In March, lawyers for CPS told the Cook County Judge that they need to decide by May 1 whether or not to end the school year. A reason for why this happened is because the Chicago Public Schools did not receive a sufficient amount of funding from the state government. Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed a funding bill in December 2016 that promises $215 million in funding for CPS because legislators did not tie pension reforms to that funding bill. Therefore, CPS think this is unfair and threatens the state to end the school year on June 1 due to budget cut.

Allegedly, the state government did not provide funding because the state discriminates on the race against CPS children. CPS filed a civil rights lawsuit on February 14 that alleges the state discriminate against CPS students. Not only because of this, but also Rauner refused to sign a school-funding bill due to the amount of urgent for CPS.

If the school year ended early, it would have impacted all the CPS students. Such as students cannot receive their diploma or move to the next grade. Also, high school graduation day cannot be taken before June 10 and elementary school graduation cannot be taken before June 15. This means that everything needs to change if the school year ended on June 1, include all the teacher meetings and final exams.

CPS must pay its employees’ pension fund $721 million by June 30, which means funding is very significant to them. CPS would save $91 million by ending school on June 1 and save another $5 million by canceling summer school. This means that CPS can’t able to cut more from its budget. The city did not step into the issue because they say Chicago taxpayers have already paid more than their fair fund for the schools. After the court’s result, the school year will remain open until the end of school year.

The CPS CEO said that he is very disappointed with the state and hopes the civil rights lawsuit will force the state to fund CPS more fairly. Bruce Rauner promises to fund CPS an additional $45 million a year through 2040.

– Cuishan Ma