on a hunger strike and has since grown its student numbers, adding another roughly 30 students this fall.
Board member Karen Zaccor, who is running to keep her North Side seat, said she bristles when she hears school board candidates say they won’t close school before engaging local communities — what she called “closings lite.”
“You’re still out there to tell them, ‘Well, we’re going to close your schools. We’ll just talk to you first,’” she said.
Vicki Kurzydlo, the CTU’s recording secretary, told the board historical disinvestment has driven enrollment losses. One solution is continuing to expand the Sustainable Community Schools program, a partnership with the teachers union in which schools, including Dyett, receive an added $500,000 a year each to team up with community nonprofits and expand support services.
Overall, the 20 schools that piloted the program starting in 2018 have seen a steeper drop in enrollment than the district overall, losing almost a fifth of their combined enrollment as of last school year.
King told the board the shrinking district must “evolve,” without going into more detail.
“We have to listen to the students,” she said. “We have to deal with that’s before us, and we have to make decisions.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
