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Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has announced a series of virtual meetings to involve community members in discussing capital priorities for its Fiscal Year 2026 Capital Plan. These discussions will feed into the development of the district's broader budget, scheduled for presentation to the Board of Education in the summer. The meetings will be overseen by the CPS Capital Department, Office of Equity, and Office of Family and Community Engagement.
"We encourage all CPS families and community members to participate in the capital investment process," stated CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. "Community engagement is foundational to ensuring that our facilities and resources work to serve our students as effectively as possible. We look forward to hearing from our CPS community and incorporating feedback."
CPS has scheduled two citywide meetings in English with Spanish translation and ASL interpretation and one entirely in Spanish. CPS will also host two in-person meetings at its administrative offices in Garfield Park and the greater Bronzeville area. Each meeting will be live-streamed on CPS’ YouTube channel, and presentation materials will be accessible in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Polish, Urdu, and Arabic.
Public feedback will also be collected via an online survey available until May 17, 2025. Members of the community unable to attend the meetings are encouraged to complete the survey.
The meetings are scheduled as follows:
- Thursday, April 3: 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (English, Spanish)
- Tuesday, April 8: 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. (English, Spanish)
- Tuesday, April 15: 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (English, Spanish) In-Person at CPS Garfield Park Administrative Offices, 2651 W Washington Blvd.
- Thursday, April 17: 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (Spanish only)
- Tuesday, April 19: 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. (English, Spanish) In-Person at CPS Colman Administrative Offices, 4640 S. State St.
Public hearings regarding the FY26 capital plan are to be held after the budget proposal is unveiled this summer. CPS's facilities, comprising 522 campuses and 803 buildings, average over 85 years in age. Since FY16, CPS has invested four billion in capital improvements and identified over three billion in additional needs projected to rise according to 2023-2024 Facility Assessments.
