Candidate Q&A
Why are you running?
As an educator, youth mentor, and longtime community organizer in the movement for educational justice, I have seen the way corporate and profit-driven interests have led decision-makers in our city to fail our young people and our school system over and over again. In addition to working to win needed investments in neighborhood schools on the West and South sides, stop racist school closures, and expand the sustainable community school model, I have been apart of the fight to win a democratically elected School Board in Chicago for many years.
In 2015, I was one of the lead organizers who formed Communities Organized for Democracy in Education to put a referendum on the the ballot in 37 of 50 wards that showed nearly 90% of voters wanted an elected board. My belief is that we need community voices on the board that governs Chicago Public Schools in order to make our school district best meet the needs of our communities. As a CPS alum, CPS parent, mentor and educator to countless CPS alum across the city, and organizer of school communities, I am driven by a commitment to equity and to the vision that every young person in Chicago deserves a world class education within safe walking distance of their home. Now that we will get to elect our School Board representatives for the first time, I am running to collaborate with community to win equity, investment, and a community voice in our public school system.
Why are you the most qualified candidate?
For the past 30 years, my work has focused on educational justice and equity. I served on Local School Councils from 1999 to 2013 and became a certified LSC trainer, coaching hundreds of LSC members across the city. I was the community school coordinator at Chicago’s first community school, South Shore School of Entrepreneurship. I taught Black history at St. Leonard’s Adult High School, the nation’s only accredited high school exclusively serving people returning from incarceration. And I spent many years as the education organizer at the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) where I organized campaigns for greater investment in public education, worked toward improvement of schools serving Chicago’s Black students, and ran culturally relevant youth leadership programs in CPS schools.
Staunchly opposed to racist school closures, this work involved the campaign to save Dyett High School, which culminated in a 34-day hunger strike that led to Dyett being reopened as a community school with over $14 million in new investments! Out of that campaign, I helped envision the Sustainable Community School model now being implemented in communities across the country and helping to transform schools into places that invest in the holistic needs of their students and the communities they exist within.
Since 2013, I have served as National Director for the Journey for Justice Alliance of grassroots organizations in 40 cities organizing for community driven school improvement. My unique understanding of school communities, systemic failures, and vision will equip me to be both effective and accountable when elected.
What is the biggest issue facing your specific school board district?
Systemic inequity is at the heart of the problems facing Chicago Public Schools.
How has your district been impacted by the shuttering of CPS schools?
For years, Chicago Public Schools ignored inequity and then punished schools that were intentionally underserved by the district through punitive standardized testing, ineffective interventions and ultimately school closures. Now, these closures have negatively impacted the education and the lives of two generations of young people in District 5, and particularly the West Side of Chicago, which is among one of the areas in the city most impacted by school closures. While the charter industry has driven and profited, these closures have led to increases in community violence, worsening academic outcomes, and other forms of destabilization not only for students and their families but for communities at large.
How have your district’s schools been impacted by students who are new arrivals to the U.S. and how should CPS best accommodate those students and families?
The issue of new arrivals exposes the deep inequity that exists in CPS. Before the influx of new arrivals, Latine families had to fightfro aces to ESL services, smaller class sizes and culturally relevant curriculum to meet their children’s needs. So the entrance of new arrivals into CPS illuminates the urgency of a real commitment to equity, not just lip service.
By hiring more ESL instructors, committing to the sustainable community school model that allows school communities with partner with agencies that can address many of the social needs that families may have, and committing to a lower couselor-to-student ratio, we can better meet the needs of all our students.
How do you believe the school board should handle the looming fiscal crisis at Chicago Public Schools?
Additional resources from the state and the federal government are needed to address not only the immediate fiscal crisis but the decades of underfunding that have led to the under resourcing of and inequitable funding for our Chicago Public Schools.
We should be advocating for a prioritization of education funding from the state and federal government, identifying long-term, progressive streams of revenue that don’t burden the working class, and examining how TIF resources could be spent on school improvement instead of the enrichment of corrupt alderman and private developers.
A moratorium on closing CPS schools is set to expire in January. Should CPS consolidate more schools?
Having worked closely with the community members, students, parents and educators to play a role in keeping schools like Mollison, Jackie Robinson, Woodsen, Fuller, Reavis, Dyett, Doolittle schools open when they were slated for closure and having played a role through the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) in winning the moratorium on school closures, I have been firmly opposed to school closures. I have been so committed to stopping school closures – going so far as to have participated in the 2015 hunger strike that saved Dyett high school – because I know that any type of school closure is traumatic for the community it serves and that closures have had disastrous impact on numerous Black and Brown communities across the city.
We sometimes hear that schools are “underutilized,” but what I see are communities that have been underinvested in and set up for failure. The solution is to commit to small class sizes and invest in a sustainable community school model, which brings in community members to develop a vision for the school and therefore builds investment among the community to send their kids to the school. A sustainable community school approach also points to investment in “villages” of schools so that we are not just looking, for example, at a high school but at how to invest in all of its feeder schools so that there is a pipeline of quality schools. After years of disinvestment, when Dyett High School was slated for closure, there were 13 students. Once the community reenvisioned and fought to reopen Dyett as a sustainable community school, it had an incoming class of 150 and now is bustling and serves 600 students.
Only in the event that a school community (LSCs, Parent Advisory Councils, community based organizations) comes together and decides for themselves that school consolidation is what’s best for their community do I think we should consider closure or consolidation. What I see is a crisis of values and a backwards approach to priorities. Instead of closing more schools, we should be looking at how we best invest in schools so that they can live up to their purpose as thriving public community institutions that serve the communities they are in.
What is your position on closing selective enrollment schools?
I do not support the closing of selective enrollment schools. What I do support is greater and more equitable investment in neighborhood schools. Young people on the South and West sides or in more working class neighborhoods shouldn’t have to test and travel to go to a quality school with the resources that every school community actually deserves.
What is your position on charter schools?
School choice was a disaster as school policy. It took attention off the real issue, which is equity in public education. Instead, there is no such thing as school choice in Black and Brown communities. You can’t have choice if you don’t have equity. If neighborhood schools are starved, there is no choice of a great school your kid can walk to. We know that only 1 out of 5 charters outperform public schools. Yet, the profit-driven charter industry continues to suck resources away from a system of public education that should be able to provide every Chicago young people with the high quality education they deserve. I am not an anti-charter school ideologue, but I am against the industry that has played a role in destabilizing education in black communities.
Is your campaign being supported by the Chicago Teachers Union?
Yes
The Chicago Teachers Union wants the district to focus on retrofitting schools with equipment that will battle the effects of climate change. Is spending money that way right now a good idea with the massive deficit the district faces?
I support, and more importantly, I have organized in school communities that want to see our facilities and our young people equipped to tackle the challenges of climate change. In terms of retrofitting schools, first, I think its important that we look into the many ways we can start to make CPS facilities more energy efficient that will actually save the district money. Sealing and winterizing windows, taking a look at current insulation, and updating heat systems are ways to invest in less energy waste and lower costs for heating and cooling our schools.
There are also federal funds available for green and clean infrastructure projects through the IRA, which is an opportunity to take advantage of those funds to finance school improvement projects where needed and do them in a way that both helps mitigate the impacts of climate change and secures supplemental funding for those projects. This is one important way we can be making learning environments and facilities more comfortable for students and teachers in a way that actually mitigates cost.
What is your biggest priority and what do you hope to accomplish on the Chicago Board of Education?
As a School Board representative, my biggest priority will be achieving equity in public education. I will work toward establishing a more equitable school funding model and investing in neighborhood schools. For too long, structural racism in Chicago Public Schools has meant separate and unequal education along the lines of race and class.
Families have been shut out of decisions impacting students lives. Standardized testing has been weaponized against Black and Brown children. Neighborhood schools have been underfunded, neglected, and entirely shut down. Whole communities have suffered from this kind of sabotage.
The solution must be to transform CPS into an equitable district where every child and community has access to a quality neighborhood school walking distance from home. I will prioritize expanded the sustainable community school model, equitable funding for CPS, investing in quality schools in every neighborhood, increasing and retaining Black teachers, culturally relevant curriculum, and limited racist and punitive standardized testing.