Chicago Public Schools counted 304,687 students in fall 2026, 116,238 fewer than in fall 2005, and this page is the front door to our analyses of the district’s own files: its twentieth-day enrollment counts and its per-school progress files. We are an independent publication, affiliated with no school district or government. Each analysis below reads the district’s own files, names and dates each source and explains every figure, and none of them names, ranks or grades an individual school beyond what the district’s own records state.
Every figure computed from CPS’s own published files · updated October 1, 2026How many students are there, and where?
All 22 of CPS’s twentieth-day enrollment files, joined on the district’s own school IDs and mapped by community area: 420,925 students in fall 2005 and 304,687 in fall 2026, 11,537 fewer than a year earlier. Each fall’s change is split three ways: the entering kindergarten class against the senior class that left, the change from each grade to the next a year later, and preschool. By area, 63 of the 77 community areas sit below their fall 2012 count while the Loop’s schools grew by four-fifths. Chicago Public Schools Counted 304,687 Students in Fall 2026, 11,537 Fewer Than in Fall 2025. Its 18,838 Kindergartners Were the Fewest in 22 Years of Files.
Who are the students?
Eleven of the district’s files counting English learners, students with IEPs and low-income students: enrollment minus English learners fell ten straight falls, to 224,809, while English learners rose to 88,807 in fall 2024 and fell to 79,878, and students with IEPs reached 18.4 percent of enrollment, with the share in kindergarten more than doubled since 2016. By grade and by area. Chicago Public Schools’ English Learners Fell to 79,878 in Fall 2026 From a 2024 Peak of 88,807. Its Other Students, Enrollment Minus English Learners, Fell for a 10th Straight Fall.
Are the schools themselves getting smaller?
The same twentieth-day files read at the school grain: district-run schools enrolling fewer than 250 students went from 56 in fall 2016 to 126 in fall 2026, five of them schools that joined the district-run list this fall, and the median district-run school shrank from 498 students to 378, with charters counted separately throughout. 126 of Chicago’s 523 District-Run Schools Enrolled Fewer Than 250 Students in Fall 2026. In Fall 2016, 56 of 527 Did.
What does the district’s own report card say?
The SY2425 School Progress file across 649 schools, read exactly as recorded: chronic truancy at 37.6 percent for the median school and 62.6 percent at the median high school, 51 percent of schools in the culture survey’s top two levels, and rating columns that are mostly empty, including a growth rating no school carries. CPS’s Own Progress File: Chronic Truancy Is 37.6 Percent at the Median School — and the Rating Columns Are Mostly Empty
How this hub works
Each analysis linked above reads a public file the district itself publishes, states its counting rules, and discloses what the file cannot say, so each figure travels with its stated limits. Enrollment counts are the district’s twentieth-day snapshots, each taken on one day in the fall; progress-report figures are the district’s own instrument, reported as distributions with no school named; and where a file’s column is empty or constant, that is reported as a fact about the file. New schools analyses are added here as they publish. This page takes no position on where anyone enrolls.