Chicago School Board Election 2024: Here’s Everything You Need to Know
For the first time, Chicago voters will partially elect its school board. Read about the candidates in your district.
BY STAFF AT CHALKBEAT AND BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. All stories were also published in partnership with Block Club Chicago.
Chicagoans will vote for school board members for the first time in November.
Starting Jan. 15, Chicago’s Board of Education will go from seven members appointed by the mayor to a twenty-onemember board with ten elected members and eleven appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. This will be the first step toward transitioning to a fully elected board by 2027.
Chicago is divided into ten districts for the 2024 election. Each district has roughly 275,000 residents.
Do you know which district you’re in? Check it out on this interactive map at: projects.chalkbeat.org/2024/ interactive-map-chicago-school-boarddistricts/. (Note: Enable location services in your settings).
On Nov. 5, residents of each district will elect a school board member to represent them for two years. The mayor also will appoint one representative from each district as well as the school board president for two-year terms.
School board members are responsible for overseeing Chicago Public Schools and its more than $9 billion budget. They review and approve the district’s annual and capital spending plans, hire and evaluate the CEO, establish and review CPS policies, approve contracts and school year calendars, and much more.
Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago partnered to introduce you to the candidates running in your district and why they want a spot on the school board.
Additionally, you can read questionnaires from each candidate (chicago.suntimes.com/candidatequestionnaires) produced by Chalkbeat, the Chicago Sun-Times, and WBEZ on a range of topics, including their background in public schools, their top priorities if they are elected, and their stances on selective enrollment schools and standardized testing.
The election is Tuesday, Nov. 5. You can register to vote now through Election Day. Early voting begins downtown Thursday, Oct. 3 and in all fifty wards on
Monday, Oct. 21. You can also sign up to Vote By Mail and ballots are expected to be mailed starting Thursday, Sept. 26.
The candidate who gets the most votes will win the district.
DISTRICT 6
By Samantha Smylie, Chalkbeat Chicago
A former Chicago Public School principal, a teacher-turned-policy advocate, an Englewood mother who runs a nonprofit on the South Side, and a finance manager are all vying for a seat on Chicago’s elected school board in District 6.
The four candidates in this district will have to get their message out to
families from different socioeconomic backgrounds and race and ethnic groups and schools with varying levels of need.
District 6 candidates have collectively raised more than $60,000, according to campaign filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
With a population of over 275,000, District 6 includes wealthier and majority white neighborhoods such as Streeterville and River North and working-class neighborhoods such as Bronzeville, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Englewood, and Greater Grand Crossing. While the district’s population is majority white, the majority of the 21,000 Chicago Public Schools students attending schools in the district are Black.
About 70 percent of students in the district’s fifty-two schools come from low-income families and 15% of students have Individualized Education Programs. Most students are enrolled in neighborhood schools, a smaller number of students attend charter, magnet, and selective enrollment schools. Three schools—Walter Payton High School, Skinner North, and Franklin Elementary Schools—are ranked “Exemplary” and in the top 10 percent of schools for academic performance, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. Payton and Skinner North are both selective and require an admissions test, while Franklin is a magnet that admits students via lottery. Six schools spread across the district are designated as needing “Intensive Support” by the state board, meaning that these schools are in the bottom 5 percent of the state for academic performance.
District 6 collage: Clockwise from top left, Jessica Biggs, Andre Smith, Anusha Thotakura and Danielle J. Wallace are candidates to represent District 6 on the Chicago Board of Education. Collage by Becky Vevea / Chalkbeat | Photos by Colin Boyle / Block Club
Who is Jessica Biggs?
Biggs is new to politics, but she isn’t a novice when it comes to education. Biggs’ parents were educators, her brother is a special education teacher, and she was a classroom teacher and principal.
Biggs was a principal at Burke Elementary School, a school on the city’s South side in Washington Park, for six years before being fired. Biggs was fired for directing staff members to mark students tardy when they would have been marked as absent for half a day and to transport students from their homes to school without any paperwork, according to a report by WBEZ Chicago in 2018, Biggs believes she was fired in retaliation for speaking out against the lack of cleanliness at schools after Aramark—a company that Chicago Public Schools contracted for janitorial services until this year—failed an inspection that found almost one hundred schools, including Burke, were not clean in 2018, as reported by the Chicago SunTimes.
Biggs said the end of her time as a school leader does not speak to all the work that she and her school’s community did to improve academic outcomes for students at Burke.
If elected, Biggs said her priorities as school board member would be to work with state lawmakers and the governor’s office to fully fund the evidence-based funding formula for Chicago Public Schools students, retain staff and filling vacant positions in schools, ensure that families have access to high-quality neighborhood schools, and create a clear process for families who choose magnet and selective enrollment schools.
Biggs has received endorsements from local lawmakers, including 20th Ward Ald. Jeanette Taylor, a key player in the Dyett High School hunger strike that kept the school open and garnered national news attention, and Cook County Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle.
Biggs has raised over $10,000 in donations as of mid September, according to campaign filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Who is Andre Smith?
Before running for school board, Smith ran for 20th Ward alderman several times, the Illinois House of Representatives in the 5th District, and Cook County Board of Commissioners in the 2nd district.
Now, in his bid to represent District 6 on Chicago’s school board, Smith says he will bring expertise from his time as a finance manager that will help close the budget gaps Chicago Public Schools is currently facing.
Smith said his other areas of expertise include working on issues related to public safety. He founded Chicago Against Violence, an anti-violence organization, because he is passionate about ensuring safety around schools and in communities. Smith said he was part of the push to get a trauma center at the University of Chicago. The Trauma Care Coalition, a group of several community organizations, campaigned for a trauma center in response to the death of Damian Turner in 2010 who was shot near the hospital but was taken to Northwestern Memorial’s trauma center on the city’s north side and later died.
Smith said his top three priorities on the board would be increased transparency so communities can understand the district’s budget, school funding, and public safety, which includes transportation to get students to and from school safely. Before Smith makes plans for the district’s budget and funding local schools, he said he would like to have an audit to see where funding is going.
The city’s Board of Elections approved Smith’s spot on the ballot in late August after he faced several challenges. So far in the race, he has raised about $5,000 as of July 1, according to campaign finance records from the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Who is Anusha Thotakura?
Thotakura, who grew up going to schools in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, said she was lucky to have a good public school education. Now she wants every Chicago student to have the same opportunity.
As a middle school math teacher
at a bilingual public school in San Jose, California through Teach for America, Thotakura saw firsthand how the lack of resources impacted her students inside the classroom and in their communities. In her two years at the school, she saw large class sizes, a lack of social workers and nurses, outdated facilities, and the lack of special education services. At the same time, her students struggled with homelessness, food insecurity, trauma at home, and violence in their community.
Thotakura is currently the director at Citizen Action/Illinois, a progressive policy organization that advocates for local, state, and federal policy, and volunteers as a debate coach with Chicago Debates at Columbia Explorers Academy in Brighton Park.
As a board member, she said her top three priorities would be to invest in early childhood education to help prevent opportunity gaps, provide funding for after-school programs to keep students engaged in school and decrease chronic absenteeism, and school safety and wellness, which would include supporting students with trauma they experience outside of school and updating school facilities.
Thotakura has been endorsed by state lawmakers and local organizations, including state Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board bill that passed in 2021, and the Chicago Teachers Union Local 1.
Thotakura has raised more than $45,000 since launching her campaign. Of that, roughly $20,000 has come from the CTU’s political action committee, mostly to pay for campaign staff, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state’s Board of Elections.
Who is Danielle J. Wallace?
Wallace is the only candidate in District 6 running as a write-in candidate. She was knocked off the ballot early in the election season after signatures on her petitions were challenged.
Wallace has experience in Chicago Public Schools as a student, staff member, and parent. As a student, she didn’t have a straightforward path in school. When she was attending Simeon Career Academy
on the city’s south side, she dropped out of high school before graduating because she was pregnant. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of support for pregnant students who wanted to continue their education. She opted to get a GED certificate.
She went on to work in the district as a clerk, school security officer, and third grade teacher at a charter school. Wallace doesn’t work as a teacher any more, but she is the founder and executive director of Kingdom Avenue Inc., a nonprofit organization that puts on events and programs for young people in Englewood.
If she is elected, Wallace said she would want to focus on community partnerships, improving student outcomes, and using restorative practices in schools instead of punitive discipline such as suspensions and expulsions.
A quarterly finance report from Wallace’s campaign filed with the state Board of Elections shows that Wallace raised $375 between April 1 and June 30 and had about $18 cash on hand as of July 1.
DISTRICT 7
By
Francia Garcia Hernandez, Chalkbeat Chicago
A CPS parent, a private school parent, and a state government worker are vying to represent families in District 7 on Chicago’s Southwest Side in the city’s first school board elections in November.
Raquel Don, Yesenia Lopez, and Eva A. Villalobos are on the ballot to represent the sprawling district, which includes seventy-nine schools with 42,471 students—the largest enrollment of any school board district.
District 7 includes Pilsen, Little Village, Brighton Park, Gage Park, and the Near West Side. The district also spans portions of Bridgeport, Chinatown, McKinley Park, and Archer Heights.
District 7 mostly serves Hispanic students who make up 65 percent of the student body in the district, followed by Asian American students at roughly 14 percent. Almost 13 percent of students are white and only a small proportion of students are Black at roughly 7 percent.
The district also has the largest proportion of students receiving free and
reduced lunches at 81 percent and the second largest proportion of bilingual students in the city at nearly 44 percent.
Seven schools are deemed “Exemplary” by the Illinois State Board of Education, meaning they rank in
the top 10 percent of schools across the state. Two are magnet schools. There are three high schools identified as needing “Intensive Support,” meaning they are among the lowest performing 5 percent of schools in the state.
Don and Villalobos are both former accountants, while Lopez works for the Illinois Secretary of State. All attended Southwest Side schools growing up.
The trio cite varying priorities for District 7 if they are elected to the school board and have different perspectives on neighborhood schools and school choice.
Who is Raquel Don?
Don, forty-nine, is a CPS parent, former accountant, and Local School Council member for Jones College Prep High School, where she has served since 2014. She is also a board member for parentrun nonprofit Friends of Jones and was also an LSC member for James Ward Elementary School in Armour Square.
Don was not available for an interview by press time.
“I want to continue the work that I have been doing for over twenty years, advocating for all students’ educational needs, the critical needs of their academic facility, and their safety in general,” she said in a Chalkbeat questionnaire.
Don, originally from Chicago, lives in Armour Square with her children and husband Donald Don, who ran for alderman of the 11th Ward last year. She graduated from the now-closed Lourdes High School in Bridgeport.
Don’s top three priorities are improving achievement, improving school buildings and school safety, which she considers the most important priorities for families when selecting a school for their children.
She supports having police officers in schools, allowing school communities to determine what is best for their buildings.
Don does not support shifting away from selective enrollment, magnet and
From left: Raquel Don, Yesenia Lopez, and Eva A. Villalobos are on the ballot for District 7 of the Chicago Board of Education. Collage by Becky Vevea / Chalkbeat Photos by Colin Boyle / Block Club, Submitted)
charter schools. School choices should not be removed without first presenting families with a better option, she said.
When it comes to CPS’ budget, she does not support annually raising the tax levy to fund school operations. The existing budget needs to be analyzed and distribution among schools needs to be reassessed, she said. Drawing from her experience as an LSC member, she has seen “how the budget causes chaos in schools when prioritizing their needs.”
Don’s campaign was self-funded as of Sept. 22. According to campaign finance filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections, she loaned her campaign $2828 on Sept. 3.
Who is Yesenia Lopez?
Lopez, thirty-five, is an executive assistant for the Illinois Secretary of State and served as the Latino outreach director for Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s campaign. She is a graduate from DePaul University, where she studied political science and gender studies. She has served in several state and federal campaigns, including State Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who endorsed her run for Chicago’s Board of Education.
Lopez lives in Gage Park, where she also grew up. In her early years, she also lived in Pilsen. She attended Pickard Elementary School and graduated from Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen. Lopez does not have any kids.
“I am running for the historic position to empower our students, families, and community members who have long been underrepresented in educational decisions,” she said.
Lopez has no experience as a local school council member, but she has attended meetings at schools where she is involved through her work with other organizations, she said. She is on the board of the nonprofit group Telpochcalli Community Education Project, which works to support Little Village’s elementary Telpochcalli School. She is also board secretary for the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation.
Her top three priorities are supporting neighborhood schools, improving special education, and improving bilingual education, she said.
Lopez considers bolstering dual language programs is key not only for the Hispanic and Asian American population in the district, but to “make Chicago a competitor in the globalized world,” she said. Dual language programs are essential for new arrivals and longtime families in the district, as well for all students who will join an “international and more competitive” workforce after graduating, she said.
When it comes to CPS’ budget, Lopez advocates for “working with budget and financial experts and community stakeholders to explore diverse funding solutions.” Funding should consider the needs of schools and the “economic realities” of communities, she said.
Schools should serve as “community hubs” where families and students can receive the education and services they need, including ESL and GED programs for adults, immigration assistance and other social services, she said.
“Oftentimes families in our communities, especially on the Southwest Side also need support,” she said.
The district’s new funding formula is “a step in the right direction,” yet CPS needs to continue finding local, state and federal sources of revenue to “fully invest” in neighborhood schools, she said.
Lopez supports prioritizing neighborhood schools, which are in “desperate need of revitalization.”
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the need for counselors, therapists, social workers, nurses, and family support services in schools, she said. Funding could also be used to improve special education programs, as teachers do not always have the resources and training to support students with special needs, she said.
“Our policy cannot be to abandon and forget them,” she said.
Prioritizing neighborhood schools is “not a decision to end the diversity of educational options,” she said. Closing charter schools is not one of her proposals, yet she intends to uplift neighborhood schools and ensure charters and neighborhood schools are held “to the same standard and accountability,” she said.
She is the only candidate in the
district endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union. The union supports candidates subscribing to its platform which includes “ending privatization and unionizing all school staff,” according to its website. Other priority areas for Lopez, aligned with the union’s platform, include transforming schools into sustainable community centers and addressing community needs that disrupt education.
Lopez has no cash on hand and did not receive any contributions from CTU or other donors as of June 30, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections data.
Who is Eva A. Villalobos?
Villalobos is a former accountant and private school parent of four girls. She turned to private schools when she could not find the mental health and academic support her family needed, especially for her two adopted daughters, she said. That experience led her to run for the Board of Education.
“Regardless of whether it’s a traditional public school or charter schools, students are students, and we shouldn’t be treating them any [differently],” she said.
Villalobos lives in Brighton Park with her family. She grew up in Back of the Yards and Gage Park. She attended multiple CPS schools in these neighborhoods along with her six siblings, including John M. Hamline Elementary in Back of the Yards, Armour Elementary School, and McLellan Elementary School in Bridgeport, and Englewood’s Hope College Prep in Englewood, before graduating from Curie High School.
Her top three priorities are equitable school funding, improving mental health, and improving special education, she said.
Drawing from her financial background, she proposes prioritizing a full and thorough audit of the budget before considering any increases to taxpayers.
“At a time where our schools are facing declining enrollment and underperformance, we need to take an indepth look at how the budget is currently balanced,” she said.
Villalobos has been a vocal supporter of school choice, having used the Invest in Kids tax-credit scholarship program to send her children to private school. The credit for her oldest child allowed her to nearly halve the tuition for her kids’ Southwest Side Catholic school, she told Chalkbeat last year. Illinois let the scholarship program lapse at the end of 2023 and Villalobos said at the time it would likely force her to take her kids out of private school.
She is a strong supporter of parents’ voice in education and feels there is a “divisive narrative” when it comes to pondering neighborhood schools versus charter, magnet, and selective enrollment schools.
Families select schools based on their “needs and options,” and charter, magnet, and selective enrollment schools are very much part of the community, she said.
“One of the reasons why I’m saying we do need to listen more to our parents is they’re the ones who are facing all these headaches and trying to break down all these barriers to get the help for the kids,” she said.
Villalobos supports letting schools decide whether police officers should be in schools and providing them with the “autonomy and information” to decide how to make the school environment safe, she said.
Villalobos’ campaign had about $4,600 dollars in cash as of June 30, according to Illinois State Board of Elections filings. Her campaign received $2,500 in contributions from the Urban Center PAC, led by former CPS CEO and mayoral candidate Paul Vallas. The group supports candidates and organizations “leading a common sense community agenda.”
DISTRICT 8
By Crystal Paul, Chalkbeat Chicago
District 8, on the south west side of the city, covering parts of the South Loop, McKinley Park, and Back of the Yards, has two candidates on the ballot: Garfield Ridge resident and public service consultant Angel Gutierrez and McKinley Park resident and music educator and music education advocate
Felix Ponce.
The candidates have taken very different approaches to their campaign, with Gutierrez touting his executive level experience in policy, management, and budgeting for large organizations, while Ponce has highlighted his years as a teacher on the ground inside Chicago Public Schools.
The district they’re hoping to represent on the elected school board has 65 CPS schools serving 38,165 students. About 60 percent of residents in the district are Latino, while Latino students make up 72 percent of CPS students in the district.
Some of the issues at play in District 8 are the same as those that Latino students face citywide. In the 2023-24 school year, Latino students made up 50 percent of CPS students with IEPs. Latino students also received the second most in- and out- of school suspensions in CPS schools.
Three schools in District 8 are considered among the top 10 percent in the state and deemed “Exemplary” and three others are considered in the lowest 5 percent and targeted by the Illinois State Board of Education for “Intensive Support.”
Additionally, District 8 has seen many migrant families moving into the area with students in need of bilingual education and support services, resources that are not keeping up with the influx of migrant students.
Who is Angel Gutierrez?
After Gutierrez learned that property taxes for his home in Garfield Ridge would be going up by a significant amount, he decided to look into where those taxes were going.
He found that much of the increase in property taxes this past year was due to Chicago Public Schools raising its tax levy by $130.7 million, the maximum allowed under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, which limits increases to 5 percent.
That’s when he decided to run for school board.
With a master’s degree in public administration from Roosevelt University
and 25 years of experience managing the budgets for large nonprofits—including Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Chicago Hope Academy High School—Guitierrez believes he can help CPS create a more balanced budget.
“This job is a thousand feet above sea level. It’s not about making decisions at Kennedy High School or DuSable. It is big picture, high-stakes,” he said. “This is about making executive decisions on behalf of your constituents and also the taxpayer.”
Decisions about things like school resource officers, he said, should be left to Local School Councils (LSCs).
On the board, Gutierrez said he would use tactics he learned serving on the community council for the redesign of Manual High School, a low-performing high school in Denver in 2006.
“Let’s create a Blue Ribbon Committee with teachers, students, parents, community, business. Let’s figure out - Where do we need to be in three years? Five years? How do we approach those things? How do we create more options?”
If elected, Gutierrez said he would prioritize school safety and increasing school choice options in District 8, which he notes has no trade, arts, or career pathway schools.
Gutierrez’s campaign had raised
more than $25,000 as of Sept. 20, of which $12,500 came from a personal loan. He received $6,900 from Jim Frank, former CEO of Wheels, Inc. and longtime political donor who also supports the political arm of the education nonprofit Stand for Children.
Who is Felix Ponce?
Ponce, a music teacher and band director at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, wants to bring a “music perspective” to the table.
Previously, as the director of bands at Back of the Yard College College Prep High School, Ponce built the school’s founding music program, creating a band class, a drumline, a mariachi program, a jazz band, and a colorguard.
“My whole life has been creating music programs,” he said.
Over the past seven years, he has also worked to start and support programs at schools in other parts of the city and has supported students district-wide as the band director for CPS’s All-City Performing Arts Program.
These experiences have shown him how important enrichment programming can be. Sports, arts, and extracurriculars, he said, can help with everything from academic achievement and attendance to mental health and discipline.
Although music is his passion, Ponce says he’s not a one-issue candidate. Working in CPS, he’s seen the effects of staffing shortages and lack of mental health services and support staff.
“A lot of policies [from the Board of Education] were birthed out of great ideas, but they were missing some of that human element, because they were looking at the system as numbers and not necessarily [as] a community,” he said.
Ponce said aims to bring an on-theground, in-the-community element to what he hopes is a board with a diversity of perspectives.
If elected, he plans to prioritize funding for arts and sports programs, adequate support staff for every school, and hiring teachers of color.
Ponce is one of eleven candidates endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union. Ponce has also been endorsed by 12th Ward Ald. Julia Ramirez, whose ward is partially covered by District 8.
As of Sept. 22, Ponce’s campaign had brought in about $40,000 dollars, according to campaign finance reports. Of that, at least $35,000 came from the political fund of the Chicago Teachers Union to pay for field staff and other campaign support.
DISTRICT 9
By Crystal Paul, Chalkbeat Chicago
District 9, which extends from Morgan Park to Englewood, including parts of Roseland, Pullman, Beverly, and AuburnGresham, has ninety-five CPS schools serving 34,128 students.
The district is predominantly Black, with 76 percent of residents identifying as Black, and CPS enrollment reflects that, with 81.6 percent of CPS students in the area identifying as Black.
All across Chicago, Black students face lower graduation rates and higher drop-out rates and suspensions than any other racial group. Data also shows that more Black students travel over six miles to school than any other racial group, an issue exacerbated by the lack of general busing for CPS.
Enrollment numbers for other racial groups in the district largely reflect the demographics of residents in the area.
Angel Gutierrez and Felix Ponce are vying to represent District 8 on the Chicago Board of Education Collage by Becky Vevea / Chalkbeat | Photos by Colin Boyle / Block Club, Crystal Paul for Chalkbeat
However, while 13.4 percent of residents in District 9 are white, just 6 percent of CPS students enrolled in the district are white.
Of the area’s ninety-five schools, three are ranked as “Exemplary” schools by the state, meaning they are among the top 10 percent of schools in the state. All three schools are located in the 19th ward, where some of the highest-earning families in the district live. Four schools are ranked as “Intensive,” or among the lowest 5 percent of schools in the state.
Candidates have noted that residents’ concerns in the district vary widely across the neighborhoods—from busing to school choice to staff retention.
Four candidates are running for the District 9 seat: Therese Boyle, a thirty-five-year CPS veteran and Mount Greenwood resident; Miquel Lewis, a Beverly resident and acting director and chief probation officer for Cook County Juvenile Probation; Lanetta Thomas, a U.S. Army veteran and community organizer in Roseland; and La’Mont Raymond Williams, Auburn-Gresham resident and chief of staff and general counsel to a Cook County commissioner.
Who is Therese Boyle?
When talking about the schools she worked in over her thirty-five years as a school psychologist and teacher, Therese Boyle points to nearly every area of the large District 9 map she has hanging on her living room wall in her Mount Greenwood home.
Now retired, she sees the District 9 school board position as a chance to use her open schedule and her extensive experience in CPS to “help the kids, to help the teachers, help the school communities.”
“Thirty-five years is a long time, and I saw CPS go through a lot of different leaders, a lot of different, you know, curriculums that came and went,” she said. “I am retired. I can contribute my whole time to this.”
In her experience particularly in South Side schools, Boyle says the primary concerns vary by neighborhood. In the northeast side of the district, in places like Englewood, for example, she
says she’d want to focus on attracting and keeping teachers.
In 19th ward neighborhoods such as Beverly and Mt. Greenwood, she said, constituents seem particularly concerned about busing and equitable funding for both neighborhood schools and selective enrollment schools.
With a bachelor’s in finance and a minor in economics from Illinois State University as well as professional experience serving on the board of the United Credit Union and working at banks, Boyle says she is well-prepared for the financial aspects of the job as well.
“I would be a good steward of the Board’s resources and keep them as close to the classroom as possible,” she said.
If elected, Boyle said she would investigate her constituents’ main concerns as well as prioritizing issues such as improving student achievement, improving mental health, and balancing the CPS budget.
As of Aug. 21, Boyle’s campaign has been primarily self-funded, with her own contributions amounting to more than $20,000, according to campaign finance reports.
Who is Miquel Lewis?
As acting director/chief probation officer
for Cook County Juvenile Probation & Court Services, Miquel Lewis works with some of the most marginalized youth in the county.
“I know the transformative power of education and because education is their legal right,” he said. “I want to ensure that all children, including children who are on the margins, have an opportunity to live a quality life, and I know that begins with education.”
Lewis served on the board when former Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed him in March 2023. When Mayor Brandon Johnson was inaugurated in May, he did not renew Lewis’ appointment.
Lewis was one of the first graduates of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences in Mount Greenwood after it opened in 1985. During a baseball team practice, he said, a mob of white residents upset about the school’s integrated student body charged the field with garden tools and bats, and a truck swerved around the field threatening to hit the players, until they were stopped by a police officer.
To get home later, he had to wait at the city bus stop where angry residents hurled racist insults, he said.
The event stuck with him. It’s part of why he believes diversity and inclusion is essential and that education can change
minds. It’s also why issues like busing and school safety top his priority list.
“I don’t see how students can focus on their academic performance if they feel threatened in the academic environment,” he said.
Lewis is the only candidate who has already served on Chicago’s Board of Education. He was appointed in March 2023 and remained on the board for a short time before Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed new members in July 2023. In his time on the board last year, Lewis said, he gained valuable insights into the CPS board budget.
The district “is underfunded relative to other districts across the state,” he said. “That’s an issue that the board, with the CEO, with the City Council, have to champion. There has to be a moment of reckoning between the state’s allocation of resources to school districts and what they allocate to Chicago Public Schools district.”
As of Sept. 22, Lewis’s campaign had raised $24,300, according to state campaign finance records. He received $6,900 from Jim Frank, former CEO of Wheels, Inc. and longtime political donor who also supports the political arm of the education nonprofit Stand for Children. Lewis also received a $1,000 donation from the CEO of Perspectives Charter School network, Deborah Stevens.
Who is Lanetta M. Thomas?
When Lanetta Thomas wants to know what changes are needed in CPS, she goes to the students first. That’s what she did when she was a student at Percy Julian High School in Washington Heights advocating against school closures. It’s what she does now as the mother of several CPS students and as a student herself at Chicago State University and Governors State University where she is earning bachelor’s degrees in political science, global studies, Spanish, French, and public relations.
In fact, that is how she first became a community organizer for SOUL (Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation). She was speaking at a town hall about changes needed at her university when she met Tanya Watkins,
Therese Boyle, Lanetta M. Thomas, La’Mont Raymond Williams and Miquel Lewis are running for the Chicago Board of Education seat representing District 9. Collage by Becky Vevea / Chalkbeat |Photos by Colin Boyle / Block Club, Submitted
the executive director of SOUL.
When the elected school board was announced, she said, several people immediately looked to her because of her advocacy for students.
“Your sponsors and your stakeholders are you children,” she said. “We see stuff that we don’t like in our school that no one listens to us about. We are in the classroom. We know the teachers.”
She started by interviewing her own sixteen-year-old daughter Makayla.
Thomas’ priorities, she said, will be advocating for funding and greater support for students with disabilities, pushing for music and arts education and vocational training as part of school curriculum, which she believes will also improve school safety, and ensuring every school has social services and support staff.
Some of these issues, Thomas said, can be addressed by partnering with community groups that provide the services that CPS is looking for, such as literacy and STEM tutoring programs to improve academic performance, or arts and music education programs for enrichment, and even social services.
As of Sept. 22, Thomas’ campaign has received more than $10,000 in individual and organizational contributions. The political arm of the Chicago Teachers Union provided $4,300 to pay for campaign staff. Thomas also loaned her campaign $2,500.
Who is La’Mont Raymond Williams?
Growing up in Auburn-Gresham and Ashburn in the 1990s and 2000s, Williams attended some of the best schools in CPS—Clissold Elementary, Ogden Elementary, and Lincoln Park High School—thanks to the lottery system. His younger brother, on the other hand, was not as lucky.
The differences in the quality of the two brothers’ education is at the heart of why Williams is running for the District 9 school board position.
“His quality of education was drastically different than mine,” said Williams. “Those high school years are formative. My little brother did not get the same opportunity as I did and that
disparity still remains, which is one of the top issues we hear parents talk about.”
The school board, he said, is an opportunity for the community to have a voice in how funds and resources are allocated to help eliminate those disparities.
Williams is no stranger to politics, the campaign trail, or handling big budgets. In 2022, Williams ran against Willie Preston in the Democratic primary for the Illinois State Senate District 16 seat nomination and lost with 45 percent of the vote.
As the chief of staff and general counsel to Cook County Commissioner Bill Lowry, Williams not only has experience drafting and helping to pass legislation but also consults on the county budget, skills he says are needed as the school board tackles CPS’ deficit projection of $505 million.
Williams says the decisions he makes on issues such as school resource officers and school choice will be based on input from constituents and facts and data, not personal opinion.
“I want people to know that if I cast a vote for anything I thought through it, I spoke to my constituents, and I made the decision that I thought was the best decision to make based on that input,” he said.
DISTRICT 10
By Mila Koumpilova, Chalkbeat Chicago
Chicago’s District 10 is one of the city’s largest and most socioeconomically diverse, covering a South Side lakeshore swath stretching from Bronzeville down to South Chicago and the state line between Illinois and Indiana.
The district’s four candidates— Pastor Robert Jones, nonprofit CEO Karin Norington-Reaves, educational consultant Adam Parrott-Sheffer, and artist Che “Rhymefest” Smith—say they want to fix disparities among the roughly 90 Chicago Public Schools-run and charter campuses in the district, which contains both coveted specialized programs and schools that have struggled with shrinking enrollment, safety, and other challenges. A districtwide push to revitalize neighborhood schools resonates
in the district.
Almost 80 percent of the district’s more than 34,700 students are lowincome—the second-highest poverty rate among all school board districts. It has among the lowest English learner rates citywide, but has seen a recent influx of migrant students, with schools sometimes struggling to provide bilingual services.
Two District 10 campuses—both selective elementary schools—are in the top 10 percent of schools across the state in terms of academic performance. There are five schools — two high schools and three elementary schools—in the bottom 5 percent and deemed in need of “Intensive Support,” according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
As the home of former President Barack Obama, former U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan, and other policymakers, the district is also known as an epicenter of the city’s political elite and a cradle of activism.
As Parrott-Sheffer put it, “We have that proud independent streak here. We are a place with an informed and active electorate.”
Challenges forced several District 10 candidates off the ballot while two candidates, Jones and Smith, agreed to drop challenges their backers had filed against each other. The district has seen
one of the largest campaign contribution hauls so far; the more than $200,000 total includes loans and donations from Smith, his partner, and his music studio to his campaign.
Who is Robert Jones?
Jones, a pastor at Bronzeville’s Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, says serving on the school board—a time-consuming volunteer role—takes sacrifice. And as someone who went on a thirty-four-day hunger strike to keep Dyett High School open in 2015, he says he has proven he is up for it.
Jones, an elected school board advocate and father of four, is the district’s Chicago Teachers Unionendorsed candidate. A native of East St. Louis, Illinois., he has also served as a community representative on Dunbar High School’s local school council. He calls the spur-of-the-moment decision to join the hunger strike some credit with saving Dyett a “spiritual moment,” fueled by his outrage at the closure of about fifty South and West Side schools by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“Education has always been near and dear to my heart, especially being in a position to make a difference,” he said.
The board must continue to wrestle
Clockwise from top left, Robert Jones, Karin Norington-Reaves, Adam Parrott-Sheffer, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith are on the ballot for District 10 of the Chicago Board of Education. Collage by Becky Vevea / Chalkbeat Photos by Colin Boyle / Block Club
with lingering disparities in the student experience in different parts of the city, he said; even Bronzeville itself represents “a tale of two districts.”
Jones is a proponent of Sustainable Community Schools, a district partnership with the CTU in which schools get extra funding to team up with local nonprofits and provide added afterschool programs, family engagement, and other services. He sees that program, which Mayor Brandon Johnson has vowed to expand, as key to reviving some of the district’s shrinking campuses.
“Neighborhood schools should be just as important as any other schools,” he said.
As of mid-September, Jones had raised at least $45,000 since launching his campaign. Of that, at least $35,000 came from CTU’s political action committee to pay for field staff and legal fees, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state’s Board of Elections.
Who is Karin Norington-Reaves?
Norington-Reaves, a nonprofit CEO and former workforce development leader, says her experiences as a former CPS student and the parent of a student with a disability inform her school board bid. As an honors student at Lincoln Park High School, she said she became intensely aware of how “chance and the randomness of a child’s ZIP code” determine student experiences in a segregated city. More recently, she struggled to line up the right support for her daughter, a CPS student who is blind.
“If I found the process overwhelming, what is it like for the average parent who doesn’t have the same tools and resources available to me?” she said. “That question has always haunted me.”
A former candidate for Illinois’ 1st congressional district, Norington-Reaves started her career as a first grade bilingual teacher through Teach for America in California and later led the nonprofit’s chapter in Chicago. She served for more than a decade as the founding CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, an agency created to coordinate efforts to get young people employed. She previously worked as a litigator in the U.S. Department of Justice and in other public sector roles. She recently became
the CEO of i.c.stars, a nonprofit that offers technology and leadership training to low-income adults.
Norington-Reaves said she believes the district must expand its career and technical education programs, offering students opportunities to explore possible careers as early as middle school. She said the district must be fiscally responsible and commended the current board for resisting pressure to take on more highinterest debt.
“You can’t just keep kicking the can down the road,” she said. “You’ve got to be looking for efficiencies and economies of scale.”
As of mid-September, NoringtonReaves had raised more than $18,000, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state’s Board of Elections. She received $6,900 from Jim Frank, former CEO of Wheels, Inc. and longtime political donor who also supports the political arm of the education nonprofit Stand for Children.
Norington-Reaves also received $1,500 from the political fund of the New York-based Leadership for Educational Equity, and $1,000 from Phyllis Lockett, CEO of LEAP Innovations, an education technology nonprofit and the former CEO of a now-defunct organization called New Schools for Chicago, which advocated for expanding charters and other new school models during the early 2000s.
Who is Adam Parrott-Sheffer?
Parrott-Sheffer, an education consultant and former CPS principal, was the first person citywide to declare his school board candidacy. He has billed himself as an independent-minded seasoned educator with “skin in the game” as the father of two students in the district.
Parrott-Sheffer led Mary Gage Peterson Elementary in the early 2010s and now serves as an adjunct lecturer at Harvard University, an author, and a
CPS parent volunteer. He’s also a former district administrator in New York City, where he touts his work on a program that helped students with disabilities complete their GEDs. Although his candidacy is not backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, Parrott-Sheffer says he is “the actual pro-teacher candidate” in the race.
He says he brings a sense of urgency to leading the district through precarious financial times while addressing the disparate quality of education, apparent even within parts of District 10.
“You go several blocks and you see that equity isn’t really happening,” Parrott-Sheffer said.
He said he would oppose any effort to oust current CPS CEO Pedro Martinez or take on more district debt, which he said would merely postpone a needed reckoning with CPS’s fiscal pressures. He believes the district must do more to support students with disabilities, English learners, and homeless children.
Parrott-Sheffer said CPS must also start dealing with its aging campuses.
“Many of our buildings are falling apart, and that’s another place where we have kicked the can to future generations,” he said.
As of mid-September, ParrottSheffer’s campaign had raised more than $51,000, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state’s Board of Elections, including some contributions from family and friends. He received $1,500 from the political arm of the New York-based Leadership for Educational Equity.
Who is Che ‘Rhymefest’ Smith?
Smith, an award-winning songwriter, rapper, and community activist, says the Chicago school board sorely needs an artist—someone who can not only think creatively about deeply ingrained problems, but can also inspire students and families.
Smith, a South Side native married to a teacher, won a Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award for a song he created with Common and John Legend for the 2014 movie “Selma.” But on the campaign trail, he has touted his work as a youth mentor and the co-founder of the youth outreach nonprofit Art of Culture. Smith, who previously ran for alderman of the 20th Ward, said his Pritzker Fellowship at the University of Chicago last fall was key in spurring him to think deeply about education and pursue the school board position.
He has garnered endorsements from elected officials, including Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias and a number of state lawmakers, county commissioners, and aldermen.
He said his priorities on the board would be providing more mental health and anti-bullying support to students and boosting arts and STEM programs, including through partnerships with local higher education institutions, museums, and others. He sees these efforts as key to propping up neighborhood schools, holding up South Shore High School as a model.
“A school can turn around, and a neighborhood can turn around with it,”
he said.
He also said he would like the district to step up efforts to listen and involve residents—especially young people—in decision-making. To weather looming deficits, the district needs to attack waste, he said, pointing to failure to track some tablets and laptops bought during the pandemic.
“A $10 billion budget—and the taxpayers keep getting squeezed for more money,” he said.
Smith is primarily self-funding his bid for a school board seat. As of Sept. 22, he had loaned his campaign nearly $95,000. In all, his fund had brought in almost $108,000, according to campaign
candidate)?
Rosita Chatonda is a former longtime CPS teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer who says she entered the board race because she wants to hold both the district and the union more accountable. An elected school board advocate, she is running as a write-in candidate after challenges to her ballot signatures knocked her off the November ballot.
“The people who fought for an elected school board should have a chance to be on the ballot,” she said.
Chatonda, who taught middle school math and science, is also the founder of a
for educators; she also disagrees with some of its stances, such as opposition to standardized testing, which she says is important in guiding classroom instruction and parental involvement.
As a candidate and the grandmother of a CPS student and three recent district graduates, Chatonda says she is concerned about the literacy gap and other disparities facing Black and lowincome students in the district. She says more of the support available to English learners in Chicago and elsewhere should extend to other vulnerable students.
Chatonda also said she thinks the school board needs to scrutinize district spending more and ask tough questions
