CPS says no cuts to summer school because fewer students need it

With about two weeks until classes end, Chicago Public Schools finally announced summer school plans late Friday, saying that despite a budget crunch, the district won’t have to cut its mandatory summer programs for students as feared.

That’s because fewer Chicago Public Schools elementary students need summer school help this year. CPS also will consolidate locations for summer programs to save money. The district expects to spend $12.7 million on all summer school programs this year compared to $17.1 million budgeted (and about $16 million actually spent) last year.

But district officials facing a $1 billion-plus deficit in the new fiscal year starting July 1 won’t permit any additional spending by schools this summer “to preserve as much cash as possible, and in the absence of a state education budget.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what that meant for enrichment classes, sports and other kinds of programs that take place in CPS buildings during the summer.

Summer school is required for third, sixth and eighth graders who scored in the 23rd percentile or lower of the Northwest Evaluation Association’s MAP test and earned Ds and Fs — the same criteria as last year, chief education officer Janice Jackson said. And it turned out that 7,200 students need Summer Bridge — for 3rd, 6th and 8th grade to be promoted — and Summer Acceleration — for 15-year-olds who still need to pass 8th grade — instead of 9,300 last year, CPS said. Fewer Bridge sites will also be offered — 62 instead of 79.

“When I saw the email with the numbers, I literally screamed out loud,” Jackson told the Sun-Times Friday. She chalked up the improvements to attention the district has paid to reading in the lowest grades over the past several years. That apparently has paid off among third graders who used to account for about half of students who were required to attend summer school, she said.

High School credit recovery classes are still expected to serve about 4,500 students, but will be offered at 23 sites instead of 31.

Letters will go out in coming days to families notifying them of students who need summer school to be promoted to the next grade.

CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner couldn’t immediately say how last year’s total enrollment of 3rd, 6th and 8th graders stacked up to this year’s. But that difference is unlikely to surpass the 20 percent reduction in kids who need remediation. Bittner could also not say how many teachers have been hired to teach. Some of the projected savings occur because instead of hiring extra staff, school administrators will coordinate the Bridge program.

Officials had warned of deep cuts to summer programs.

The district has been lobbying, so far in vain, for help from the state as it gears up to make a $676 million pension payment at the end of the month. Several Democrat-led measures to redo the formula used to dole out money to educate poor children have so far failed — they’d give CPS hundreds of millions more. CPS leaders say bills supported by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner wouldn’t increase district funding.