Black Student Success Plan
Client: Chicago Public Schools
Opportunity
While Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has made efforts to address long-standing racial inequities in education, Black students continue to suffer from historic and persistent gaps in educational opportunities and outcomes.
To address these systemic inequities that have disproportionately impacted the experiences of Black students compared to their peers, CPS committed to co-create a Black Student Success Plan (BSSP) alongside key community stakeholders.
To develop the recommendations in the plan, Civic Consulting Alliance, a Protiviti pro bono fellow, and community leaders co-designed eight community roundtables centered on lived experience and equity. These roundtables provided input for the approximately 30 recommendations in the BSSP across student experience, adult capacity, and school and community partnerships.
The BSSP launched in February 2025, and is included as a core strategy in the CPS Five-Year Strategic Plan. Civic Consulting Alliance was asked by the Office of Equity to support development of a roadmap for implementation of the plan that included strong accountability structures to maintain trust and momentum for the BSSP.
Action
After the launch of the Black Student Success Plan, our team provided thought partnership to the newly hired Director of Black Student Success to ensure consistency and a smooth transition into their role overseeing the plan's implementation.
Our team was reengaged in a new project to establish a sustainable Project Management Office structure that defines how projects are managed, monitored, and supported to enable coordinated implementation of the 2025 Black Student Success Plan across CPS departments and external stakeholder groups.
This engagement unfolded across three phases to build, operationalize, and refine a clear accountability and engagement framework for advancing Black Student Success:
Researched peer-city best practices, assessed CPS milestones and capacity, and worked with the client to draft an initial 12–18 month roadmap.
Partnered with prioritized departments to define strategies, align progress monitoring and District Continuous Improvement Work Plan systems, establish clear project charters and metrics, and design an external transparency and engagement approach, including annual reporting and community and Board socialization.
Synthesized and refined all inputs into a cohesive blueprint, delivering a finalized roadmap, governance and PMO structure, initiative charters, and a clear strategy for ongoing internal alignment and external accountability.
“The launch of the Black Student Success Plan was a critical milestone, but implementation is where impact truly happens. Civic Consulting Alliance supported our team in designing a Project Management structure and accountability framework that will guide coordinated action across departments. Their work ensures our commitment to Black students is matched by clear metrics, ownership, and transparency.”
Impact
This work strengthened CPS’s ability to advance its five-year Black Student Success goals by translating strategy into clear accountability, transparency, and action. The plan directly will support outcomes such as increasing the hiring and retention of Black educators, reducing disproportionate disciplinary actions and out-of-school suspensions, strengthening students’ sense of belonging, accelerating academic growth to close opportunity gaps, and expanding culturally responsive teaching and instruction on Black history.
By embedding community voice into decision-making and establishing clear accountability tools, the engagement also helped build trust between CPS leadership, internal stakeholders, and community partners—ensuring Black Student Success efforts remain grounded in lived experience and sustained over time.
Ultimately, the Black Student Success Plan marks a heightened commitment and accountability to Black students and families and is being built by individuals and organizations who spent decades advocating to give Black students the resources and support that they deserve.