CPS, CTU: 20 schools sharing $10 million in extra services

Twenty elementary and high schools will share a $10 million community schools investment to pilot extra services for students and families, Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union announced Tuesday.

Though the program came about by a collaboration between CPS and the CTU memorialized in the teachers contract, schools officials named the schools late Tuesday after the CTU announced their own news conference Wednesday morning.

Each school participating in the Sustainable Community Schools Initiative has a dedicated community partner, such as Metropolitan Family Services and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, to add the extra services for kids and their families, including health services, support for homeless families and recreational activities.

The program, scheduled to start in October, is intended to support open-enrollment schools in primarily low income communities, where at least four of five students are considered low-income, schools that "serve as an anchor in neighborhoods on the South and West sides of Chicago," as union officials wrote on the CTU website.

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