Do CPS Schools Switch You to IB DP Classes Contrary to Your Requested Classes? What I Learned As A CPS Parent
Last August, I stood next to my 11th grader Leo in the sweltering gym of Lincoln Park High, shifting my half-empty iced coffee from hand to hand as condensation soaked through my sweatshirt sleeve. He crumpled his printed schedule into a tight ball and stared up at me. Three months earlier, we’d sat across from his counselor for 45 minutes, mapped out every class, and double-checked that he’d get the schedule he wanted: two IB certificate classes, AP Bio, AP Language, and a semester drawing elective that fit around his part-time after-school job at a local animation studio. He’d explicitly declined the full IB Diploma Programme (DP), and the counselor had written that down, signed off on it, and sent us home with a paper copy. But on schedule pick-up day, every single one of Leo’s classes was full IB DP. He had Theory of Knowledge. He had a mandatory DP core seminar. No drawing elective, no AP Bio. “What the hell?” Leo said. “Did they even look at our form?”
That question gets tossed around CPS parent groups every spring, when rising juniors select their 11th and 12th grade classes. Do schools really switch kids into full DP against their stated wishes? After our mess last year, and talking to a dozen other parents at five different CPS high schools with IB programs, the answer is: yes, it happens, and it’s not usually a random clerical mistake.
We waited an hour in the counselor’s hallway that day, leaning against a cinder block wall that smelled like old floor wax and a forgotten overripe banana. When we finally got in, our counselor didn’t even apologize, just sighed and pulled up Leo’s file on her lagging computer. She explained it was a system-wide enrollment push. CPS schools get extra funding and designated staffing for their IB programs based on how many full DP candidates they have each year. If they end up with empty seats in the DP cohort after all the kids who requested full DP enroll, they auto-fill those spots with any kid who’s eligible for IB—even if that kid asked for part-time IB or no IB at all. “It’s not personal,” she said. “We just have to hit our targets to keep the program funded for everyone.”
I texted our neighborhood parent group that night, and within an hour I had four replies from other families who’d dealt with the exact same situation that year. One mom’s son had a 504 plan for anxiety that made the heavy course load of full DP too much for him; he’d been switched anyway, and it took three weeks of meetings to get him moved to his requested classes. Another dad said his daughter never even intended to do IB, but she’d tested into the school’s magnet program and got automatically placed into full DP when she’d requested all AP classes. None of them had been notified about the switch before they picked up their schedules.
I know it’s easy to get frustrated with front-line school staff, but most of them are just as overloaded as you’d expect. My cousin works as a counselor at a CPS high school on the South Side, and she told me she’s required to hit a specific DP enrollment number every year, or her IB coordinator gets marked down on their annual evaluation. The system pushes the switch, not the individual adults working with kids. But that doesn’t mean you’re helpless if this happens to you, or that you can’t prevent it entirely with a little extra work.
The first thing we figured out is that you can’t rely on verbal requests or a school keeping your original request on file. Save a scanned copy or a clear photo of every signed course selection form you turn in. Save every email confirmation the school sends you after you submit your requests. When we first went to fix Leo’s schedule, the admin office initially said they couldn’t find our original signed request. I pulled up the photo I’d taken on my phone right there in the office, and that ended that argument in 10 seconds.
Second, don’t wait until schedule pick-up day to fix a potential problem. Reach out to both your kid’s counselor and the school’s IB coordinator two weeks before schedules are released, and just remind them of your request. If you don’t want full DP, state that explicitly in the email. If you already have something in writing before schedules are finalized, they’re way more likely to catch the auto-switch before it gets to your kid. The mom I mentioned earlier whose son had the 504 plan did this this year for her younger kid, and her schedule came out perfectly matching her request on the first try.
Third, if your kid has any specific reason full DP doesn’t work for them—outside commitments, learning differences, a specific college plan that doesn’t require the full diploma—put that reason in writing when you make your original request. Schools are far more hesitant to override a request when it’s tied to a documented need or clear plan, instead of just a vague preference.
We got Leo’s schedule switched after a week, but he missed the first week of the classes he actually wanted, and he spent the next month playing catch-up to make up for the gap. It worked out for us, but I know other kids who didn’t get switched until mid-fall, when the classes they requested were already full, so they were stuck. Some end up powering through full DP and burning out by second semester, others drop mid-year and have a hard time filling the hole in their transcript.
This year, a family down the street with a rising junior asked me what to do, and I walked them through those three small steps. They sent their email in May, when course selections first opened, attached a copy of their signed form, copied both the counselor and IB coordinator, and their schedule came out exactly what they requested last week. It works, as long as you’re willing to do the extra legwork that the school never tells you you need to do. The district hasn’t changed the funding rules that push this practice, so for now, it’s just one of those little things CPS parents learn to plan for. It’s not fair, but it’s manageable, if you know it’s a possibility going in.
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