Black Student Success Plan, Special Ed Staffing, Who's Running for School Board

Reporters at WBEZ and Chalkbeat have been doing a fine job of keeping up with a few key issues:

• The Black Student Success Plan and its related school board committee;
• The effects of recent changes to special education staffing and hiring; and
• The latest on who plans to run for Chicago's school board in 2026.

Let's dig in.

Back in February, Chicago Public Schools unveiled the Black Student Success Plan and its ambitious five-year goals, including doubling the number of Black male teachers in classrooms and reducing out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of Black students by 40%. But the next day, the national advocacy group Parents Defending Education filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), prompting a federal investigation.

Today, WBEZ reports that OCR is now threatening to terminate federal grants to CPS, including a Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant. The potential cuts total $5.8 million for the current school year and $17.5 million for the duration of the grants.

This threat doesn't appear to be stopping board member Jitu Brown, chair of the board's soon-to-launch Black Student Achievement Committee. "I am not built to shrink," he told Chalkbeat Chicago. But the rollout of the board committee has been slow. Brown told Chalkbeat the full committee membership will be announced at the September board meeting, and that fellow board member Michilla Blaise will serve as vice-chair.

Special Education Shuffle Worsens

When it comes to ensuring continuity of care for students receiving special education services, the beginning of every school year comes with bumps. But this year appears to be worse than usual, according to reporting from WBEZ's Sarah Karp.

For decades, many urban districts struggled to start their hiring season in a timely fashion. While suburban schools were hiring in April and May, big-city districts often hired as late as August, when few candidates were still looking.

Starting in former CEO Janice Jackson's administration, CPS provided principals with "nearly all" their positions for the upcoming school year in the spring of the prior year, allowing principals to keep their current staff and allowing for additional hiring in the spring if enrollment growth warranted it. Principals welcomed the change.

But this year, WBEZ found that special education positions were cut last spring and then added back after the school year started. People who had been working in those jobs likely found work in other school districts. As of Monday, about 200 special education teacher positions and about 400 aide positions were unfilled.

Over the summer, CPS also lowered the number of special education classroom assistants assigned to high-need special education classrooms. The number of aides assigned to classrooms for students with moderate disabilities fell from two to one. In classrooms for students with more significant disabilities, the assigned aides fell from three to two. (These aides are in addition to aides who provide one-on-one attention to particular students.) The WBEZ article illustrates what these changes mean for a an 8-year-old who left an Acero school and moved into a neighborhood school this year.

Who Will Run for School Board Next Year?

Chalkbeat Chicago's Reema Amin has the scoop on who is, might be, and isn't running for school board among the current board membership. The whole piece is very much worth a read.

Amin spoke with 15 current board members, plus recent board member Frank Niles Thomas, who stepped down in June.

Here's where they stand.

Definitely Running: Ed Bannon, Michilla Blaise, Jessica Biggs, Therese Boyle, Jennifer Custer, Ebony DeBerry, Angel Gutierrez, Yesenia Lopez, Carlos Rivas, and Ellen Rosenfeld. Though Amin did not speak to Carlos Rivas or Che "Rhymefest" Smith, both have active candidate committees that have received funds this year.

Possibly Running: Jitu Brown, Debby Pope, Norma Rios-Sierra, Cydney Wallace, and Karen Zaccor.

Not Running: current Board President Sean Harden, recent board member Frank Niles Thomas.

Unknown: Olga Bautista and Anusha Thotakura, who do not have active fundraising committees, according to the Illinois Sunshine database.