Jessica Biggs

Candidate Q&A

Why are you running?

I have spent 20 years in classrooms, schools, and communities, and I have seen what becomes possible for kids when the adults around them are aligned. Right now they are not. This board has spent too much of its first two years on adult politics while student learning waited.

I taught special education, led Burke Elementary out of nearly a decade of probation, and today organize alongside families on the Southwest Side. My own daughter attends a CPS school. That experience shapes how I understand this job.

The board’s work is straightforward: set clear goals, pass policy that matches them, adopt an honest budget aligned with our strategic priorities, and hold the CEO accountable for results. Five years from now, every Chicagoan should be able to say they knew what this board was focused on, because the communication was clear and the results showed up in schools.

Public education exists so young people can build the knowledge and skill to live a life of their choosing, shape the world around them, and participate in our democracy. I am running to put that purpose back at the center of this board’s work.

Are you in support of the most recent CPS budget that relies on uncommitted state funding?  

No. I voted against it because it was a reckless move. We were presented with a difficult but balanced budget built on reasonable revenue assumptions, and the board replaced it with one that counts on $150 million the state has not committed.

I lived through the consequences of that kind of gamble as a principal. In 2017, CPS budgeted on roughly $215 million in state money that never arrived, and the district answered with furlough days and cuts that landed directly on schools. We are still paying roughly $200 million a year in debt service tied to the borrowing from that period, money that could be funding teachers and classrooms today.

I want that state money, and I will work to get it. Budgeting as though we already have it is something else entirely. It creates enormous uncertainty for principals trying to staff and plan, and we are already hearing warnings about a possible credit downgrade that would make everything this district needs to do more expensive. 

How will you work with CPS officials and staff to balance the district’s budget?  

The board sets direction and holds the CEO accountable; it does not run the district. My working relationship with the CEO and CFO will be a genuine partnership, with clear expectations and no surprises in either direction.

Practically, that means three things. First, a shared multi-year financial plan built with the City and the State, carrying public milestones, honest tradeoffs, and a real accounting of what each partner owes, because no single actor can close this gap alone. Second, an expectation that central office justifies every administrative line by what it produces for students, so a larger share of every CPS dollar reaches a school. Third, coalitions. The path to adequate state funding runs through partnership with labor, with the City, and with suburban and downstate districts that need the formula fully funded as much as we do. Legislators respond when Chicago arrives with allies behind it rather than a list of demands.

The measure of success is not a balanced budget in any one year. It is a parent enrolling a child in kindergarten confident the district will still be stable, resourced, and focused on that child at graduation.

Other than the budget, what is the single biggest issue facing Chicago Public Schools?

Student learning. Chicago spent two decades as one of the fastest-improving urban districts in the country, and that progress has stalled. On the national assessment, the share of CPS eighth graders reaching proficiency in math climbed from 9% in 2003 to 21% in 2024, real movement earned by real work, but scores have not moved meaningfully since 2022 and we still trail the national average. On the state test in 2024, 19% of third through eighth graders were proficient in math and 31% in reading.

I would require the board to set explicit K-2 literacy and numeracy goals, report progress publicly every quarter, and disaggregate results for students with disabilities, Black students, English learners, and students living in poverty.

Attendance belongs in the same conversation. About 40% of CPS students are chronically absent. A student who feels challenged and supported in a classroom that connects to her life comes to school, which makes attendance a school quality question well before it is a discipline question.

What is a top issue for students, schools and families in your specific school board voting district?

I am running citywide, so my district is Chicago. What I hear across the city is a version of the same thing: families want a great school in their own neighborhood and they are not confident the system will protect it.

On the South Side, where I live and where I served as a principal, that concern is sharp. Communities have watched enrollment fall, programs shrink, and schools absorb decades of disinvestment while the district’s attention went elsewhere. Families also raise special education constantly, and with reason. When CPS changed how it funded special education, services for my own students were delayed and denied, and I raised concerns publicly. Strong neighborhood schools with the staffing and services they are legally required to provide would do more to rebuild trust in this system than any communications strategy.

If you accept campaign contributions from special interest groups, how will you maintain independence from those donors?

I am proud to have the support of working people and their organizations, including the Chicago Federation of Labor and the SEIU Illinois State Council. The people who teach, clean, cook for, and care for Chicago’s students deserve a board president who respects them and bargains with them in good faith.

Independence is not just a promise for me; it is a record. I have repeatedly stood up for what I believe is right, including when it carried a real cost. As a principal, I spoke publicly about CPS policies that were harming my students, and I lost my job over it. On this board, I voted against a budget built on revenue the state has not committed, because that risk lands on schools. I have never traded a vote for political support, and I do not intend to start.

That is the standard I will hold as president. I answer to Chicago’s children and to the voters who elect me.

How can current board policies and procedures be improved?

This board tripled in size without building the machinery a body that size requires. I would start with a real committee structure, standing and ad hoc committees doing substantive work between full board meetings, so major decisions are not litigated for the first time at 10 p.m. from the dais.

Alongside that: a published legislative calendar so communities know what is coming and when; board materials and fiscal analysis released early enough for members and the public to actually read them; a requirement that significant amendments carry a fiscal note before a vote; defined criteria for major decisions; and structured feedback that gives school communities genuine input before decisions are made rather than after.

I would also establish a transparent, public CEO evaluation framework tied to student outcome goals and apply it consistently. I have built collaboration structures before, at Burke and through the Southwest System of Care. Building them is harder than describing them, and it is the difference between a board that governs and a board that reacts.

How should CPS and the board work to address declining enrollment?

Enrollment has fallen, and the reasons are complex. Birth rates are down, families have been priced out of neighborhoods they grew up in, housing instability has scattered communities, and some families simply lost confidence in their local school. No single explanation covers it, and any strategy built on a single explanation will fail.

I would have the board track CPS enrollment as a share of Chicago’s total school-age population and treat that number as a public accountability metric. Enrollment is a budget input, and it is also a running measure of whether families believe in this system.

The answer is not a marketing campaign. It is early childhood seats parents can count on, strong K-2 literacy instruction, special education services delivered on time, programming that makes a school worth choosing, and a few years of visible stability. Families come back to systems they trust, and that trust gets rebuilt one school at a time.

Do you foresee a need to close some district schools?

Closing schools is not part of my agenda and it is the last thing I would ever want to do. I watched six schools within a mile of Burke close in 2013 while my school barely survived. Those closings landed hardest on Black communities, and I saw what they did to families and to blocks that are still recovering. I will not repeat that.

We do need rigorous, honest conversations about how this district uses its facilities. Closing schools will not solve our financial problems, and anyone selling it as a silver bullet is misleading people. The real question is fairness. It is not right for children to attend a school that cannot offer the programming and support they deserve.

Those conversations cannot be top down, and they cannot happen without the people who live with the consequences. Any discussion of facilities under my leadership will be led with communities rather than announced to them, and it will follow one principle: when a community is asked to give something up, it must get something real in return, something they can see, not a promise.

Should CPS implement AI in its classrooms? What, if any, guardrails should be put in place? 

AI is a tool that we will be using in the future in our schools, businesses, and daily lives.  That said, we have to take the right steps first, and we have not taken them yet, which is why I signed the pledge calling for a pause on generative AI in CPS while the district builds responsible use policy, educator training, and real guardrails.

The guardrails I want in place before anything changes: strict protection of student data, with clear limits on what vendors may collect, keep, or train on; transparency about which tools are in use and what evidence supports them; meaningful educator involvement in every decision, because teachers will live with the consequences; attention to accessibility, since some assistive technology genuinely helps students with disabilities and should not be swept up in a blanket restriction; and honest assessment of the effect on student thinking, writing, and academic integrity.

One thing will not change with time. AI can be a tool that teachers and staff use. It can never be a replacement for a teacher, and no budget pressure should be allowed to turn it into one.

The board currently includes one Honorary Student Member. As the board has recently tripled in size, should that number be expanded?

Yes. It has been an honor to serve alongside our student board members, and I have learned a great deal from them. One student voice among 21 adults, representing more than 300,000 students, is not proportionate to what this board has become.

Expanding the number would also let student members represent different communities and different kinds of schools, which would be a real gain. Elementary and high school students experience this district differently, and so do students on the South, West, and North Sides.

Expansion only matters if the role carries substance. Student members need agenda materials in advance, staff support, briefings they can use, and a defined path to bring items forward. Chicago students are perfectly capable of holding this board accountable if we give them a real seat.

How will you be responsive to student-led issues?

By building the channel before the crisis rather than during it. Students in this district have organized around school safety, mental health supports, ethnic studies, college and career access, and conditions in their own buildings, and they are usually right about what they are describing.

I would connect student government leaders, student advisory groups, and student organizers into the same district-wide engagement structure I want for LSC chairs, faith leaders, and parent groups, with a direct line to the board and a predictable calendar. When students bring an issue, they should get a public response and a timeline, including when the answer is no.

Students also tell us the most important thing we are missing about attendance. Young people show up for school that feels relevant to their lives. If we are serious about the 40% chronic absenteeism rate, students are the people to ask why.

Did you attend Chicago Public Schools? When/Where?

I did not. I grew up in a public school family; my parents each taught in Chicagoland elementary schools for more than 35 years, and my brother is a special education teacher. My connection to CPS comes through my career and my own child.

Have you sent your children to Chicago Public Schools?

Yes. My daughter attends a CPS school.

Have you ever served on a Local School Council? When/Where?

Yes, as principal of Edmund Burke Elementary School in Washington Park from 2012 to 2018, where I served as a member of the school’s Local School Council and worked closely with parent and community representatives to move the school off probation.

Have you ever worked for Chicago Public Schools?

Yes. I served as principal of Edmund Burke Elementary School on the South Side from 2012 to 2018. During my tenure, Burke more than doubled its enrollment, added a Child Parent Center for its youngest learners, tripled its staff, and came off nearly a decade of probation in 2018. I was removed from the principalship at the end of the 2017-18 school year after speaking publicly about CPS policies that harmed my students, including delayed and denied special education services and the conditions left by the district’s janitorial contract.

What neighborhood do you live in?

Bronzeville