Hi, I'm Mary, the parent behind Homeroom.

Like a lot of Chicago parents, I found the CPS school search and lottery process completely consuming, and honestly, a lot more complicated than I expected it to be. When we started looking at kindergarten for my daughter, I toured 12 schools across the city. I built a spreadsheet just to keep everything straight, and I even hosted a moms' night so a group of us could sit down and compare notes on what we'd each seen.

That's when it really hit me how much information you actually need to make this decision well, and how little of it lives anywhere official.

I didn't expect schools within three miles of each other to run on completely different clocks. Could our family manage a 7:45am start time in the middle of a Chicago winter? Would a 9am start mean I could actually make my morning meetings? I didn't expect aftercare to vary so much either. Some schools staff it with their own team and keep it around $275 a month. Others rely on private or community providers, and families end up paying almost double to cover that cost. CPS is free, but if you work full time and need before or after care, that difference is real money and real logistics for your family.

Then came the questions that don't show up on any tour or brochure. How much does the Friends of group or parent organization raise each year, and what does that actually fund? How many teachers and admins send their own kids to the school? What's the honest answer on screen time and technology in the classroom? Is dual language right for our family? Should we pursue the gifted track? What's the parent community actually like, will we make friends here, how often can we volunteer, and do parents genuinely feel welcomed at the school?

None of that is on the school's website. Most of it lives scattered across Facebook groups and Reddit threads, if you can even find it, and a lot of families never do.

That's why I built Homeroom.

It's a place for the parent community to share what it's really like at their school, and for families who are touring to take notes, confirm what they're hearing, and start to make sense of how to rank their choices. Homeroom isn't here to glorify or bash any school. Most CPS schools are truly wonderful places, and the teachers in them are heroes. Homeroom exists so families have enough real information to make the right decision for their own family and their own kid.

Schools are a central part of our community. When you choose a school for your child, whether it's your neighborhood school or a lottery spot, you're choosing your community from kindergarten through eighth grade. Homeroom is here to help you choose well.