At the Community Partnerships Office, we work on improving community-based tools on a daily basis. Common questions about these tools are answered below. If you have a specific question, please email community@cps.edu.
The toolkit includes activities and worksheets to help community members achieve a variety of common Community Goals such as creating a safe space for dialogue and raising parental involvement in schools. It also includes step-by-step guides for Community Planning efforts.
The Dreaming with Community Toolkit is available by clicking here.
Absolutely. The methods are customizable and can be used to address different community engagement objectives. Contact your Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Manager for guidance.
INVEST South/West will deeply engage with school communities to understand the need for potential school investments.
The Annual Regional Analysis (ARA) is a fact-based report produced by CPS that provides information on CPS enrollment, student demographics, school quality, school choice, and program offerings. The purpose of this information is to ensure that both CPS leadership and citywide community members are working from the same set of information about schools and the communities they serve. Additionally, the ARA is directly connected to the district’s Five-Year Vision. CPS works collaboratively with communities based on this information to support the district’s core values of integrity, transparency, and equity.
This video has more information about the ARA, and you can also visit ara.cps.edu.
The ARA consists of a district overview report and 16 regional reports aligned to the city planning department’s Chicago Neighborhoods Now initiative. Each district- and region-level report shares information and data within four sections:
The ARA uses a variety of internal district and publicly sourced data to share information on students, schools, and programs. When possible, the ARA shares information about the following categories:
Additional data includes attendance boundaries, travel time and distance, space utilization, census data, and birth rates.
Information in the ARA is presented at both district-wide and regional community meetings. To facilitate accessibility and understanding, the ARA reports are shared via the ARA website and downloadable PDF reports.
Additionally, a document archive is available online sharing 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020 reports at ara.cps.edu/about/historical.
CPS uses the ARA to guide internal decision making with schools, networks, and district staff as well as external decision making with students, families, and community stakeholders. Our hope is that sharing this information publicly can build collaboration from a shared set of facts that empowers community members to advocate for their schools and neighborhoods.
CPS hopes that the ARA serves as a valuable tool to understanding the state of school and student performance within regions and across the district. Community members can use this information to advocate for changes in achievement, access, or programmatic offerings within their neighborhoods.
The ARA solicits feedback from a variety of sources and community engagement venues to determine what new information or ways of viewing data the public would like to see. Each year, the ARA makes updates to content and format based on these requests to increase its usability.
When the ARA is released each spring, CPS engages the public through a set of collaborative community engagement conversations around changes in the data, prioritization of investments and support, and big ideas for transforming education locally. These conversations take place for all 16 regions and in English and Spanish.
Additionally, CPS is always looking for new ways to engage the public around the information shared in the ARA. If you have ideas for your local school or what you’d like to see included in next year’s ARA, stay tuned for the 2021 ARA community engagement schedule.