Chicago Public Schools lacking classroom placements for 200 students with disabilities

About 200 students with disabilities still didn’t have access to a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) classroom by the second week of this school year, Chalkbeat reported.

“It seems to continue a trend where CPS is not serving students with disabilities and is excluding them from the public institution,” Miriam Bhimani, parent and special education advocate, told the news nonprofit. “If you don’t have a school placement, you’re not going to school.”

The beleaguered district has made headlines with a $734 million budget shortfall, severely underenrolled schools and a lawsuit against the Chicago Teachers Union demanding more financial transparency.

Despite a summer restructuring of its special education department, the district’s cluster classrooms still had “limited seats available,” families were told in an Aug. 15 letter.

Budget challenges, lack of transportation options

A spokesperson for the district described the delays as “a common occurrence at the start of each school year, as some families may opt out of services or express preferences for different placements.”

The district has about 775 cluster programs, which provide classrooms set up exclusively for students with disabilities.

These are limited to a maximum of 10 students for early childhood education programs and 13 students from kindergarten up until 22 years old when they age out of the system, officials told Chalkbeat.

“CPS serves about 54,000 students with disabilities, who make up about 16% of the student population. Around 8,300 students were recommended for cluster programs for the 2025-26 school year, according to district officials.”

Budgetary woes have influenced the district’s desire “not to overestimate or underfund resources” for cluster programs, according to the news article.

“District officials say they are trying to strike a balance between staffing, program costs, and providing students with services.”

In addition, school administrators must wrestle with commuting times – an issue made even more imperative when the Illinois State Board of Education found students with disabilities had been on buses for longer than 90 minutes in 2022.

“It’s been a nightmare,” said Kalaveeta Mitchell at the time, whose daughter, then 17, would have needed four trains and a bus to get to her school without district-provided transportation.

“CPS is throwing money at this thinking this is an end-all solution when it really isn’t. At best, it’s a minimal solution. At worst, it’s causing havoc on the lives of parents with students with special needs.”