CPS says it cannot promise busing for all students as deadline to accept selective enrollment schools is extended

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez warned busing “may not be possible” for children next year at Thursday’s monthly Board of Education meeting. “We need [parents] to understand [busing] might not be available,” he said.

Martinez said CPS is extending the deadline for students to accept magnet or selective enrollment school placements for the 2024-25 academic year by one week. The district continues to grapple with a lack of bus drivers and has not promised busing for general education students for the fall.

Students will have until Friday, April 19 at 5 p.m. to accept placements, instead of the previous deadline of April 12. Invitations to high schools were released last month, and elementary school selective enrollment placements will be released to families on Friday.

Martinez said the district’s goal is to provide “the most busing possible” and the school system is “exploring all options” to hire more drivers.

As of Thursday, the district is currently busing around 8,700 students with special needs and those living in temporary housing, Martinez said.

For more than eight months, the district has not provided busing services for students at magnet and selective enrollment schools. Some parents have told the district they are commuting for up to four hours a day to get their children to magnet and selective enrollment schools, risking jobs and tiring out their kids in the process. Students attending their neighborhood schools don’t receive busing service.

More than 75% of high school students and about 44% of elementary students attend schools outside of their neighborhood boundaries as of last school year.

White and Asian students disproportionately attend CPS’ selective enrollment schools. Meanwhile, Black students face persistent opportunity gaps, disproportionately attending neighborhood schools long starved of investments, officials and community organizers said at a board meeting in December.

On Wednesday, roughly half of the City Council signed a letter calling on the Chicago Board of Education to provide transportation stipends and take steps to reinstate transportation. CPS Parents for Busing, a parent volunteer group formed in the fall, sent the letter to the board on behalf of the aldermen. Last month, hundreds of those parents and their children protested downtown outside City Hall using the symbolism of the traditional yellow bus to drive home their message and wearing school bus-yellow shirts to call attention to the issue.

Since August, CPS has provided transportation only for students with disabilities, students with specialized education plans such as Individual Education Plans or 504 Plans that require transportation and students in temporary living situations, for whom the district is federally mandated to provide transportation services. Accommodations for families without bus service, including free CTA passes and stipends, are also limited to students in those categories.

The district has for months cited an ongoing bus driver shortage since its initial August letter to parents behind the decision to halt busing for the remaining 5,500 students across the school system. Despite increased wages and hiring fairs offered by the district, bus drivers were still in short supply in December, leading to discontinued busing into the 2024 spring semester.

One of the solutions parents propose in the letter signed by aldermen is to create “hubs” for general education students to be picked up on bus routes with seats available before picking up special education students, who must be transported to school in less than 60 minutes under state law. The district said it has faced “logistical and equity issues” with the suggestion.

“Hubs would work for some but not all routes, thus not serving all families and schools in an equitable manner, but, again, we will continue to explore all options for the coming school year,” district spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said in a statement.