The Board of Education is no longer working with Alma Advisory Group, which was hired last May to help guide the search for Chicago Public Schools’ next permanent CEO, according to a statement from six board members.

CPS cited “dangerously frigid temperatures” expected Friday in making its decision, saying the possible wind chills of -35 degrees will make it unsafe for students and staff to travel to school.

“The more children can see folks that look like them, that talk like them, that understand the cultural nuances they have, the easier it becomes to teach them, the easier it becomes to reach them,” longtime South Shore educator Wayne Issa said.

Chicago Public Schools students will return to their classrooms to kick off the 2026-27 academic year on Aug. 24, according to the district’s newly proposed annual calendar.

Those findings were included in an annual report published Wednesday by the school district’s Office of Inspector General, which is tasked with investigating allegations of CPS employee misconduct.

Chicago’s Board of Education approved a whopping $17.5 million payment to settle a lawsuit brought by a former Little Village student who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a school official for years.

“The moment that the raids started happening and people started getting pulled off the street, you could just see it,” volunteer Alyssa May said. “You could see less students, less families, less vendors. And it really did change. It just became a really quiet place.”

CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht’s office on Wednesday published a new report on the district’s travel and overnight spending, which jumped from around $300,000 in fiscal year 2021 to nearly $8 million in 2024.

Chicago Public Schools leaders say new data shows elementary school students showed improvements in reading and math proficiency, while high schoolers increased their graduation rates while earning a record-high of more than $3 billion in scholarships this past year.

Stacy Davis Gates was unanimously elected president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) on Saturday. The organization is one of two major statewide umbrella teachers unions in the state.

Interim CPS CEO Macquline King on Wednesday said the district command center in order to provide “round-the-clock support” to school communities experiencing “heightened stress due to activity outside their building.”

Citing financial issues, the Board of Directors overseeing Chicago’s only public arts high school informed the school district earlier this week that it would not submit a renewal application.

After back-to-back years of enrollment growth for the first time in more than a decade, Chicago Public Schools on Thursday announced it has seen a drop in its number of students for the new academic year.

Interim CPS CEO Macquline King on Thursday stood by the district’s commitment to its existing policies after the Department of Education threatened to withhold millions in funding.

Public school enrollment is projected to tumble 5.5% between 2022 and 2031, largely due to changing demographics, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Other factors include the shift by some students to private education or homeschooling and some immigrant families’ decisions to leave the country.

Federal education authorities have threatened to withhold grant money from Chicago Public Schools unless the district agrees to do away with its Black Student Success Plan and revises policies regarding transgender students.