As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, CPS will begin the “Please Stay” initiative, which is focused on suicide prevention and prioritizing the mental health of students dealing with increased levels of anxiety and stress.

The first Black woman to lead the Chicago Community Trust, Dr. Helene Gayle, will leave her role in June to serve as president of Spelman College in Atlanta. 

Seventeen hundred students from the City Colleges of Chicago walked across the stage at the Wintrust Arena in the first in-person commencement ceremony for the colleges since the pandemic began.

The Biden Administration has floated vague proposals to eliminate billions in collective student debt. It could set a limit of anywhere between $10 and $50,000 and apply only to non-wealthy earners. The details have yet to be ironed out, but not everyone is on board with the idea.

The Chicago Teachers Union and advocacy groups are protesting the budget cuts they say their schools are facing. This is after Chicago Public Schools released individual school budgets with more than 40% of schools expected to see fewer dollars.

CPS and Lurie announced Thursday they’ll ensure every district-run school can participate in the program, which helps identify and address students in need of mental health support.

Chicago Public Schools said it expects to begin publishing student discipline and safety data in the coming weeks, a year after dozens of high schools voted to reduce or eliminate their school resource officer (SRO) programs.

According to the annual list released Tuesday, Walter Payton College Prep was ranked as the No. 5 high school in the country for 2022, once again placing first in both Chicago and across all of Illinois.

The Fourth District Appellate Court on Wednesday tossed out a temporary restraining order that had prevented CPS from taking employment action against a half dozen CPS educators who refused to comply with the school district’s vaccine requirements.

Tracie Hall, executive director of the American Library Association, says the books that are being banned in the past year target topics like racism, sexuality and sexual orientation.

New research from the University of Chicago found that an education nonprofit aimed at boosting college access for students from low-income families has had a significant impact on enrollment and graduation rates.

Many schools saw large numbers of students fall under the radar when learning went online for the pandemic. Many skipped class, tests and homework. Record numbers of families opted out of annual standardized tests, leaving some districts with little evidence of how students were doing in reading and math.

The Illinois State Board of Education is announcing a $4 million grant to cover tuition costs for teachers interested in becoming licensed to teach English-language learners.

"It ensures that if a teacher has done their part to keep their classroom safe for their most vulnerable students, they won’t have to worry for a second about their pay or their paid time off if they get COVID,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday.

Last week, the U.S. National Archives released U.S. census records from 1950, granting public access to files that documented more than 150 million people and the areas they lived, the jobs they had, and much more.

Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children. That is now playing out at schools in the form of increased childhood depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, fights and thoughts of suicide at alarming levels.