Designing for Impact in Our Schools

Every school faces complex challenges. But the best ideas often come from the people closest to the work, teachers, leaders, students, and families.

The 2026 Design Challenge, hosted by The Chicago Public Education Fund in partnership with Leadership+Design, invites school teams across Chicago Public Schools to use human-centered design to tackle their most pressing problems in creative, collaborative, and meaningful ways. We will also support teams aligning these design efforts with the current CIWP process led by CPS. 

The 2026 Design Challenge is your chance to co-design solutions and tackle the most pressing issues in education today with the best and brightest ideas taking home top prizes!

Register today and a team member will contact you to schedule a personalized information call. 

Register
Participants Will Build Skills to: 

  • Collaboratively build testable solutions to impact a school specific design opportunity. 

  • Strengthen your school's design process and capacity for inclusive problem-solving

  • Conduct action research through empathy interviews, observations and shadow a student experiences

Teams are encouraged to combine the challenge research and planning to align and impact your school's CIWP process. 

    Who Can Participate?

    Teams of 3-7 school leaders including: any CPS Principal, Assistant Principal, Counselor, Dean, Teacher or another role from the school or a youth serving community organization. 


        Design Challenge Process

        Register Your Team

        Sign-Up, Recruit a Design Team, and Identify a Design Opportunity

        Regisration Opens 12/5/2025

        Milestone #1 Empathy Story Video

        Submit a 90-second Video to Introduce Your School,  Empathy Insights, and Design Opportunity

        Milestone #2 Prototype Report

        Create a 2-page Prototype Report to Share Empathy Journey, Developed Prototypes, and Testing Plans

        Milestone #3 Design Journey Deck

        Create a Compelling Slide Deck to Share your Design Process and Plans for Next Steps

        Milestones #1-3 Due April 15, 2026 to be scored.

        Live Presentation

        Five top scoring design teams will compete in a live Pitch Presentation for prizes on May 7, 2026

        Design Challenge Prize Structure

        One grand prize each for Elementary/ Middle and High School that presents at the Live Pitch Presentation

        Two Design Teams will be selected for their focus on either applying design thinking to create or iterate an arts program at their school, or use design thinking in the arts programming. 
        This award is generously sponsored by Ingenuity.

        Remaining finalists who present at the Live Pitch Presentation

        One Design Team will be chosen by the community for standing out in style, innovation, and heart. This team will be awarded an additional $2,000 based on audience vote at the Live Pitch Presentation.


        Three schools will be awarded for their efforts impacting our core themes this year.

        2026 Priorities Include:
        * Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovations
        * Inclusive and Supportive Learning Environment
        * Partnerships & Engagement

        There was a palpable shift in our team after the empathy interviews. The teachers and leaders had a deeper understanding of their students and it really provided a call to action. A highlight was the student participation, collaboration and ideation in the design process. The adult team members shared the themes and insights from the empathy interviews with the students. Together, we ideated possible solutions and narrowed the list to what felt best for the students. Our ideation session was full of hope, joy, and BIG thinking and showed students that they were heard and valued in the process.

        — Stephanie Cardella, CISC Longwood High School, 2024 Design Challenge Finalist
        Register

        The Chicago Public Education Fund is an organization that supports the efforts, development, and, satisfaction of Chicago Public School’s leaders. We believe in design thinking as a tool for driving impact because we have seen it in action since our design work began in 2012. Since then, over 100 school teams and thousands of educators have taken part in driving school-based solutions that rely on empathy and strategic design to keep changemakers from spinning their wheels with solutions. The Design Challenge is one of many ways that we thank you, those doing the work on the ground, to make school a little better each day for kids.

        Visit The Fund's
        Website