Supporting Students with Disabilities

CFF supports the District’s priority to ensure every student with disabilities has the opportunity to fully engage in rigorous instruction at their grade level within the general education classroom and to access the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers, to the greatest extent possible.

In order to best support students with disabilities and ensure students are receiving the services they need, the CPS Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) is committed to improving practices, strengthening communication with schools and families, and working transparently with stakeholders. In order to design a thoughtful strategy for the recently renamed office that utilizes best practices from around the country and incorporates feedback from those most impacted, additional capacity and philanthropic support is needed to convene experts and conduct robust stakeholder engagement. The ultimate goal is to develop a student-centered structure for the OSD that elevates the profiles of students with disabilities and ensures all students have equitable access to CPS’ educational environments.

Social-Emotional and Behavioral Interventions

RESTORATIVE PRACTICES, CHOOSE to CHANGE, AND STUDENT RE-ENTRY

CPS uses a multi-tiered system of support to address individual student emotional and behavioral health and safety needs. This begins with universal interventions for all students, like the Rainbows and Silver Linings programs, interventions for children coping with grief and loss—a greatly increased need among CPS students since 2020—as well as targeted group and individual interventions. In its bold new vision, Success 2029: Together We Rise, CPS sets a goal that all schools will have Whole School Safety plans that incorporate restorative justice practices and connect staff, students, families, and communities to social-emotional learning and mental health resources that address trauma and promote healing.

Over the past decade, CPS has dramatically reduced out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and police notifications. CPS aims to expand the use of restorative practices and targeted interventions to continue to decrease the use of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, especially for Black students and students with identified disabilities who are overrepresented in disciplinary incidents.

Philanthropic support is requested for the following initiatives:

• An internal marketing campaign to elevate the importance of restorative practices in transforming responses to student behavior from punitive discipline to those centered on respect, empathy, and accountability. The campaign will highlight examples of successful restorative practices to inspire others within the District.
• Choose to Change (C2C), an innovative youth violence prevention program that works in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence, supports youth who are at high risk of being victims or perpetrators of violence. C2C offers a six-month intervention with intensive wraparound and professional mentoring services that focus on each youth’s needs.
• Wraparound services such as high-intensity mentoring and workforce training to support student re-entry after detention at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center or enrollment at Nancy B. Jefferson, CPS’ alternative school for court-detained youth.