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No. You do have to be willing to work hard because our teachers have high expectations and want you to be the best YOU you can be. There will be homework, especially reading. We require students to read for class plus do their own independent reading. Students at CMS are also expected to come to school ready to learn, and participate actively in class
Parents are required to complete 20 volunteer hours per semester. There are many ways to do this: supervise a study hall once a week, serve as a teacher’s aide, tutor students after school, chaperone field trips, monitor students during lunch, etc. We will offer a variety of volunteer opportunities so that you can find ones that fit your schedule.
If you are unable or unwilling to volunteer, you may opt to buy out of the volunteer requirement for a fee of $600 per semester.
You can find the current (remote instruction) schedule here. You may also download a sample in-school schedule (from Fall 2019) to get a better idea of a typical school day when we are back in the building together. The specifics of the schedule may vary somewhat due to teachers’ needs, but you can see how we typically arrange our courses. For example:
Math and Spanish are offered 4 days per week for approximately 1 hour each session
Science and History meet 3 times per week, but one session is a double period to allow for labs, presentations, field trips and other things that just need more than 50 minutes allows for.
English is offered 4 days per week; however, to allow the teachers to have individual conferences with each student, they have a double period once a week as well.
All of our students also have a 2 hour block of art, drama and applied arts – in the form of knitting/needle felting in 6th grade, quilting in 7th grade, and sewing in 8th grade each week.
Our schedule includes some time for students to develop their interpersonal and study skills. 6th and 7th grade students have study hall once a week, and also have a “skills” or “TLC” class once a week. 8th graders take 8th Grade Seminar once per week. You can find the curriculum for those classes here.
Yes, in a typical year the students take several field trips. All of us usually go to a big museum (i.e. Art Institute of Chicago, Then City Museum in St. Louis, etc.) every year, and the girls also go with their individual classes on local field trips (i.e. Krannert Art Museum, Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois laboratories, etc.) several times per year.
Tuition and Fee Schedule for a New Student beginning Fall 2021:
Application Fee: $50 (one-time, non-refundable fee)
New Student Enrollment Fee: $360 (one-time fee)
Supply Fee: $575
Tuition: $13,950
Total Tuition and Fees: $14,935.00
Parents may pay tuition monthly, once per semester, or once per year. Upon your child’s enrollment at CMS, you will have the opportunity to select the payment option that works best for you.
No. According to our Guaranteed Tuition Program (first enacted in Fall 2020) the tuition rate for a new student enrolling in Fall 2021 will remain the same for the remainder of her time at CMS, assuming continuous enrollment. Please note that the Supply Fee is tied to the cost of classroom materials, workbooks, field trips, etc. and may be adjusted if these costs change substantially.
CMS has some funds available for tuition assistance. Families may apply for a need-based partial tuition waiver of up to $5,000 using a form in the application packet. The amount of assistance available varies from year to year and families must re-apply every year.
At CMS we strive to meet the educational needs of our students to the best of our ability. Student needs are individually assessed and proper measures are sought to help each girl succeed. CMS is a small school, however, and is not equipped to handle severe learning or social/emotional needs. Please tell us about your child’s needs on the application, and share your child’s IEP, 504 or other intervention plans.
No; however, several MTD bus routes pass within one block of CMS, and you may wish to carpool with parents from your neighborhood.
CMS offers a variety of after-school extracurricular activities throughout the school year. While schedules may vary somewhat, most of these activities end at 4:15 pm. We also offer after-school tutoring on-site, but only if we have sufficient parent volunteers to provide the tutoring service. Students are expected to go home immediately after school unless they are enrolled in an after-school activity or participating in tutoring.
You are welcome to contact your daughter’s teachers at any time with questions about her progress. Teachers will reach out to you immediately if they observe significant changes in your student’s academic performance, or if her grade goes below a B-. We issue formal report cards every semester and hold parent-teacher conferences in October and March. Teachers meet regularly in grade-level groups to discuss student progress and to discuss trends and strategies for helping each student to succeed in school.
We understand that current conditions may mean that her classroom teacher doesn't know her very well. Parents are welcome to ask for teacher recommendations from coaches, tutors, extracurricular teachers (i.e. dance, music lessons, etc.) or teachers from more than 1 year ago. Anyone who has interacted with your child in a learning environment is an acceptable "teacher" for our purposes. For home-schooled students, we ask that the teacher recommendations come from people other than parents (even though parents may be the child's official teachers).
Don't worry--just send us what you have. We recognize that different schools have different methods for communicating students' performance, and we are happy to work with whatever your child's school provides.