Parents, students, teachers and advocates filled dozens of seats in the auditorium of Chicago Public Schools’ downtown offices ahead of the vote to determine the district’s path forward for the next five years.
Shortly after the Board of Education voted unanimously to approve its new five-year strategic plan, the room erupted in applause, but not everyone was happy.
After the vote, among five speakers who signed up to address the board, Angel Alvarez chastised the board for its new plan, saying it “fails to address the institutional issues” the district should be focusing on.
Although the CPS plan cites structural racism as the root cause of opportunity gaps for many students in its plan, Alvarez, a South Chicago native and CPS alumnus, said it is not the cause of CPS’s failure to address persistent issues such as transportation for students with disabilities.
“You have to take more responsibility for the problems that are in social services. If you don’t fix them, these systemic problems will persist,” Alvarez said.
The new plan, presented earlier this week, outlines the district’s priorities and investments through 2029. It focuses on creating a more equitable school system and aims to close achievement and opportunity gaps for Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities, students in temporary living situations and English language learners.
While the new road map reiterates the district’s promise to focus on strengthening neighborhood schools, the board reiterated that selective enrollment, charter schools and magnet schools are not in the hot seat. Instead, the district now plans to work to reverse the inequality it unintentionally created, acknowledging how “current competitive enrollment policies” have resulted in “pitting schools against each other.”
In December, the board passed a resolution indicating its intention to move away from school choice, sparking uncertainty among parents and students about the future of selective enrollment schools. Parents and school choice advocates have been lobbying for the board to reconsider its position.
“For this plan to be successful, we’re going to need everyone to stay involved,” said council chairman Jianan Shi, inviting community members to view the plan to help make it “a reality.”
In the previous months, the district hosted several community engagement events, including roundtable discussions on promoting Black student support and success and forums to gather feedback from district stakeholders.
Most public comments at the meeting were supportive of the district’s new plan, with some former CPS students and parents thanking the board.
“I’m really here on behalf of my nieces and nephews who attended Catalyst schools,” Davis Augustus said. “The school … gives people the inspiration to move forward. So I want to thank you for helping Catalyst, which is a charter school, and I hope you continue to help lift us up as we struggle in this community to do the things that we need to do on behalf of CPS and on behalf of our residents in our neighborhood.”
The Illinois Network of Charter Schools also publicly applauded CPS’s plan, with CPS Education Director Bogdana Chkoumbova announcing that the board is committed to supporting all school models, including charter schools.
“Charter schools have been a thriving part of the CPS environment for nearly three decades, and we look forward to working with the board for many more years to support Chicago’s most vulnerable students,” INCS President Andrew Broy said in a press release.
After the plan was released this week, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said CPS Superintendent Pedro Martinez is “doubling down on austerity” and “pushing for school closures, consolidations, furloughs, layoffs and privatization.”
“The best parts of the district’s strategic plan are lifted directly from our contract proposals, the same proposals the district is actually fighting at the bargaining table,” Davis said. “This is another example of CEO Martinez telling Chicagoans one thing and doing another. … It’s troubling to see that he’s not only out of step with Chicago, he’s out of step with the district’s plan itself.”
