At our last meeting, Nicole Losurdo, from the CPS Department of Arts Education, presented on the Physical Education Policy and Arts Initiative that are both being rolled out in the fall. These affect ALL schools.
The contact information she provided was:
Art Dept:
cpsarts@cps.edu
773-553-2170
PE Dept:
physicaleducation@cps.edu
773-553-3560
Please contact them for any clarity or questions. Ms. Losurdo's presentation included the following points:
- All high schools will have daily PE.
- All high school and elementary school students will have 120 minutes of Art per week.
- These are city and/or state mandates.
- CPS is helping to fund the following for the 600+ schools in the district:
- 84 art positions
- 84 PE positions
- CPS is helping by using the following structure:
- Year One (this fall)- CPS pays 75% of salaries, individual schools pay 25% of salaries(for those 168 positions only)
- Year Two- CPS pays 50% of salaries (of those 168 positions) and individual schools pay 50% of salaries
- Year Three (so by fall 2016)- CPS will no longer fund any of these positions; individual schools must find funds to pay 100% of salaries of these positions.
- CPS is providing material funds to most schools of $500-$750 per school.
- CPS is providing competitive grants of up to $15,000 for schools that are selected through an application process.
- School Scorecards will have rankings on them for both the Arts and PE. http://www.cpsarts.org/creative-schools-certification/
For more information, visit http://www.cpsarts.org/ or contact the numbers/emails above.
