Budget cuts hit pandemic-weary Chicago elementary schools
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- 11 Apr 2022
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In 2022-23 school budgets across Chicago, pandemic-era enrollment losses are colliding with the urgent push to recover from the outbreak’s academic and mental health damage.
In Little Village on the city’s Southwest Side, Zapata Elementary will lose more than $894,000, or about 13% of its budget, next fall — a cut that could claim eight teaching positions and a preschool classroom. Cardenas is looking at $605,000 less, or a 6% reduction, and the resulting loss of four classroom teachers and a support staff member.
The cuts come on the heels of a steep enrollment dip: Little Village’s 14 elementary schools lost almost a fifth of their students during the pandemic, which accelerated a pre-COVID trend of shrinking Latino majority elementary schools throughout the city. Because fewer students are enrolled, the neighborhood’s campuses will actually get an average of $2,600 more per student next fall than they did the year the pandemic hit — despite getting less money overall.
Little Village is also one of the neighborhoods where COVID took the heaviest health and economic toll — and the district is slashing budgets as campuses try to bounce back from that profound disruption. The cuts also come as the district acknowledged spending just 6% of its $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan dollars, the latest and largest infusion in federal pandemic recovery cash.
Chicago largely shielded schools from the financial fallout of declining enrollment for the last two years, but this fall, 40% of the district’s campuses will see leaner budgets. The district’s principals group says the rising cost of employee salaries and benefits could mean even campuses where budgets stayed relatively flat might need to trim to balance them.
District leaders say that declining enrollment has left some campuses with too many staff members for the size of their student bodies, stressing most schools got a funding boost even after the loss of 25,000 students districtwide during the pandemic. They note that additional help for schools will come from centralized funds for after-school and summer programs, professional development, and more — funds that some school leaders such as Cardenas principal Jeremy Feiwell say will power key staff and programs.
“There is no school where the budget is being adjusted unless the children are just not there — they are literally physically not in the building,” said district CEO Pedro Martinez in an interview.
But advocates fear the cuts could undermine efforts to recover from the pandemic and thrust once-bustling campuses in neighborhoods such as Little Village into a cycle of staff and program cuts that trigger more family defections.
“The school community is losing out,” said Jianan Shi of the parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand, “and that starts a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t stabilize the community.”
Raise Your Hand launched a social media campaign Wednesday urging parents to email the school board and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in opposition to the budget cuts. With other community groups, it is hosting a Friday press conference at Shields Middle School in Brighton Park. Parents and advocates in Little Village and other neighborhoods are also vowing to press the district to reconsider the cuts ahead of a summer school board vote on the overall district budget.
Some also plan to reach out to state legislators, noting that by the state’s own calculation Chicago schools remain underfunded so the district is trying to divide a pie that’s too small.
Major differences between per-pupil spending at nearby campuses remain
In their school budget announcement last month, district officials touted a $290 million increase in funding for schools. Some of that is going to central funds from which schools will draw to cover various expenses.
Based on data CPS provided last month, district-run campuses will see a net increase of about $60 million, following $225 million more last year, when 95% of schools saw budget hikes. On campuses where budgets will shrink — primarily neighborhood elementary schools — those cuts add up to a total of about $42 million.
Because of enrollment declines and recent budget bumps, only a handful of schools in CPS will see a decrease over pre-pandemic funding on a per student basis. Districtwide across grade levels, schools will receive about $12,800 per student on average, compared with about $12,000 in this school year’s budgets and with roughly $10,050 in 2019-20. Read More...
