Chicago Public Schools Announces Virtual FY25 Capital Budget Community Meetings

CHICAGO – Chicago Public Schools (CPS) today announced that it will host five virtual meetings next week to engage communities on capital priorities as the District works to develop its Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Plan. The capital plan is a part of the District’s overall budget that will be presented to the Board of Education later this summer. The meetings - which will be led by the CPS Capital Department, Office of Equity, and Office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) - are intended to provide communities with an understanding of the District’s capital planning process and help the District prioritize critical capital needs.

“We encourage all CPS families and community members to participate in the capital investment process,” said CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. “Community engagement is foundational to ensuring that our facilities and resources work to serve our students as effectively as possible. We look forward to hearing from our CPS community and incorporating feedback.”

Three of the citywide meetings will be held in English with real-time Spanish translation and ASL interpretation. CPS is also hosting one meeting with real-time translation in additional languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Polish, and Chinese. Finally, one citywide meeting will be held entirely in Spanish to create an improved community engagement experience for Spanish-speaking families. The meetings will be live-streamed on CPS’ YouTube Channel, and the presentation materials as well as the video recordings will be posted on the Capital Plan Community Meetings website in English, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Polish, Urdu, and Arabic.

In addition to community meetings, the District is also collecting public feedback through an online survey. Members of the community who are unable to participate in the virtual meetings are encouraged to complete the survey, which will remain open until 5 p.m. Friday, April 26.

Participants in any of the meetings listed below should register online or tune in to the live-stream on CPS’ YouTube Channel.

• Thursday, April 4: 3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. (English, Spanish)
• Thursday, April 4: 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (Spanish)
• Friday, April 5: 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. (English, Spanish)
• Friday, April 5: 3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. (English, Spanish)
• Monday, April 8: 5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (English, Spanish, Arabic, Urdu, Polish, Chinese)

Consistent with prior years, the District will also hold public hearings to discuss the FY25 capital plan after the District’s budget proposal is developed and released this summer. The CPS facility portfolio includes 522 campuses and 803 buildings. The average CPS facility is more than 84 years old. Since FY16, CPS has invested approximately $3.7 billion into capital improvements across the District and there is more than $3.2 billion of additional critical facility needs.

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About Chicago Public Schools (CPS)
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is dedicated to providing a high-quality education to all students, beginning with the District’s free full-day preschool programming for four-year-old scholars and continuing through neighborhood, magnet and selective-enrollment elementary schools that provide a rigorous K-8 education with schools that specialize in the fine arts, world language and culture, dual language, STEM, International Baccalaureate (IB), classical programs, and more. The rising District-wide freshmen-on-track and high school graduation rates reflect the hard work of the CPS community, including families, staff, and students across 635 schools. CPS celebrates the diversity of its more than 322,000 students who cite 182 home languages. Learn more about CPS at www.cps.edu and connect with CPS on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.