Estimated classroom balance

25+ surplusBalanced25+ needed
CPS class sizeElementary 28 · High school 30

Chicago’s School Utilization

Where does estimated school capacity exceed or fall short of demand?

Estimated classroom balance

Explore how school capacity compares with enrollment at the selected class size.

Color
25+ surplusBalanced25+ needed

These estimates describe classroom-equivalent capacity. They do not identify actual empty rooms.

Shape
ElementaryHigh school
Size
Adjusted classroom count
Gray: not scored by CPS, so no estimate. Hatched: unscored charter, drawn at a fixed size, not to scale.

School filters

CPS class size

Elementary 28 · High school 30

Data ↗ Methods ↗ Data release
Estimated classroom balance
SurplusBalancedNeeded

Adjust class size

CPS assumes 28 students per elementary homeroom and 30 per high-school homeroom.

28
CPS uses 28
30
CPS uses 30

Using CPS assumptions.

Distribution

Elementary
30+ surplus030+ needed

High school
30+ surplus030+ needed

Net is a sum, not a pool: rooms can’t move between buildings.

About this map

Shape is grade band, color is the estimated classroom surplus or need, and size is the building’s adjusted classroom count.

How the balance is computed

Students counted toward capacity ÷ class size gives the homerooms a building needs. The gap to CPS’s homeroom count, converted to classrooms at CPS’s own 0.77 (elementary) and 0.80 (high school) homerooms per classroom, is the balance.

The figures are classroom-equivalents at the class size you set, not empty rooms anyone counted, and they say nothing about gyms, labs, offices, plumbing, separate entrances or access.

What the colors mean

Blue is a surplus, green is balanced, and red is a need. Only buildings CPS scores in its space utilization report get a color: district schools, and the charters that occupy a CPS building. Gray means not scored. The scale tops out at 25 rooms either way.

How marker size works

Area tracks the adjusted classroom count, so markers add up by eye across a neighborhood, and it does not change with class size. A school with no published count is drawn at a small fixed size; an unscored charter gets a fixed hatched marker that is not to scale.

Where markers are placed

Inside the school building wherever a City building footprint matched, and on the address point otherwise. Footprints are the City’s 2015 snapshot, the most recent it publishes. Every layer is placed the same way, so distances between markers mean the same thing.

School-based health centers

A filled circle is open to the public, a ring is restricted to enrolled or named students, a diamond sits in a separate building, and × has closed. The roster was researched by AI agents. The two mobile units are not drawn: neither has a fixed site.

City service lists are old

None of the three City rosters says whether a site is open today. A marker means the City listed the address, not that the service is there now.

CDPH runs seven mental health clinics today; this list has five, and the article measures distances to the seven. Where one address holds several clinics, their markers sit on top of each other.

Library branches and park buildings

Both are drawn at one size. The library roster records where a branch is, not its size or staffing. The park layer is an asset inventory, not a program roster: it says a building of a recorded type stands here, not what runs inside it.

Download data and methods

Data release and filesCSV
Data & methodsIn the article