CHICAGO – Chicago Public Schools officials are holding students’ education hostage in an attempt to gain leverage in a lawsuit to force a massive budget bailout from the state.

The perpetually broke school district put its hopes for funding the current school year on a $215 million bailout from the state vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in December, and have since taken some cost cutting measures to plug a $130 million budget gap, the Chicago Tribune reports.

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District officials instituted furlough days, froze $46 million in spending and threatened funding cuts to charter schools while chastising the governor and President Trump for allegedly conspiring “cheat” kids in a politically letter recently sent home to parents earlier this month.

Now, CPS leaders are threatening to cut more than three weeks from the school year if they don’t receive the nearly quarter billion dollar bailout from the state.

District officials sued Illinois over the funding dispute, and CEO Forrest Claypool told parents the shorter school year – and the elimination of summer school – are forthcoming if a Cook County judge doesn’t issue a preliminary injunction to bar the state from “continuing to fund two separate but massively unequal systems of education,” according to the lawsuit cited by the Tribune.

The litigation, filed by the CPS board against Rauner and the Illinois State Board of Education, describes the effort as a “last stand” for a school district “on the brink” of financial disaster.

Without a favorable court ruling, schools could close down as early as June 1, three weeks earlier than planned, which would put the district in violation of state laws on the minimum number of school days and further jeopardize state funding.

“If CPS ends the school year on June 1 – instead of June 20 – students will receive fewer days of instruction. If students are not in class, they forever lose those days of learning,” CPS Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson said in a court affidavit.

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And it’s obvious Chicago students can use as much time in the classroom as possible.

The most recent data, from 2014, shows only about 46 percent of third- through eighth-graders who took the Illinois Standards Achievement Test met or exceeded expectations for reading, while only 52 percent met that threshold for math, according to the CPS website

Less than 70 percent of students from CPS’ traditional public schools graduate.

State Education Secretary Beth Purvis told the Tribune CPS officials seemingly have their priorities out of whack.

“I hope that they would really look seriously at not cutting days from the school year,” she said. “I think people need to understand that the CPS board adopted a budget with a $215 million hole in it. Why is the governor being held responsible for that instead of the CPS board?”

CPS estimates it would save $91 million from a shortened school year, as well as $5 million for cutting summer school for elementary and middle school students, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

“There’s no question that ending school early is our worst-case scenario,” Claypool told reporters Monday. “I want to be crystal clear: We believe it is possible to avoid ending the school eyar early, but only if Springfield acts or Judge (Franklin) Valderrama enjoins the state from distributing funding in a racially discriminatory manner.”

The district has asked Valderrama to make a determination on the case by the end of April.

The city’s teachers union, meanwhile, is blaming the situation on Rauner and reluctance by city officials to increase taxes to an already overburdened residents. The plan to cut school days could equate to a roughly 10 percent pay cut, Chicago Teachers Union officials allege.

“We have the combination of a governor who doesn’t care about public education, and local leadership who have been unwilling to really fight for the kids on solutions that would tax the people who could afford it,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey, who wants the city to impose a commuter tax to cover the shortfall.

CTU President Karen Lewis also took aim at her nemesis, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, for causing the chaos.

“The mayor behaving as if he has zero solutions is incredibly irresponsible,” Lewis wrote in a prepared statement. “Rahm wants us to let him off the hook for underfunding our schools and instead wait for the Bad Bargain to pass the Senate or Rauner’s cold, cold heart to melt and provide fair funds.”