Current Issue

School closings

As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.

Cassandra West

January 18, 2013

CPS on Thursday announced that it will join five of the largest U.S. school districts to build a coalition to drive down food service costs and increase quality and healthiness. New York City, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, Dallas and Orlando, Fla., are the other districts joining the Urban School Food Alliance.

January 17, 2013

Many Chicago Public Schools report only being able to fill as many as a third of teacher absences on any given day, leaving principals and other teachers to scramble to lead classes across the city — a problem that surfaced even before a flu outbreak struck, according to DNAInfo.com.

January 16, 2013

Teachers in Grayslake, Round Lake and other northern suburbs are going on strike this morning after they were unable to reach an agreement with Community Consolidated School District 46, the Tribune reports.

January 15, 2013

The Chicago Public School Board imposed a new, more restrictive policy on public comment Monday that critics said could limit debate at the meetings. Effective for the board's monthly meeting set for Jan. 23, anyone wishing to make a public comment must register online, by phone or in person the week before.

January 14, 2013

Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett agrees with a panel on school closings that high schools should be off the table as the district prepares to shut down a large number of buildings, a CPS spokeswoman said, according to the Tribune this morning.

January 11, 2013

Chicago Public Library’s homework help program, “Teacher in the Library,” will be expanded to all neighborhood branches, the mayor's office announced Thursday.

January 10, 2013

The California State Teachers Retirement System, known as Calstrs, voted unanimously to begin a formal process of divesting in companies like the one that made the semiautomatic rifle used in Newtown, Conn., according to The New York Times.

January 09, 2013

A record number of allegations of wrongdoing against teachers and other Department of Education workers were received last year by the office that investigates misconduct in New York City schools, according to a report released on Tuesday, according to The New York Times.

January 08, 2013

In a complaint filed on Monday with the Illinois State Board of Education, a nonprofit advocacy group says Chicago Public Schools have repeatedly failed to evaluate children with disabilities and move them into special education preschool programs, according to The New York Times.