Moving Forward Together

$525 Million to Recover and Move Forward

COVID-19 has created immense and unforeseen challenges. While CPS school communities have already made previously unimaginable efforts to support students this year,  even more is needed to move forward and lift up our students, staff and families. Through Moving Forward Together, we are investing over a half-billion dollars in research-backed resources and flexible funding that will be shaped at the discretion of each school to support recovery and growth.

Districtwide, we are helping school communities address growing social and emotional needs, accelerate learning, and prepare students for successful lives beyond the pandemic. Locally, we are doubling down on equity and empowering school leaders to create individualized plans to best leverage funds and resources in their communities. 

To develop Moving Forward Together, we incorporated feedback from school leaders, teachers, students, parents, and community partners regarding the supports needed to help students, staff and families during this unique and challenging time. This plan centers on what we have heard and provides local school communities the flexibility and resources they need to enact a local, responsive plan.

Approximately $267M will be devoted to Moving Forward Together initiatives as part of our upcoming budget for the 2021-22 school year, which will be released this summer. In January 2022, the district will conduct additional community engagement to help assess the impact of these resources. While the district has outlined a framework for a two-year plan, leadership, community and staff feedback will be used to determine if adjustments are needed for the second year of implementation, and an updated plan will be outlined next year.

Through a combination of flexible funding that schools can allocate to the programs and initiatives that meet the needs of their own school communities as well as targeted investments in research-backed supports, we are committing to over $525 million in resources through the 2022-23 school year.

Summary of Investments

To ensure resources reach the students most in need of support, we will distribute our investment in three ways: flexible school funds , priority resources for all, and targeted student interventions.

Flexible School Funds

School leaders are best positioned to determine what supports their students and staff need, so we’re investing $160 million in flexible funds over the next two years to ensure they can prioritize the resources they need most in addition to a school’s normal funding.

Prioritizing our Highest Needs Schools and Students: More than $47 million in FY22 will directly supplement school budgets; funds will be allocated based on a new Unfinished Learning School Investment Index, which considers a variety of criteria to identify the schools that need the most to successfully support their students.

Schools will also use a new tool to help identify the specific students who need the most support, and school staff will engage students in the development of plans to utilize these funds.

Out of School Time: More than $21 million will be invested to ensure all schools can offer after-school and summer programming and each school has a dedicated Out of School Time coordinator.

Priority Resources

The district is making a significant investment to ensure every CPS school has access to a framework of impactful resources that address a variety of student needs. These resources ensure every student at every school in every neighborhood access to high-quality materials and support.

Social, Emotional, and Healing-Centered Resources: $16 million in FY22 will ensure all schools have their own behavioral and mental health teams and that students’ social and emotional needs are met through resources like the district’s new Healing-Centered Framework, expanded mental health services through community partnerships, and new SEL and bullying prevention curriculum. This is in addition to our ongoing commitment to increase social worker staffing and provide a social worker for all schools by 2023-24.

Academic Interventions: a $6 million investment in FY22 to support targeted math and literacy interventions along with a comprehensive data platform that will allow schools to identify students in need of additional support.

Equitable Curriculum Enhancements: $32 million in FY22 will advance Skyline — our comprehensive, culturally responsive universal curriculum — and additional professional development for staff and essential student resources (including, but not limited to, book sets, math manipulatives, and science kits) to support its successful implementation. In addition to this $32 million investment, an additional $5 million in targeted curriculum support will be provided to the highest-need schools.

Classroom Technology Investments: $19 million in FY22 will ensure that teachers and classrooms have modern devices — including new computers , cameras, projectors, and interactive displays — that will allow them to fully utilize the best available technology and curriculum at the direction of classroom teachers.

Instructional Supports for Educators: $5 million in FY22 will support professional development and resources focused on instructional and assessment practices that help students master grade level content.

Work-Based Training and Postsecondary Support: $5 million in FY22 will support a comprehensive set of post-secondary supports including a new Work-Based Learning Center to provide students in all grades with exposure to potential career paths. To enhance postsecondary support and increase postsecondary success among CPS graduates, support will be provided to the Chicago Roadmap, CPS’ groundbreaking multi-year partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago. These resources will go toward providing work-based learning opportunities, dual credit programming, and facilitating deeper and broader counseling and advising supports.

Targeted Student Supports

A $201 million investment in targeted supports will address the immediate needs of the students most impacted by the pandemic.

CPS Tutor Corps: A $25 million investment in FY22 will be used to hire and train 850 literacy tutors in grades K-5 and math tutors in grades 6-12 at schools with students who most need support. Through this investment, we will help the district reach its goal of ensuring all students are proficient readers by the end of second grade, which is a benchmark for long-term success.

Early Literacy Supports to Reading Proficiency by the end of Second Grade: $6 million in FY22 will provide 200 schools with additional teacher development and leadership training to support high-quality literacy instruction. In addition, 47 of our highest-need schools will be supplied with culturally and linguistically representative classroom libraries and take home text books sets. 75 schools will be provided with additional funds and multigenerational, culturally responsive programming for parents, grandparents, and other caregivers to support literacy development among young learners. In total — inclusive of the targeted supports detailed here, universal curriculum, and tutoring supports — CPS will invest over $27 million in FY22 to ensure all students are proficient readers by the end of second grade.

Mentorship and Mental Health Supports: $12 million in FY22 will support a pool of highly qualified mentorship and mental health providers, which will support students who would benefit most from additional guidance.

Targeted Efforts to Support Student Transitions & Student and Family Engagement: CPS is making an $18million investment in FY22 to support over 50,000 students in transition years through programs like Pre-K Preview, Kick Off to Kindergarten, Freshmen Connection, Sophomore Connection and post-secondary transition programs; as well supplemental funding to support summer outreach efforts.

Summer jobs will be made available to 800 high-risk students, 200 of whom will also participate in the Choose to Change program, which is proven to reduce violence and justice system involvement among participants. These programs will support the district’s broader re-engagement strategy, which is being developed.

Additional School Counselors: CPS will invest $5 million over the next two years to increase the number of school counselors in our highest-need schools to help ensure CPS students have the academic, social-emotional and postsecondary counseling and supports necessary to succeed in school, career, and life. The district will fund 64 additional positions over the next two years, and these positions will be prioritized for schools with the greatest need as identified by the Unfinished Learning Investment Index in consultation of the Equity Framework and Opportunity Index.

Summer Learning Programs: $8 million in FY22 will enhance summer learning programs like Summer Bridge and Expanded Credit Recovery, which serve nearly 17,500 students.

Additional Support for Diverse Learners: we’re investing $24 million in FY22 to double the capacity of our diverse learner summer program to 10,000 students and extend the program by two weeks. We are also providing new programming for 24 schools to help diverse learners successfully transition to higher education and are investing in structured literacy training for all diverse learner educators to ensure they can effectively support students who have difficulty reading and spelling.

Additional Support for English Learners: a $2 million investment in FY22 will expand summer programming for 9,000 students beginning this year and support after-school programming for English Learners at 150 schools.

Prioritizing Those in Greatest Need

As a result of extensive federal funding, CPS is able to invest in the resources and supports needed by our students and schools. To ensure an equitable distribution of these resources, we have developed a holistic School Investment Index to prioritize supports for the schools and students who most need our support. By providing more for the schools that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, Moving Forward Together is designed to ensure everyone in our district has the resources they need and deserve.