Staffing at All Schools
Highlights
Highest percentage of CPS schools met the staffing benchmark in 2023-24. For schools to be rated as Excelling, schools must have 350 or fewer students per arts instructor.
- 77% of CPS schools rated Excelling on Staffing in 2023-24
- 67% of CPS schools rated as Excelling on Staffing in 2019-20
As arts instructors are at the center of providing all students with access to the arts. Arts instructors provide access, minutes of instruction, and breadth and depth of instruction that students receive. With all these reasons in mind, arts staffing is a key element of both elementary and high school CSC ratings. To be rated as Excelling on Staffing, schools must have 350 or fewer students per arts instructor.
Strategies
- Regularly analyze arts staffing data to identify schools without adequate arts educators and provide targeted support through proactive communication, talent referrals, and hiring guidance. This approach will prioritize district-managed schools, where CPS has direct staffing influence, while recognizing that the most significant gaps—particularly at the high school level—exist in non-district-managed schools. Addressing these disparities is critical to ensuring equitable access to arts education citywide, especially for Black students who are disproportionately enrolled in under-resourced campuses.
- Maintain a real-time internal dashboard of open arts positions, candidate pools, and hiring progress by region.
- Retain arts teachers by providing mentor and mentee opportunities, continuous professional learning, and avenues for communication and networking through artlookEducatorⓇ.
- Provide funding for arts materials, specialized training, and incentives for emerging and veteran teachers, and teachers in schools that have difficulty in hiring or retaining staff, through the Creative Schools Fund.
- Collaborate with local university programs, to ensure their pre-service teachers are student teaching in CPS, and they have direct communication with the CPS Talent Recruitment team for early offers and job fairs.
- Maintain and develop certification and credentialing pathways through alternative certification programs, endorsements for current educators, in collaboration with higher education institutions, arts partners, and other CPS offices.