Newly Elected Members of Chicago’s School Board Share Their Visions for the District

Abena Bediako | November 18, 2024, 8:08 pm

The Chicago Board of Education is in the midst of massive change.

Residents just voted in 10 members of the city’s first elected school board.

The election follows the last board’s en masse resignation and public clashes between Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Brandon Johnson.

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The 10 newly elected board members will begin their terms in January 2025, ending nearly 30 years of complete mayoral control that began in 1995 under former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Before that, community members would nominate school board members, with the mayor having the final say.

But Johnson still has a great deal of control of the school board for now. This coming year, he has the ability to appoint 11 people to the board, which will grow from its current size of seven people to 21 come January. In 2027, the board will be fully elected.

The legislation approved by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, despite the objections of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, divides Chicago into 20 school board districts, with voters in each district electing a representative and the president of the board.

The new members are thoroughly fired up to get started with one agenda in mind: the students. Despite having to tackle issues such as a large budget deficit and school board turmoil, elected officials said they plan to make decisions around what’s best for the children.

Some new board members said they were inspired to run based on CPS’ literacy and math proficiency rates being below where they should be.

“I was looking at the literacy rates of our children in public schools go down and down, not even just after COVID, but before COVID,” said Che “Rhymefest” Smith. “We were spending more money on education and getting less results.”

Smith won the 10th District representing part of the city’s South Side, including Oakland, Kenwood, Douglas, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, South Shore, Burnside, South Chicago, Riverdale, Calumet Heights, the East Side, Pullman, Hegewisch and South Deering. Smith was backed by the CTU.

He noted his district is one of the biggest in the city with some of the highest and lowest performing schools. He said he hopes to look at what’s been successful for places such as Kenwood, learning from that model and emulating it for other locations such as Ruggles.

Schools located on the South and West sides of the city are notorious for being disenfranchised — a big reason why community organizer Aaron “Jitu” Brown threw his hat in the ring and won the 5th District representing part of the West Side including West Town, East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, Lawndale and Austin.

The district holds 100 schools — two of which are rated “exemplary” by the state and 11 as needing “intensive support.”

Brown plans to bring his background as a community organizer into this new role. He’s been advocating for an elected school board since 2006.

“The fact that we fought for an elected school board is a different belief system,” Brown said. “It is saying there is no equity without governance. Equity is the issue of people determining what they need, and then moving systems to get it. Not someone else in their benevolence telling you what they need. That’s not equity.”

The topic of equity and fairness across the board is not new in the realm of CPS. However, actually achieving the goal seems to be a continuous struggle for the school district. With pressing financial issues — a $500 million budget deficit — and possible school closures, the stakes are high to see what this newly elected board will bring to the table that the previous one didn’t.

“They were all the same people,” said Angel Gutierrez, winner of the 8th District. “There’s no people there that would have their own thought that was different. You have to have people who have the ability to bring all parties along, not just one.”

Gutierrez’s district covers parts of the South and Southwest sides including West Lawn and Clearing, parts of McKinley Park, Bridgeport and Gage Park, plus most of Back of the Yards, Chicago Lawn, Ashburn, Garfield Ridge and half of the South Loop.

Gutierrez was endorsed by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools.

One of the charter networks in the city, Acero Schools, announced potential closures to seven schools. Last week, Chicago’s Board of Education passed a resolution pressuring the Acero charter network to keep open the seven schools, but no new details were shared about CPS’ efforts to keep those schools afloat.

“You have to remember charter schools are CPS schools,” Gutierrez said. “So shouldn’t all the schools then be funded at the same rates?”

Along with potential closures, the new board will need to deal with CPS’ financial issues. Johnson proposed the school district taking out a high-interest loan to cover operating costs. Gutierrez and six other winners are not in favor of this option, while other members say they need more information before they can weigh in.

“This has to be data-driven,” Smith said. “It can’t be emotional. For the last five years, we’ve been dealing with a $500 million deficit. Now it’s going to balloon, perhaps to a billion-dollar deficit at our public schools. What are our assets? Are we going to do an unbiased audit of CPS, perhaps we need to do that. I have to know what our options are in order to have a view on how to deal with the deficit.”

On top of the budget deficit, CTU contract negotiations are ongoing. Aside from an increase in salary, CTU has made demands for additional resources that will require substantial revenue.

“So many of the things they’re asking for, I support,” Brown said. “All the children that are homeless in Chicago Public Schools, there’s an opportunity to provide resources for those families, to give those families stability. I think it makes sense. You cannot educate children on the cheap, and if you have Black and Brown children that have been neglected for decades, the needs are deep.”