Planning Rationale
High Schools
CPS high schools serve students from 9th through 12th grade. They may also include 7th and 8th grade students when an Academic Center is housed in the building. The high school curriculum was developed with the intention of preparing students for success in a variety of pathways after high school including college or a career.
In order to support varied instructional plans for student development, the district has a number of secondary school types. While the overarching educational goals are similar, varying program requirements might affect facility design.
- Neighborhood: Serve students who live within a designated attendance boundary.
- Charter & Contract: Open to all Chicago children. These schools operate independently from the Board and each other. Contract schools are operated by private entities under contract with CPS to provide an additional education option for students.
- Magnet: Specializes in a specific subject area such as Montessori, International Baccalaureate (IB), Math and Science, Humanities or Dual Language Immersion.
- Diverse Learner Occupational Schools: Serve students with mild to moderate disabilities who reside in specific geographic locations. These schools and programs have a reduced classroom size which is typically 13 students.
Academic Center
Academic Centers offer an accelerated program for students in the seventh and eighth grades. They are housed in high schools and can function autonomously or be integrated into the high school. Typically at existing buildings, renovations such as the construction of auxiliary classrooms may be needed to ensure parity between the Academic Center and the high school. Improvements to existing high school campuses may also be necessary to provide new Academic Centers.
Freshman Academy
A Freshman Academy is designed to ease the transition to high school, helping freshmen progress through the 9th grade year and on to graduation or to create additional space when the main facility is at capacity. Freshman academies may be small learning communities within a large comprehensive high school that isolate ninth graders and establish a more intimate program or located in an independent facility. In cases where a high school also includes a middle school or Academic Center, the freshman academy may include 7th through 9th grade students.
When the freshman academy is a separate stand-alone campus from the high school, the facility should be designed to provide all programmatic needs typically offered in a high school. This should also include site amenities such as a track and field where feasible. Ideally the proximity of a freshman academy to the main high school should be a short commute to allow students to shuttle between campuses for extracurricular activities.