Caption by Ashmar Mandou

Earlier this week, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced it is set to lay off more than 1,400 works to adjust for enrollment and programming changes. The total includes 432 teachers, about 1.8 percent of the total teaching force, and 311 paraprofessionals and school-related personnel. CPS said such layoffs are part of traditional school-level changes it makes nearly every year. Last year, the district laid off 1,410 workers, but about 80 percent of them were able to find new positions at CPS before the start of the next school year. “While the budgets provided to schools in May and approved by Local School Councils in June maintain overall levels of funding, CPS is still working to close a $734 million budget deficit before bringing a balanced Fiscal Year 2026 budget to the Board for approval in August. Despite this financial challenge, the goal of the District remains protecting the current funding provided in the posted school budget,” a statement from CPS. Two weeks ago, 161 employees were fired, including 87 crossing guards. Back in May, CPS also laid off 530 tutors originally hired with pandemic relief funds, a program the district said did not yield the results it hoped for. Over the next two weeks, CPS will host a series of community engagement events to garner public input on strategies to close the budget deficit. Information about these events can be found on cps.edu/budget.