CPS ends free preschool in district's richest neighborhood

Families living in the wealthiest attendance area in Chicago Public Schools will soon be cut off from a special perk deemed "unjustifiable" last year by the district's watchdog: free priority enrollment for coveted seats at a popular Lincoln Park magnet preschool.

Instead, those well-to-do families will have to shell out more than $14,000 for each prized preschool slot at Oscar Mayer Magnet School, 2250 N. Clifton Ave., starting next school year.

That's because the Chicago Board of Education voted on Wednesday to close the loophole that gave Lincoln Park families first dibs on the free, all-day Montessori preschool seats - which would cost about $30,000 in yearly tuition on the private school market, CPS officials acknowledged Wednesday.

In 2017, Mayer's staff salaries and benefits cost taxpayers $700,000, while the families living in the attendance zone - with a median income of $177,947, the highest in the district - were able to claim the seats before students from other parts of the city could, according to a scathing report on the program last year by CPS Inspector General Nicholas Schuler.

Only four kids from outside the neighborhood boundary were admitted over a five-year period, Schuler found.

For the full story, click here.