A conservatory under threat

The morning routine at The Chicago High School for the Arts begins an hour before the first bell. Sophomore Piper Jade Laskey Terry slips through the doors early to be with friends and teachers; sometimes the music follows her home to the condo down the block, where a classmate jumps on the piano and the living room becomes a stage. “That’s our new world now, and we’re OK with it, because they come in here, somebody jumps on the piano and other kids start singing,” said her father, John Terry. “It just continues all that art right into our living room,” he added, worried about what might be lost if the school disappears, as the Chicago Tribune reported.Chicago Tribune

ChiArts operates a conservatory model that layers intensive arts training—dance, theater, visual art, and writing—onto core academics. It’s housed in a Humboldt Park building with a long memory: Lafayette Elementary School closed in 2013 after decades serving neighborhood families; ChiArts took over in 2014. Senior visual art student Andrea Gonzáles, whose mother attended Lafayette in the 1980s, now walks past murals that memorialize the protests that followed its closure. When ChiArts’ board said this month it would not renew its contract with Chicago Public Schools, citing a financial shortfall, she feared history repeating itself. “I don’t want it to be repeated like a generational curse,” Gonzáles said. “It’s the same building, the same place and it’s the same reason,” according to the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

For Gonzáles, the school’s promise is personal and practical. “People here at ChiArts say, ‘I want to become a dancer, I want to be an actress, I want to be a professional visual artist,’” she said. “That’s their goal coming here,” she told the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

A charter’s clock is ticking

Across the city on the South Shore, EPIC Academy’s board voted to close the charter at the end of the year, citing competition with nearby schools, declining enrollment and rising costs. Fifteen-year-old sophomore Latavia Lajeune had transferred just weeks earlier after her family moved blocks away so she could attend. “I just got there,” she said. “I can’t just move to another school and expect it to be OK when it’s not.” She worries a closure could force another move and complicate schedules for her father, a CPS teaching assistant. “If this school gets shut down and I have to go to another school, but it’s far away from here, it’s going to mean more problems and more challenges,” she said. “I don’t want him to throw his life away, all because of a shutdown of my school,” she told the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

EPIC’s academic outcomes have lagged district averages. In 2023, EPIC trailed CPS in English language arts proficiency by 24 percentage points; its math proficiency was 1.2% compared with CPS’ 17.8%, and its science proficiency was 3.9% versus 36.8%, according to the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

Behind the budget numbers

The contract and charter schools’ turmoil is unfolding against a district-wide cash crunch. CPS is contending with a $734 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2026, according to Axios.Axios District leaders have trimmed costs, including eliminating private custodial contracts—a move tied to roughly 1,700 job losses—and shortening Safe Passage program hours by 30 minutes, Axios reported.Axios At the same time, CPS expanded its Sustainable Community Schools model from 20 to 36 campuses, allocating $500,000 annually to each to provide academic, social, medical and mental-health supports and operate as community hubs, Axios reported.Axios

Enrollment trends are reshaping the landscape, too. CPS serves approximately 316,224 students across 630 schools, and the student body is predominantly Hispanic (46.4%) and Black/African American (34.3%), according to Chicago Public Schools data.Chicago Public Schools Over the past decade, enrollment declined by 71,378 students—about 18%—since 2014, though recent reporting shows a slight uptick to 325,305 students for the 2024–25 school year, suggesting possible stabilization after years of decline, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.Illinois Policy Institute

The financial and enrollment pressures heighten scrutiny on smaller, higher-cost programs like arts conservatories, making them vulnerable when district leaders prioritize scale and solvency.

How Chicago got here

Charter and contract schools took off under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Renaissance 2010 initiative, launched in 2004 with a goal of 100 new schools by 2010. The program ushered in dozens of new campuses while more than 80 public schools closed, according to Wikipedia.Wikipedia That policy era left Chicago with a patchwork of district-run, charter and contract schools—and a precedent for using closures and nonrenewals to reset the system.

The promises and pitfalls of that expansion are still debated. Charter schools were initially pitched as a “magic bullet” for districtwide performance, appealing to families hungry for better options, said Roosevelt University professor Stephanie Farmer, according to the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune “I think they were thinking that the closures were going to just target the public schools, but now we are seeing that, since the support for charter schools is in decline, you also have the closure of the charter schools,” she said in the Tribune’s reporting.Chicago Tribune

Critics, including the Chicago Teachers Union in a May report, argue that the model’s mix of public dollars and private management can lead to abrupt closures, financial mismanagement and uneven outcomes, the Tribune reported. The Illinois Network of Charter Schools pushed back. “Charters are not a failed experiment, and they’re not for-profit operators,” INCS Senior Director of Advocacy Allison Jack said at an Oct. 8 board meeting, adding, “… they’re offering programs that families are asking for and need and sometimes are a matter of survival,” according to the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

Students and families fight back

In the weeks since ChiArts’ contract came under threat, students have staged sit-ins and packed board meetings, trying to balance advocacy with classes. Laskey Terry, who moved from suburban Addison so she could attend, worries a neighborhood school wouldn’t replicate the specialized training or community. “I don’t even know what my neighborhood school would be,” she said. “I know that it wouldn’t be the same amount of musical theater or fun or anything like that,” she told the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune “It really is like nothing else I’ve ever heard of. It’s very inclusive, it’s very educational … you don’t get that level of art training in other places,” she added, the Tribune reported.Chicago Tribune

District officials have acknowledged the complexity of transitions for charter and contract schools. Financial instability, declining enrollment and operational hurdles make takeovers difficult, CPS Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona told the Chicago Board of Education, according to the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune The Board is scheduled to discuss whether to allocate $1.4 million to keep EPIC Academy open through the end of this academic year before ceasing operations on July 1, 2026, the Tribune reported. ChiArts is expected to be taken up at a special meeting next week, Board member Carlos Rivas said. “My goal is to keep it as a district-managed school, and then invest more so that we can expand the conservatory, so that more families have access,” Rivas told the Tribune, adding that museums and arts organizations have voiced support. “It was never on the table” for the district to close ChiArts, he said—rather, a question of what it will look like under CPS control.Chicago Tribune

What comes next

The Chicago Board of Education holds the authority to approve contract renewals and closures, a role that has often intersected with system-wide restructuring since the Renaissance 2010 era, according to Wikipedia.Wikipedia As board members weigh finances, enrollment and program quality, community groups are pressing for alternatives that preserve access to specialized programs while addressing solvency.

Possible approaches raised by advocates and policy observers include:

  • Shared services to lower overhead across multiple schools.
  • Formal partnerships with arts institutions to contribute in-kind instruction, space or fundraising capacity.
  • Migrating conservatory strands into district-run schools as magnet or signature programs, with placement guarantees for current students.
  • Short-term co-governance with fiscal oversight to stabilize operations and increase transparency.

For Gonzáles, the stakes are about more than one building’s history; they’re about the identity ChiArts has forged. “We’re not borderline where it’s like the students here, the teachers here, are horrible. The issue here is we hold too much uniqueness,” she said. “It really does suck, like, how can we even get out of this sticky situation?” she told the Chicago Tribune.Chicago Tribune

In a district balancing a $734 million deficit with the ambitions of its students, board decisions in the coming weeks will signal what Chicago is willing to protect—and what it may let go. For families walking their children to school at dawn, the answer could determine whether the music still spills into the living room tomorrow.