Chicago school officials announced they have eliminated jobs for more than 2,100 employees—roughly 1,000 of them teachers—in the budget-strapped district.
Those layoffs last month come on top of the 850 teachers and staff members who lost their jobs in June—cuts that mostly stemmed from the district’s closure of nearly 50 elementary schools.
Officials in the 405,000-student district say they must address a $1 billion deficit, a large chunk of which is the result of rising pension obligations.
A lawsuit against the district challenging the closing of 10 of the schools—which claimed the district did not follow its own guidelines for such closures—was rejected by a Cook County, Ill., judge last week. Meanwhile, two federal lawsuits are pending that were brought by the Chicago Teachers’ Union challenging the closures on behalf of parents.
