A Full School Day is in Our Future

The ultimate goal is to have a full day in every school in CPS. The Longer School Day Pioneer Project was developed in part as a response to principals' interest in bringing a longer day to their schools this year because they felt there was strong support among their staff to do so.

How Will the Full Day Be Implemented In All Schools in 2012-2013?

CPS has assembled a Full School Day advisory committee comprised of organizations from across the city representing parents, teachers, students, principals, faith-based and community leaders to make some recommendations to school communities on how the additional time could be used both this year and next. Additionally, CPS gathered feedback from principals and students via focus groups, teachers via the VIVA project, and parents via community meeting. The district will continue to engage stakeholders throughout this process.

To ensure schools fully engage their communities and staff members in the process of redesigning their school day and preparing for implementation, the District has recently launched a year-long planning process. The full day planning process has been divided into five distinct phases to ensure schools receive the proper tools and supports throughout the process. Phases include:

Schools convene a Full School Day Planning Team (November).
Every school creates an ideal student schedule (December-January).
Each school creates a draft a master schedule (January-February).
Schools refine the plan based on feedback from the community and district to best maximize their time (February-March).
Full day plans are finalized and implementation begins (April-May).