{"id":1024958,"date":"2026-08-26T09:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1024958\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T09:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:39:30","slug":"chicago-public-schools-restores-more-than-300-teaching-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1024958\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Public Schools restores more than 300 teaching jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

As students returned to campuses<\/a> this week, Chicago Public Schools has rehired more than 300 full-time employees who were laid off this summer<\/a>, officials said.<\/p>\n

Nearly 150 of those rehires are returning to their previous positions, as requested by their principals, Deputy Chief Talent Officer Jerry Taylor said during a virtual budget update Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the district said the money allocated in its amended $10.1 billion budget<\/a> won\u2019t be enough to restore all 700 positions cut as it aimed to close a $732 million shortfall. It\u2019s unclear how many more teaching positions will be filled, but CPS officials said they will work to place available staff in positions principals have identified as critical. However, $100 million in state funds, as designated in the budget, will not be enough to restore all the jobs that were slashed, district officials said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Still, district officials touted that its teacher vacancy rate had shrunk to 1.6%\u00a0 for the 2026-27 school year, an improvement over the 2.2% reported earlier this month. By comparison, the district had a 2.5% vacancy rate the year before.<\/p>\n

The vacancy rates for special education staff and bilingual teachers also improved since the previous budget update on Aug. 18,\u00a0 with both reporting a similar figure of 1.8% for the 2026-27 school year.\u00a0 Earlier this month, the district reported the special education staff vacancy rate was 2.4%, and the bilingual teachers\u2019 vacancy rate was 2.1%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about vacancies, I want you to know that those aren\u2019t empty classrooms. There are faces, there are children in those classrooms, and it\u2019s very important that we\u2019re able to identify and hire staff to fill those vacancies across the city,\u201d CEO Macquiline King said. \u201cI just wanted to restate that we\u2019re making strides, but we still have some areas of growth to make on the south and the west sides of Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King greets students on the first day of school, Aug. 24, 2026, at Leland Elementary in Chicago\u2019s Austin neighborhood. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

The update comes as the district continues to battle financial uncertainty that is creeping into the school year.<\/p>\n

CPS is considered only 70% funded under the state\u2019s funding formula, and, to put pressure on lawmakers, the school board approved an amended budget in July that includes $150 million in unconfirmed state funds<\/a>. The amended budget also requires the district to restore the slashed positions.<\/p>\n

District leaders previously warned that midyear cuts would be necessary if the funds don\u2019t materialize, a message that King reiterated at Tuesday night\u2019s meeting after spending time with lawmakers in Springfield last week.<\/p>\n

While the meetings included talks about building ongoing relationships and expanding our advocacy, King did not say the district secured the funding it is banking on, instead calling it an \u201congoing process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our conversations with lawmakers, we stressed that if we do not receive the additional funding that we need\u2026we will be forced to make disruptive mid-year cuts to our classrooms, and that has been our priority to protect classrooms, however, in the event this year, if we do not receive the additional $150 million, then we will be forced to look at and consider cuts to the classroom,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

Going forward, the focus is on ensuring the district is fully funded, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to advocate for additional state funding. We are going to continue to implement the [fiscal year] budget, and we will continue to update you on how the budget is performing,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As students returned to campuses this week, Chicago Public Schools has rehired more than 300 full-time employees who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1024959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[13915,960,36515,16742,42123,407,5386,1818,39858,302852,22598],"class_list":["post-1024958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-back-to-school","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-board-of-education","tag-chicago-public-schools","tag-chicago-teachers-union","tag-education","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-lay-offs","tag-school-budgets","tag-teachers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117161151124773971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1024958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1024958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1024958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1024958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}