Chicago Schools Extending Service Provider Contracts to Keep on Top of Cleaning

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) faces challenges maintaining the numerous facilities that make up the third largest education system in the country. The subject of a 2018 investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times, dozens of CPS school buildings were found to be dirty and infested with rodents. After the investigation, CPS officials hired 200 more custodians to rectify the situation. To keep on top of cleaning throughout the summer, CPS is currently looking to extend contracts with two private facilities management companies for three more months at a cost of US$74 million from their school year budget, the Sun-Times reports.

CPS contracts with the private facilities management companies—Sodexo and Aramark—were scheduled to end this June. However, the proposal to extend the contract until September 30 giving CPS more time to find possible replacement companies was proposed at a recent Chicago Board of Education meeting. The two companies have provided cleaning and maintenance to the district since 2014 under a pilot program which included a few schools but now is districtwide to its more than 600 buildings.

In an email to principals earlier this week, Clarence Carson, the district facilities chief, said an extension was necessary “to ensure essential facility services are not interrupted.”

“We know how important it is for this eventual transition to proceed as smoothly as possible, and this extension will help ensure a successful transition as we work through our evaluation of vendors to serve under a new management structure,” Carson said in the email.