All Chicago Public Schools will get teacher positions based on a set formula that favors high-poverty schools and eliminates extra money historically given to magnet and selective enrollment programs and schools.

But CPS CEO Pedro Martinez emphasized that overall magnet and selective enrollment schools will not be hurt. “What we are seeing is that there is no disproportionate impact on any one set of schools,” he said.

Principals received their school budgets for next year on Monday. The school district has yet to release the school budgets to the press and, at this point, does not plan to until later in the process. This breaks from tradition.

These are the first school budgets under a new funding formula that shifts to focusing on the needs of schools, rather than enrollment.

Under this new “equity-based” formula, principals are mostly being given positions, rather than pots of money, as was done under the old formula.

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The elimination of extra money for magnet and selective enrollment schools will likely hit a nerve. Many parents have been concerned about their future after the school district eliminated busing to them, citing a bus driver shortage, and the school board passed a resolution calling for a shift away from school choice.

But Martinez said the new formula is so “generous” that magnet and selective enrollment schools will be able to keep their programs intact. Martinez said the programs will be more stable because the positions are embedded into the formula, rather than something extra that could always be taken away.

He added that it is still early in the budget process and schools have the next month to make a case if officials “missed something.”

CPS chief budget officer Mike Sitkowski said many schools were getting extra money from the magnet pot, though they weren’t magnet schools. This is because previous CEOs would award them specialty programs that may or may not still exist. He called them “legacy allocations,” which will now go away.

Martinez and Sitkowski said their priority in this budget was protecting schools, despite the fact that the district is facing at least a $391 million deficit. This year, federal COVID relief money will run out. That will expose a structural deficit due in large part to inadequate state funding.

The CPS officials say the amount of money being spent in schools will stay the same, if not slightly increase. They said they are looking to make cuts in central office and operations, to try to keep them “furthest away” from the classroom.

But they also revealed that the projected budget deficit does not include any pay or benefit increases for teachers or other staff, even though the Chicago Teachers Union and the union representing support staff are in the middle of contract negotiations. If the school district agrees to raises, as they likely will be forced to, the deficit will actually be bigger than originally projected.

Martinez said he is hoping that he can work with the CTU to convince the governor and state legislature to provide additional funding to schools.

“Our team’s job is to make sure we’re protecting the schools as much as we can and that’s putting a lot more pressure on us,” he said. “But I also want to send a message to Springfield that we’re not going to balance these budgets on the backs of the schools. I mean, especially when we’re seeing more progress than we’ve seen in years.”

However, the state is facing its own funding cliff and state lawmakers say they can’t commit any more money to schools.

Schools serving mostly low income students will get more positions per student than those with middle class and upper middle class kids. More affluent elementary schools will get one position for every 26 students; and high schools will have a ratio of 21 to 1. But in high poverty elementaries the ratio will be 22 to 1 and in high poverty high schools it will be 19 to 1.

These ratios are not class sizes because principals can use discretionary money to hire more teachers or they could use one of these positions for something else.

For every five core positions, a school will get a position for a “specials” class, which include art and gym, and could be used to support specialty programs in magnet schools. No school will get less than three of these positions.

Also schools serving low income students will continue to get supports that were paid for with COVID relief money, such as extra teachers to help with struggling students and tutors.

All schools will get a principal, an assistant principal, a clerk and a counselor, but schools can get more counselors if they have more than 600 students. The assistant principal position can be used for something else, if a principal chooses.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.