Become a Chalkbeat sponsor
GoCPS
The deadline for applying to magnet, selective, charter, and other schools outside a student’s neighborhood is being extended to Dec. 15.
Mayor Brandon Johnson said the proposed charter school closures require more aggressive solutions from the district, but he hasn’t “seen that type of leadership” from CPS.
The plan includes several priorities meant to bolster communities with high-needs, including to improve academic achievement for Black students and reduce teacher vacancies.
The plan — which will be finalized this summer — will prioritize improving students’ daily experiences in the classroom, addressing staffing and funding, and collaborating more closely with school communities.
Martinez said the district is working to find other options for transportation, such as adjusting bell times, but CPS has struggled to hire more bus drivers.
Students were assessed based on test scores, grades, school rankings, and their neighborhood’s socioeconomics in the CPS high school enrollment process.
They’re responding to signals that Johnson and the school board want to shift resources to neighborhood public schools.
The move puts in motion Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign promise to reinvigorate neighborhood schools.
Chalkbeat followed students and their parents through the high school application process in Chicago.
The admissions process has built up a reputation for being stressful on families, but many value the ability to choose a school they see as the best fit for their child.
The district will reschedule the test for eighth-graders who couldn’t finish.
Families use the application for entry to a variety of schools, including selective test-in schools and neighborhood schools outside of their attendance boundaries.
Four-year-olds will get priority, but officials say more than 30,000 spots are available across Chicago Public Schools and community-based early childhood providers. Families are encouraged to apply before May 2 to get an offer by May 19.
Applications for next school year are due Thursday, Dec. 8 at 5 p.m. Students can apply for magnet, gifted, selective enrollment, charter, and neighborhood schools through the GoCPS portal. Offers will be made in the spring.
The upheaval forced the district to make temporary changes, but some families and advocates worry about what the high-stakes ritual might look like next year and beyond.
Now that oversized classes will cost the city, Chicago Public Schools is also taking a hard look at schools that choose to admit so many students that class sizes swell beyond the city’s limits — a move that cushions those schools’ budgets but also leaves students and teachers in classes of 30 or more.
About 100 more Chicago Public Schools freshmen enrolled at neighborhood high schools during the 2018-19 school year, an increase from 22 to 23 percent over the previous year, according to the study, from the UChicago Consortium and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
More than 26,600 eighth-graders applied for admission to high schools via Chicago Public Schools’ online GoCPS platform, and just over half were offered a seat at their first choice.
It is a game of higher stakes for Chicago’s families: the release of the lottery results for the school district’s selective high schools.
In the competition for students, Chicago’s more than 160 high schools behave like small colleges desperately vying to impress would-be freshmen and their families.