Chicago Public Schools is moving toward a single, districtwide system for the fees families pay for sports uniforms, field trips, graduation and other school activities, rather than letting each school set its own charges. The Board of Education's Finance and Audit Committee voted 7-0 Thursday to recommend the plan to the full 21-member board, setting up a vote at the board's next meeting on October 22.
The proposal would create a district-level student fee committee, led by the head of CPS's Office of Network Support, to establish standardized fees that individual schools could then request changes to, according to Chalkbeat Chicago. The district would also gather data and feedback from parent leaders before finalizing the new structure, the outlet reported. Crystal Dorsey, executive director of school support in the Office of Network Support, said the change is meant to create a more equitable fee structure for all schools.
A Board Member Questions Whether Fees Are Worth It
The push for standardization comes with a pointed question from inside the board itself. Angel Velez, vice president of the Chicago Board of Education and chair of the finance committee, asked what share of CPS students are currently waived from paying fees at all — and Dorsey said she did not immediately know the answer.
Velez noted that CPS students include about 69% from low-income households, defined as income within 185% of the federal poverty line, or about $61,000 for a family of four. Given that context, he questioned the value of charging fees when 70 to 80% of students could potentially waive them, and said some families find paying fees super difficult, the same report notes.
What Counts as a School Fee — and What Doesn't
Under existing CPS policy, a school fee is any monetary charge a school collects tied to a student's participation in a curricular or extracurricular program, according to Chicago Public Schools. Ordinary supplies students are required to provide themselves, such as pencils, paper and notebooks, don't count as fees under that definition. The proposed changes would keep that core definition in place, Chalkbeat reported, though they would remove specific examples — like textbooks and graduation caps and gowns — that currently appear in the policy.
Current CPS rules also require every school to issue a fee schedule at the start of the year, and principals must consult local school councils — and, at the high school level, student representatives — before setting those fees, per Chicago Public Schools' guidelines on establishing student fees. Schools are also required to provide those fee schedules to families in their native languages and to staff.
Who Can Get a Fee Waived, and Who Decides
Students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals are already eligible for fee waivers under CPS policy, as are children of veterans or active-duty military personnel whose household income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty line — about $66,000 for a family of four. Waivers are also available to students facing severe illness, the impacts of a natural disaster, or other qualifying extenuating circumstances, with principals deciding those case by case based on documentation families submit.
The proposed policy would add one more group to that list: students living in temporary housing, who would become eligible for student fee waivers under the planned changes. That population is already protected under the McKinney-Vento Act, which covers unhoused students and those living doubled up with others, separate from the CPS fee policy itself.
A Clearer Path for Families Who Are Denied
CPS also plans to build a clearer appeals process for families whose waiver requests are denied. Under the proposal, families would have 30 days to appeal a denial by submitting a form to CPS's Office of Network Support, which would make the final decision on those appeals. Parents would not be required to pay the disputed fees while an appeal is pending, according to Chalkbeat's reporting.
That would sit alongside existing CPS policy, which already requires principals to mail a denial decision and the reasoning behind it to a parent or guardian within 30 calendar days. The district's current rules also bar any discrimination or punishment — including lowered grades or exclusion from class — against students whose families can't pay required fees, and CPS policy separately prohibits high schools from withholding grades, transcripts or a diploma over an unpaid school-account balance.
How Illinois Rules on Fee Waivers Fit In
The push for standardization also lands against a backdrop of state rules that already require many fees to be waived for families who can't afford them. Illinois guidance cited by the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness lists textbooks, qualifying field trips, graduation fees, and sports or fine-arts uniforms and equipment among the costs that must be waived for low-income students — while ordinary supplies, class rings, yearbooks, school photos and optional travel do not have to be. Illinois administrative rules separately require school districts to maintain written policies governing how those fee and fine waivers work, according to the Illinois Administrative Code.
The scrutiny on how CPS handles fee waivers isn't entirely new. A 2025 Chalkbeat report noted that the district's inspector general had called for reforms to how CPS compiles and verifies family-income information tied to waiver eligibility, including a recommendation that families caught submitting false income information be permanently barred from receiving waivers. For now, the fee-standardization proposal heads to the full Board of Education for a vote on October 22.
