Education

Chicago School Board President Candidates Talk Budgets, Closures and Why This Election Matters in WTTW Forum

With Election Day less than two months away, the four candidates running to become Chicago’s first-ever elected school board president faced off Tuesday to discuss finances, student achievement and their vision for the future of education as part of a special town hall forum hosted by WTTW News.

Current board member Jessica Biggs, former Chicago Teachers Union political director Hilario Dominguez, ex-board vice president Sendhil Revuluri and trial attorney Victor Henderson are the four candidates seeking to become the next board president.

They appeared for the hourlong forum at WTTW Studios to take questions from “Chicago Tonight” anchor Brandis Friedman, as well as Chicago Public Schools students and voters who will have a say in the November election.

Whoever wins will be tasked with leading a board that must help secure $150 million in funding this year, stabilize the finances of a school district facing budget shortfalls that could grow near $1 billion and ensure Chicago’s students are learning and achieving at the appropriate levels.

CPS is counting on another $285 million in TIF funding under its 2027 budget, along with $150 million in additional not-yet-approved state funding. That’s because the current board successfully pushed for an amendment to add in the extra state funding in hopes it would allow the district to stave off layoffs in the district’s proposed spending plan.

That extra funding has not yet been secured, and if it fails to materialize, CPS has said it will likely need to enact mid-year cuts and layoffs.

Approaching the Budget 

Biggs, a former CPS teacher and principal, is the lone current board member running. She’s earned the support of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and SEIU Local 73, which represents around 15,000 CPS school support employees.

She opposed that last-minute budget amendment and said CPS is currently facing an “exceptionally challenging financial moment.” Biggs on Tuesday pushed for what she called a “five-year financial recovery plan” to ensure the district is moving as many resources as possible into its classrooms.

“In this moment that we’re in as Chicago Public Schools, I think one of the most important responsibilities of the board president is really to stabilize and provide direction for the district,” Biggs said. “We simply cannot budget with money that we don’t have.”

Dominguez has worked as a special education teacher and has the backing of the powerful CTU, which called him a “leader” in its historic 2019 strike. He said he’s the only candidate who actually attended CPS as a student and called on the board president to be “transparent and accountable to the people that elected us.”

“The money is there,” Dominguez said. “I believe the job of a school board president isn’t to predict that Springfield will say no. I believe the job of a school board president is to fight and make sure that Springfield will say yes.”

Revuluri was appointed to the board in 2019 by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot and faced a tumultuous period of turnover — CPS employed three permanent or interim CEOs during his tenure — and the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced school closures and remote learning.

He said Tuesday the current board needs to better understand what’s most important to Chicagoans and “set very clear expectations.”

“We have to go back, start with what our students need and not be bound by interest groups or familiar territory or what we’ve always done,” he said of fixing the district’s budgetary woes.

Henderson has portrayed himself as an outsider in this race. He serves on the board for the Urban Prep Academies charter schools. He’s said the single most important thing the board and CPS as a whole must focus on is educating children properly.

“It’s about the students,” Henderson said, “and we have to make sure that each and every day and each and every decision is focused on providing the students with the best education possible. Everything else is noise.”

Henderson criticized the “chaos” that surrounded the board’s latest budgetary cycle and said the president must do a better job of taking public accountability for the board’s decisions.

A New Board

November’s election features not only the board president race, but for the first time in Chicago’s history, all 21 seats will be up for grabs.

The current board is composed of 11 mayoral appointees and 10 elected representatives, selected two years ago in the 2024 election. That board approves the annual CPS budget and policies, sets the annual academic calendar and hires and evaluates the district’s CEO.

But the president holds significant power, as they’re the one who sets the board agenda and decides which items get voted on at each meeting. They also establish the public participation guidelines for board meetings, swear in new members and work with the CPS CEO to craft the district’s response to new legislation.

The candidates on Tuesday also spoke on the major tasks and responsibilities a board president must handle, the relationship between the board and CPS leadership and the potential of future school closures.

A current moratorium on closures in Chicago expires next year and the district has seen its enrollment decline by around 45,000 students since 2019. This week, WGN reported that 13 CPS high schools are 80% empty.

Dominguez has been staunchly opposed to any closures, saying CPS should be a district that “adds value” to school communities instead of “cutting and consolidating, especially schools that are predominantly Black and Brown.”

“Imagine a world where our schools can serve both the needs of the community and our students,” Dominguez said Tuesday. “That’s why we don’t close schools, but instead we invest in them.”

Others offered differing views.

Henderson said he was neither in favor nor opposed to the idea of school closures, but said instead that the district and board should speak with community members to hear what they think is the best course of action.

Similarly, Biggs opposed the “top down, mass closure” carried out in 2013 when CPS and the city shut down 50 schools, but said there needs to be “deep conversations” with communities, and it’s the board ‘s job to support the “desires and the needs communities express.”

Revuluri said he believes there’s currently “too many schools that are too empty to give kids a quality educational experience.”

“It’s not about politics, it’s not about budgets,” Revuluri said. “It’s about giving our students a quality educational experience.”

Henderson on Tuesday addressed years-old allegations that he physically abused his children, which surfaced in court documents last month. He previously said there was “no criminal charges, no arrests, and no findings by any court establishing those allegations as fact” and on Tuesday claimed those allegations were brought forth by one of his fellow candidates in an effort to “drag me through the mud.”

Biggs was also asked Tuesday to address her successful appeal of a “do-not-hire” designation that CPS placed on her after she was fired as principal of Edmund Burke Elementary in 2018 amid allegations that she’d altered attendance data and didn’t collect student transportation paperwork properly.

Biggs on Tuesday said she stands by her record as principal and that her firing came at a time when she was speaking out about the denial of services for students with disabilities.

While the board races are part of a historic election in Chicago, candidates Tuesday were asked why families and voters with no direct ties to CPS should care who wins.

Biggs called the election a “historic and critical moment” for Chicago, one that will show how families and students can be better represented.

Dominguez pointed to the decadeslong fight for an elected school board, and said that for the first time ever, residents will get a direct say in deciding CPS leadership.

Henderson said it’s about giving Chicago’s children the education they deserve so their families and communities can thrive.

Revuluri said effective public schools are important far beyond the classroom — for public safety, for economic development and for population growth.

“That’s why every Chicagoan should be engaged in this election,” Revuluri said. “Because effective public schools matter to every one of us and our future.”

Election Day is Nov. 3.

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