Chalkbeat

Illinois lawmakers challenge Chicago school board’s plans to remove police, rethink choice policy

2024-03-11T20:07:43+00:00

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Illinois state lawmakers filed two bills last week aimed at reversing the Chicago Board of Education’s decisions to rethink school choice policies and remove school resource officers from campuses.

The bills focus on board moves that have drawn both support and sharp pushback in recent months from school communities and elected officials. Those decisions include a plan to reconsider the district’s system of school choice — including charter, selective enrollment, magnet, and gifted schools — and to create a new school safety plan that bans the use of school resource officers, or on-campus police.

The new state bills would significantly curtail both board decisions. One bill would prevent the closure of selective-enrollment schools and any changes to admissions policies at those schools for the next three years. The other would let local school councils retain the power to decide whether they want on-campus police — a right they would lose by next school year under a new safety plan.

Both bills have gathered support from other Chicago-based state lawmakers and powerful allies, including House Speaker Chris Welch.

The legislation is an example of lawmakers seeking to use state power to override Chicago’s authority over its schools. It comes just days after the Illinois House and Senate passed a bill governing elections for Chicago’s first-ever elected school board.

That power dynamic drew criticism from Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, who has supported the board’s moves around school choice and resource officers.

“I remember being told by (Illinois General Assembly) members that they would *not* circumvent local control of CPS BOE,” Davis Gates tweeted in response to a tweet about the resource officer legislation. “That was in 2013 when Rahm Emanuel closed down 50 Black schools impacting nearly 20K Black children. Can anyone help me define irony?”

Dwayne Truss, a longtime activist on the West Side who has opposed the board’s decision on school resource officers, felt state lawmakers took an important step.

It’s the state’s attempt, Truss said, to “say, ‘Hey, if this is what they want, and it’s fair and it’s reasonable, then we have to protect those rights.’”

Some local school councils want to keep police officers

One of the state bills, House Bill 5008, would allow local school councils to contract with the Chicago Police Department for school resource officers. It would counteract a board vote two weeks ago to create a new school safety policy by June 27 that would end the use of school resource officers, effectively removing officers from 39 schools that currently have them, by next year.

“Local school councils are designed to make the best decision for their school,” said Rep. Mary Gill, a Democrat who represents neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side and south suburbs, and is a key sponsor of HB 5008. “This is about keeping the power local to be able to decide if a (school resource officer) is needed, and from my research, 39 high schools would like to keep them. I think that’s enough.”

This bill passed the House’s Police and Fire committee last week, 13-0, and is headed to the House floor.

The safety plan board members called for in their vote two weeks ago would focus on more “holistic” approaches to discipline, such as restorative justice practices, which emphasize conflict resolution.

In steering away from on-campus police officers, the board cited data showing that Black students and those with disabilities were disciplined and arrested at school at disproportionately higher rates than their peers.

Schools that implemented restorative justice saw a drop in student arrests, according to a recent study.

The board decision drew substantial support, including from organizations that had pushed for years to get rid of on-campus police officers and use the money on other resources, such as more social workers or alternative discipline practices.

But it also triggered a backlash from community members and elected officials who want local councils — not the board — to decide whether their schools should have school resource officers.

Froy Jimenez, member of the district’s Local School Council Advisory Board, said Rep. Gill is “doing the city a big favor” by letting councils make the decision. Many parents, students and staff will be happy if the bill passes, said Jimenez, who is also a teacher at Hancock College Preparatory High School, which voted to remove its resource officers.

“Some will choose not to, and having that ability is crucial,” he said.

CPS spokesperson Sylvia Barragan said in a statement that the district “follows the policies and procedures set by the Board of Education and the Illinois State Board of Education” and that the district “remains committed to working with our leaders, administrators, and school staff toward improving efforts to bolster student safety and protection.”

Lawmakers say ‘hands off’ selective enrollment schools

The second bill, House Bill 5766, would prevent the closure of any school with selective admissions criteria — such as the city’s 11 selective high schools — until Feb. 1, 2027. The bill also calls for a halt to any changes to admissions criteria for selective schools or any decrease in funding to selective schools until 2027.

The bill is a response to the board resolution stating that it would rethink the school choice system and invest more resources in neighborhood schools. The resolution criticized admissions policies at selective enrollment and other “choice” schools, which were originally created to desegregate the school system but have in recent years led to segregation along the lines of student race and income.

Rep. Margaret Croke, a Democrat serving neighborhoods on the city’s northern lakefront who is sponsoring the bill, said her constituents were concerned about changes to selective enrollment schools under a majority appointed school board. They would rather wait for changes to be made after the Chicago Board of Education is fully elected during 2026, she said.

“If an elected school board that has been elected by the city of Chicago decides to take a position or action as it pertains to selective enrollment schools, I may not agree with it, but they were elected by the constituents and the voters of the city of Chicago,” said Croke.

Croke said she believes the current board is trying to change the funding formula to provide less money to selective enrollment and give more to neighborhood schools. The board’s resolution states that it wants to “ensure equitable funding and resources across schools within the District using an equity lens.”

Board members have expressed a desire to scrutinize charter schools more closely. They also want the district to provide more resources to neighborhood schools, or a child’s zoned school, in order to support “students furthest away from opportunity and ensure that all students have access to a world-class public pre-K through 12th-grade education,” officials said.

The board’s resolution did not include any language about closing schools, and board members have stated they don’t plan to close selective-enrollment schools. Written into the compromise hybrid school board bill in 2021 was a moratorium on school Chicago closures until after Jan. 15, 2025.

The resolution didn’t call for specific changes; board members said they want to hear from the public on what the district should do. The resulting plan will be part of the district’s five-year strategic plan, which the board is expected to vote on this summer.

Community groups call for better engagement

The pushback in Springfield comes after a coalition of community groups in Chicago sent a letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson urging him to push his hand-picked school board to do more — and better — community engagement.

The letter, which was sent to other elected officials, city staff, district officials, and school board members, also asked that the resolution on rethinking school choice policies, among other things, be repealed because it “was crafted with no input from the communities it will impact” and was published and approved during the final week of classes before winter break.

“There wasn’t a public comment opportunity when the resolution was announced. And then it just kind of passed,” said Daniel Anello, executive director of Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy organization that helped create the letter.

In December, district officials said they would hold community engagement sessions in February. A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said last week that the district now plans to hold community engagement sessions around the next five-year strategic plan after spring break, which is the last week of March.

Becky Vevea contributed reporting.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools is in new era for negotiations with the CTU. What could it mean for schools?

2024-03-06T22:24:06+00:00

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When former Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey thinks about the dynamics between City Hall and the union, he flashes back to 2011. That’s when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended a decision to cancel pay raises for teachers by saying they got other types of salary boosts, while “our children got the shaft.”

The stinging quip illustrates how contentious contract negotiations and the relationship between the CTU and city officials were back then, ultimately leading to a weeklong teachers strike in 2012, said Sharkey, who currently sits on the union’s executive board.

After years of thorny relationships with district officials and mayors who did not align with the union on how to improve or support schools, the CTU is expected to begin bargaining this spring over a new contract with a district that now answers to Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher who rose to power as a CTU organizer.

“This is going to be a struggle because the culture in Chicago with the public schools and the teachers union is a culture of ‘No,’ and ‘Make me,’ and ‘OK,’” current CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said during a City Club speech Tuesday. “That’s different from what we are embarking on this time. We’re saying, ‘How might we?’ That’s a different question.”

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Damen Alexander said the district “looks forward to negotiating a fair contract that balances both the interests of the District’s hard-working educators and our duty to be fiscally responsible.”

A City Hall spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

The latest contract talks will come amid massive change for Chicago Public Schools. The first-ever school board elections will take place this fall and a 21-member partially elected board will take office next January. And bargaining will happen as the district attempts to fill a projected $391 million budget deficit for next year, after four years of being buoyed by $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief dollars that will soon run out.

Amid those challenges, the union has a strong ally in office.

The CTU was Johnson’s largest campaign donor, and Davis Gates introduced him at his victory party.

Before the union propelled one of its own into the mayor’s office, the teachers union regained some bargaining power in 2021 when state legislators passed a law that restored its right to bargain over a broader set of issues — such as class size or the length of the school day — which had been restricted since 1995.

Still, Johnson signaled on the campaign trail that he would face “tough decisions” as mayor in negotiations with the CTU and wouldn’t be able to meet all of the union’s demands.

“So who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?” he said during a mayoral forum last year.

But the Johnson administration has already overseen policy changes the union counts as victories, including expanded parental leave for CTU members, a promise to remove school resource officers by next school year, and a commitment to rethink school choice policies.

The union’s House of Delegates, made up of hundreds of educators across the city, is scheduled to vote Wednesday on proposals crafted by the union’s various committees and developed as a response to what CTU members said they wanted to see in the next contract, according to the union.

Those proposals include a wide range of ideas, from pay raises and housing assistance for teachers to providing affordable housing and support for homeless students and their families.

While union officials acknowledge that things are different this time around, they have also emphasized that Johnson does not “have a magic wand” and pushed back against the idea that the union will get everything it asks for.

“I think it is ridiculous for anyone to think that the Black man on the fifth floor who comes from the progressive movement has fairy dust to sprinkle to end this quickly,” Davis Gates said in an interview with Chalkbeat last month. “There is an entire bureaucracy that has been hired and trained to tell the Chicago Teachers Union, ‘No.’”

Joe Ferguson, president of Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said the mayor can’t meet all of the union’s demands because “the money isn’t there for it.” He said the public deserves to hear from the board and the mayor on where they’ll draw the line.

“Where those boundaries are, nobody can say,” Ferguson said.

Past tensions between CTU and City Hall prompted strikes

Over the past decade, contract negotiations between CPS and the CTU have resulted in two strikes that garnered national attention and inspired education labor fights around the country.

In 2012, after months of simmering disagreement and the city skipping a raise for teachers, the union went on strike for seven days at the start of the school year. Emanuel had pushed for a longer school day and embraced education reform ideas sweeping the country at the time, including a new way to evaluate teachers, which the union strongly opposed. He also refused to bargain over issues like class size, which at the time, state law did not require CPS to do.

An 11-day strike happened in 2019 under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who the union had initially expected to align with more than Emanuel. The union was fighting for “common good” ideas that exceeded the scope of a teacher’s daily duties but were meant to improve students’ and families’ lives, such as ensuring that every school had a nurse, social worker, and librarian. The contract ultimately locked in some of those demands, as well as other wins, such as a $35 million fund to help reduce class sizes, but ultimately, the long strike left many teachers and families frustrated.

Those sour dynamics appear to be gone with Johnson’s election, said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who co-wrote a book about CTU’s 2012 strike.

“Both parties believe that the other party understands and would be respectful of each other’s perspectives, which certainly wasn’t the case with the two previous mayors or even the previous CEOs — and we’ve gone through a few of them in Chicago,” he said.

Sharkey noted that Johnson’s priorities include many ideas the union agrees with and gave rise to, such as creating more sustainable community schools that provide wraparound services to families. His campaign platform also closely mirrored a document CTU first put out in 2012 titled “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” which was updated in 2018 and most recently, in 2022.

In general, the union has found that working with the district has been easier and more receptive since Johnson has taken office, according to Sharkey and Davis Gates.

But Davis Gates said she expects plenty of disagreement because she still feels that the agency has a bureaucracy “that cannot collaborate, that does not say yes, and has a difficult time understanding how to partner with us.”

Union again pushing ‘common good’ demands

The union is expected to push for cost-of-living raises that keep up with or exceed inflation and a more uniform overtime pay policy, according to proposals leaked to conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute, which a CTU spokesperson confirmed are real. The union also wants changes to the teacher evaluation process, including to codify that evaluations cannot be used for layoffs.

Proposals also include codifying health care policies, such as gender-affirming care, paid parental leave for employees, abortion coverage, and access to weight loss medical care, such as bariatric surgery.

In a more novel demand, the union will also push for housing assistance for its members, but the leaked proposal doesn’t include more details on how that would be done. Under Emanuel, the city offered assistance to police officers who wanted to buy homes in the areas they worked in, but few officers took advantage of the program.

In the classroom, the union is expected to renew a push to give elementary school teachers more preparation and collaboration time during the school day, Sharkey said. That was a major demand in the 2019 contract negotiations that largely did not come to fruition – and could again be difficult to secure this time around given the complicated logistics of tweaking a school day.

Union officials also expect proposals around bilingual services for students, including on attracting staff and expanding access to bilingual training for teachers, and retaining more special education staff. Both bilingual and special education are teacher shortage areas.

Davis Gates said they’ll continue demanding a librarian and nurse be staffed at every school.

Separately, union officials are expecting to push for more common good items, Davis Gates said. This will include creating a career and technical education program that would involve building houses for homeless students and their families, according to the leaked proposals.

Common good proposals will also include creating more sustainable community schools, Davis Gates said. The union is also interested in pushing for more “green” – or energy efficient – schools, such as by installing more solar panels. The district is already planning to purchase 50 electric school buses.

CPS’s budget deficit could complicate negotiations

Contract talks will begin as the district plans for its budget next year, which is projected to be $391 million in the hole. That could make costly union proposals a tough sell for the district.

District officials have for months publicized the budget deficit as federal COVID relief dollars run out. The district can either cut programming or find more money, which officials want to do by demanding more funding from the state.

Bruno, the labor expert, said it is a good sign the union agrees that Springfield should provide more money, because that means all negotiating parties agree on a solution to a significant problem.

However, Ferguson, from the Civic Federation, has little hope that more money is coming, in part because of what appears to be a “frayed” relationship between City Hall and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office. Pritzker recently proposed a budget that provides the same increase to K-12 funding as last year. And because CPS’s deficit is driven by the loss of COVID relief dollars, this year’s negotiations are “a fairly unique stew,” he said.

“There have been deficits being faced in the past [and] constraints on funding sources, but none that have come in this particular context, where not only is there a question of, where is more money coming from, but it also comes at a moment when we all know that recent existing streams are going to end,” Ferguson said. “And it has also been made abundantly clear by Springfield, by the governor, that there is no money to be gotten from the state.”

Union officials said they don’t yet know the price tag of their proposals, and they don’t expect to propose “money-saving” ideas. But Sharkey said they’ll have ideas on how the district can fund their proposals “and would expect the board to try to work with us on that.”

Asked how the district’s financial picture will impact its approach to negotiations, a CPS spokesperson pointed to the district’s budget deficit and said the district must be “fiscally responsible.”

Even with financial challenges, Sharkey said he expects the union and the district to work out disagreements in a more timely manner, unlike past negotiations that were “unproductive for months.”

Davis Gates said CTU continues to see its contract as “leverage for the common good,” has “high expectations” for upcoming negotiations, and is hoping for more agreement that will finally deliver on the CTU’s push to get schools more resources.

At the City Club speech this week, in a room full of business leaders, educators, and philanthropists, Davis Gates said she expects people to be skeptical that the mayor is going to “give CTU everything it’s asking for.”

“I hope he does,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar que será elegido. ¿Qué preguntas tienes?

2024-02-29T11:00:00+00:00

En menos de un año, las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago tomarán juramento a sus primeros miembros electos del consejo escolar.

Pero incluso con una fecha firme de juramento del 15 de enero de 2025, muchas preguntas sin respuesta aún permanecen sobre la elección del 5 de noviembre que daría paso a los nuevos miembros del consejo- y cómo el consejo funcionará una vez en su lugar. La ley estatal establece que 10 miembros serán elegidos este año, pero los legisladores están debatiendo si elegir a los 21 ahora. (El alcalde Brandon Johnson pidió recientemente a la legislatura que se asegure de que sólo la mitad sean elegidos este año, informó el Sun-Times).

La legislatura estatal también debe finalizar los límites de los distritos para los miembros del consejo escolar. Los legisladores parecen haber acordado un tercer borrador del mapa el pasado noviembre.

Una vez que los miembros presten juramento el próximo enero, ¿qué sigue? ¿Cómo funcionará el consejo en comparación con el consejo que sustituirá?

Chalkbeat Chicago quiere escuchar tus preguntas sobre las próximas elecciones para el consejo escolar y sobre los miembros elegidos del consejo escolar. Vamos a tratar de responder a tus preguntas a través de nuestros reportajes mientras seguimos las campañas y las elecciones de este año.

Responde a la encuesta aquí o rellénala abajo. No utilizaremos tu nombre en nuestros reportajes sin tu permiso.

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Reema Amin es una reportera que cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago para Chalkbeat Chicago. Ponte en contacto con Reema en ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Institute for Nonprofit News.

Who’s the boss? Chicago principals report to many different people.

2024-02-27T20:48:12+00:00

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During Femi Skanes’ 10 years as a Chicago principal, her boss was primarily a district official known as a network chief, she said. Alan Mather, who was also a principal for a decade, says he answered to then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan.

Many principals in Chicago also feel their Local School Council, or LSC, is a boss, while others view the council as more of a partner.

Principals are the leaders of their schools and staff. But in Chicago, multiple entities have power over principals. Later this year, Chicagoans will begin electing school board members, marking another shift in control over the city’s school system, which has been run by the mayor and a hand-picked CEO since 1995 and by a decentralized system of elected LSCs since 1988.

The city’s principals have unionized in hopes of creating more job protections for a role that has seen high turnover in recent years.

“Right now it’s kind of the wild wild west,” said Cynthia Barron, program coordinator and assistant professor with UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program. “We’re kinda all waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Barron, who spent more than three decades at CPS, said she doesn’t foresee immediate changes as a result of unionization or an elected school board. But, given that details around the future principals union contract and the elected school board are still being ironed out, she said there are “so many unknowns.”

How Chicago principals ended up with many bosses

Those unknowns — as the principals union takes root and the city moves to an elected school board — may disrupt an already complicated hierarchy.

As it stands now, a Chicago principal’s direct supervisor is the head of their network — the geographic area their school is organized under — and they are also accountable to their Local School Council, or LSC, a unique-to-Chicago elected body at most schools made up of parents, teachers, students, and community members, that can hire principals. Both have different hiring and firing powers.

Local School Councils were created in 1988 under the state’s Chicago School Reform Act, which gave LSCs the power to hire principals, approve school budgets, and approve annual school improvement plans.

The state amended that law in 1995 in an effort to centralize and improve the city’s school system. Lawmakers voted to keep LSCs but mandated training for them. The changes also gave the mayor sole authority over appointing the school board and replaced the superintendent title with “chief executive officer” — which stands today.

Today, LSCs can hire a principal and offer them a four-year contract. They can decide to keep the principal or fire them when their contract is up for renewal.

Network chiefs, on the other hand, work for the district and are tasked with ensuring that schools are complying with district policies and meeting academic and instructional goals, according to interviews with school leaders. Network chiefs answer to district leaders who report to the CEO, the Board of Education president, and the mayor. School leaders can also turn to their chiefs when they need extra support.

Both chiefs and LSCs use a similar rubric to evaluate principals annually. Only network chiefs can fire principals at any time for just cause.

Though LSCs hold power over principals, they do not have the same connection to district officials and the school board that a network chief does. It’s also not clear how they’ll interact with the school board once it expands and includes elected members.

Froy Jimenez is a member of the city’s Local School Council Advisory Board, which the state created to advise the Board of Education. Jimenez, a teacher and LSC member at Hancock College Preparatory High School, said he believes that LSCs and principals are “co-leaders” with the shared goal of supporting students.

“When we look at [the] budget, when we look at curriculum, when we look at any specific need of our school,” Jimenez said, “we’re doing it like we’re collaborating.”

Principals balance multiple interests

Principals’ responsibilities have grown over the past two decades and especially since the pandemic. Today, in addition to being instructional leaders, they’re expected to maintain relationships with students, families, staff, and sometimes elected officials, said Jasmine Thurmond, director of Local School Council principal support at CPS.

Some school leaders appreciate the variety of voices, but others often feel torn between conflicting demands.

One principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, was asked by parents who attended LSC meetings to “publicize or encourage things like picketing or public demonstrations” over a district decision this year to suspend bus service for 5,500 general education students, largely those at selective enrollment and gifted schools.

The principal agreed that the lack of busing has been challenging for many of her students. But she explained to parents and the LSC that publicly protesting the busing decision could put her in hot water with her other boss: the district.

“I have to figure out how I can advocate for the needs of my students and the needs of my families,” she told Chalkbeat, “but in a way that is very respectful of the people that are making these decisions — and that is a really difficult balance to strike.”

She has a good relationship with her LSC, which she said is “fair and reasonable” but also demanding. The council requests a lot of data and presentations. Meeting those needs and building personal relationships can be difficult along with all of her other responsibilities as a school leader, she said.

Ryan Belville, principal of McAuliffe Elementary School, said he has a close bond with his LSC that grew during the pandemic, when they worked hand-in-hand to make sure students and families had what they needed. Belville said the LSC has also held him accountable “to serve the school community effectively.”

“I really see why LSCs were developed and why they were put into action,” Belville said. “It’s something we’re very fortunate to have in Chicago.”

Sometimes the LSC wields its power, as Hancock College Preparatory High School did last year when it decided not to renew its principal’s contract in the face of student and teacher opposition.

But there are limits to an LSC’s authority.

At Jones College Prep, the LSC voted in 2022 to recommend the district fire then-principal Joseph Powers based on various allegations, including that he was ignoring problematic teachers and was not addressing issues around gender and racial discrimination. His contract was not up for renewal at the time, so the LSC could not fire him outright.

CEO Pedro Martinez declined to fire Powers, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence. Later that year, CPS put Powers on leave after a student dressed in a Nazi uniform was seen goose-stepping in the school’s Halloween parade. Powers then retired.

One Chicago elementary school principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said that contract renewal time can sometimes feel political. She must ensure that she’s keeping “these X number of people happy or satisfied” so that she can keep her job. At the same time, she wishes she had “more robust” feedback from her LSC, which she thinks is lacking at her school because people often don’t have time to participate — an issue many LSCs face.

On Chicago’s West Side, the LSC at Oscar DePriest Elementary School is working on ensuring enough participation on its council. It is also figuring out how it will work with the school’s new principal, whom it hired in November after interviews and a candidate forum, said Wallace Wilbourn, a teacher and LSC member.

He wants the LSC to have a greater voice on the school’s curriculum, its culture, and how it approaches assessments.

But he’s already seen that many people are trying to hold the principal accountable. Ever since being hired, Wilbourn said, his principal has had to spend a lot of time in meetings with the network.

Network chiefs, top CPS officials hold power

Barron, with UIC, said the relationship between a network chief and principal more closely resembles a typical employee-manager relationship: The two work together on a leadership plan that has goals to hit throughout the year.

Skanes, who was the principal of Morgan Park High School until 2022, always viewed her network chief as her main supervisor. Feedback from the network chief was sometimes “attached to next steps, even in terms of promotion and opportunities,” she said.

The Chicago elementary school principal said the network chief is looking for things at the school that parents or community members may not have expertise in, such as best teaching practices, she said. Her LSC is more interested in school uniform policies or community events for families, she said.

“I think both of those perspectives are super important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be all one or another.”

A former Chicago principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said most of his network chiefs were good listeners and open to his ideas of how to improve his school. But he also felt pressure from the network to boost certain metrics, such as raising attendance by 10 percentage points, including by visiting student homes.

Those efforts resulted in a lot of pressure on staff and kids at his school who were already experiencing “so much trauma,” he said. After hitting the network’s goal, the principal eased up those efforts, saying it didn’t feel “worth the squeeze and my time and emotional energy.” Attendance rates dropped.

In that case, he decided to “take the heat from the network” because it meant more “sanity” for his school, he said.

A small share of schools have Appointed Local School Councils, or ALSCs, which don’t have the power to hire or fire principals but can provide nonbinding input on who they want to lead their schools. In those cases, the CEO gets final say on hiring a principal.

That was the case for Alan Mather, now the president of the Golden Apple Foundation. He became the principal of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2005 when the school was reopened as a selective enrollment high school. Mather was appointed by then-CEO Arne Duncan and the new school, which drew high-performing students from across the city, did not have an LSC. It wasn’t until his last year at Lindblom that an ALSC was formed, Mather said.

Mather considered Duncan to be his boss and was given a lot of autonomy to craft Lindblom’s culture and academics, such as adopting a year-round schedule during his time.

“It was the CEO who could have removed me at any time,” Mather said. “I was not working under a contract.”

As principals unionize, a question about management

When the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, or CPAA, decided to unionize last year, its president Troy LaRaviere promised to fight for better pay, less focus on bureaucratic tasks, more job security – including the ability to voice opinions publicly without punishment – and more due process when principals face accusations of misconduct.

LaRaviere did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. Another CPAA representative declined to comment, including to confirm whether the union has started bargaining, and deferred to LaRaviere.

The unionization effort could impact how network chiefs discipline and evaluate principals. But huge questions remain.

“We don’t know what is to come,” said Thurmond, from the district. She added that they’re “looking forward to deepening the collaboration” with CPAA to make sure principals are supported, versus the district “being perceived as an enemy.”

Some observers have wondered how a union contract might impact the authority of a network chief or LSC. For instance, will it be tougher for the LSC not to renew a principal’s contract?

Changes to an LSC’s powers, however, would likely require a change to the state law that created them, said Barron, the expert from UIC.

For the district’s part, Thurmond said CPS will continue “empowering LSCs and ALSCs” so that “communities continue to have control of their schools.”

One former principal thinks an elected school board could make LSCs feel redundant or powerless, since board members will represent different parts of the city.

LSCs were created when there wasn’t an elected board and are seen by some as mini-school boards at individual schools. But come January 2025, the Chicago Board of Education will be made up of 10 members elected by their communities and 11 members appointed by the mayor.

“If we have an elected school board of 21 and you have them passing resolutions saying we’re doing this, this and this,” he wondered, “then what does the LSC have the autonomy to say and do if it’s all coming from downtown?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education votes to remove police officers from schools

2024-02-23T03:12:51+00:00

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During a meeting in which tempers flared and community members argued over the merits of school police, Chicago’s Board of Education voted Thursday to eliminate all school police officers by the next academic year and create a new “holistic” school safety policy.

The board approved a resolution that directs Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to draft a school safety policy by June 27 that explicitly bans school resource officers, or SROs, from campuses. These officers are trained and employed by the Chicago Police Department, but the district covers their salaries.

The district’s new school safety policy must instead emphasize more “holistic” approaches to student discipline, such as restorative justice practices, the resolution said. Such practices, which focus on conflict resolution instead of punishment, have replaced sworn officers in some schools over the past few years. The resolution approved Thursday will directly impact the 39 high schools that currently have a total of 57 SROs.

The board’s decision — which drew dozens of public speakers, including 20 elected officials — addresses a yearslong grassroots movement that has pushed the district to remove SROs from school campuses. Advocates instead want the district to spend more money on social workers, mental health resources, and practices focusing on conflict resolution. A recent study found that schools implementing restorative justice practices saw drops in student arrests. Students also reported feeling more safe.

But the decision drew significant pushback as well, including from several city aldermen, who argued that schools in their communities feel safer when officers are on campus.

At one point during Thursday’s meeting, former school board member and community activist Dwayne Truss sparred with audience members over his criticism of the board’s decision — causing advocates to chant “SROs, we want you out.” Truss was on the board when it decided to let Local School Councils vote on whether to keep their officers. He argued that was the most “democratic” solution at the time and still is today.

Truss, who is Black, accused the Board of Education of “telling Black folks, ‘We know what’s best for you.’”

In defending the board’s decision, Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said it was fulfilling a 2020 promise from the previous board, which committed to phasing SROs out of schools. The board’s goal is to reduce disparities among those who are disciplined at school, she said. Calls to police disproportionately involve students with disabilities and Black students, who are also disproportionately suspended, compared to their peers, according to the resolution.

The board has discussed the policy change for several months with the district and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, Todd-Breland said, noting that it’s “about more than just SROs.”

“This is a shift, and this shift to a model of holistic safety is really necessary for all of our schools, not just schools that currently have SROs,” Todd-Breland said. “Continuing the district’s progress in moving from a more punitive approach to a holistic, healing centered approach is evidence-based work.”

Board member Rudy Lozano Jr. said the district will still rely on the Chicago Police Department to help with arrival and dismissal and to respond to emergencies. In response to criticism about pulling power away from LSCs, board member Tanya D. Woods said state law requires the district to “deal with discipline disparities.”

Makayla Acevedo, a junior at Hyde Park Academy and a member of Southside Together Organizing for Power, or STOP, said officers at her school don’t stop the many fights that break out. She wants to see the funding for SRO salaries go toward more career programming at her school, such as for nursing training, as well as restorative justice programming.

“I just feel like we just really need those funds, to invest all of that money to get the programs in order for all students … to be successful in life and reach their dreams,” Acevedo said.

The district has spent nearly $4 million on “alternative safety interventions,” such as restorative justice, at 14 schools where SROs have already been removed, according to the resolution.

After the meeting, Martinez said, “We actually have not paid for any of these services for CPD for the last three years. We weren’t even going to pay for this year.” A district spokesperson later confirmed that although money was allocated, no payments have been made to the police department since 2020, when schools went remote during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longstanding tensions come to a head

The movement to remove SROs grew in 2019, when the Chicago Police Department was placed under a federal consent decree. The next year, after protests over Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, the district asked LSCs to vote on whether they wanted to keep SROs.

But the resolution has exposed long-simmering tensions.

At Thursday’s meeting, arguments erupted between Truss and audience members from organizations that have long pushed for the district to remove SROs. Those organizations include Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Good Kids Mad City, and STOP.

As they yelled at each other, the board called a brief recess and cleared the room for several minutes.

Truss cited recent shootings outside three Chicago schools that left four students dead, and argued that some communities may feel the need to keep police at schools in order to feel safe. That sentiment was echoed by several other speakers.

“The fact is that Black folks are tired of getting disrespected by folks who don’t live in our community,” said Truss.

Ald. Monique Scott, whose 24th Ward represents North Lawndale on the West Side, said the decision needs to be made by local communities. Scott’s brother and predecessor, Michael Scott Jr., replaced Truss on the school board in 2022 and served until the end of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s term last summer.

“Every school doesn’t have to have them, but some schools need them and I think that it should be based on the LSC to determine that,” Scott said.

The district’s Local School Council Advisory Board, charged with advising the Board of Education, “overwhelmingly” approved a resolution Feb. 12 that called for leaving decisions about campus police to LSCs, according to Froy Jimenez, a member of the advisory board and a teacher at John Hancock College Preparatory High School.

The advisory board members were concerned that stripping LSCs of that power chips away their right to make decisions about their schools, Jimenez said. Jimenez noted that his own LSC voted to get rid of the school’s campus police. However, Jimenez said he represents a part of the city “where some schools would want to have [them].”

The board’s decision was celebrated by several advocacy organizations that have rallied for years to stop staffing police in schools, as well as the City Council’s progressive caucus. Several speakers asked the district to spend more money on social workers and boost restorative justice.

Kennedy Bartley, executive director of United Working Families, a progressive political organization, credited Thursday’s vote to the years of advocacy from students and educators, which “built enough political power to elect a mayor with a mandate for transformative change.”

The Chicago Teachers Union, which also supports the change, has submitted a request with the district to bargain over the new school safety policy, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter told the board Thursday. Potter said the union wants several things to be considered in the new policy, including more “trauma supports” and training on restorative practices.

Becky Vevea contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s school board wants to remove police from all schools starting next school year

2024-02-20T19:32:03+00:00

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The Chicago Board of Education wants to remove police officers from schools starting next school year, according to a resolution included in the agenda for Thursday’s board meeting.

The resolution directs CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to come up with a new policy by June 27 that would introduce a “holistic approach to school safety” at district schools, such as implementing restorative justice practices, which focus on resolving a conflict instead of punishment.

That policy “must make explicit that the use of [school resource officers] within District schools will end by the start of the 2024-2025 school year,” the resolution said. (Find the resolution on page 15 of your PDF reader.)

The resolution nods to the district’s shift in student discipline to more restorative practices, which has led to “significant progress” in reducing suspensions. However, the resolution notes that disparities in suspension rates are disproportionately higher for students with disabilities and Black students, compared to their Hispanic and white peers.

Most CPS schools don’t have school resource officers who, unlike security guards, are trained and employed by the Chicago Police Department, but are stationed in schools full-time. If passed, the resolution would directly impact 39 schools – all high schools – that have a total of 57 officers on campus, according to the resolution and district officials. Fourteen schools voted to remove a total of 28 officers and instead received a total of $3.9 million for “alternative safety interventions,” including for restorative justice and social service coordinators, the resolution said. CPS also employs more than 1,400 security guards at schools, according to staffing data from the end of December 2023.

Schools that have voted to keep their officers have cited a variety of reasons for doing so, including that in some cases, school resource officers have strong relationships with students. Opponents of police on campus argue that the presence of officers can lead to more punitive student discipline and can leave children feeling unsafe.

Last month, Nadig Newspapers and WBEZ reported that the board was planning to remove Chicago Police Department officers from schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson later confirmed to WBEZ that he’s in support of such a plan.

The resolution, which the board is slated to vote on Thursday, represents Johnson’s hand-picked school board’s clearest statements on removing police officers from Chicago schools. As a mayoral candidate, Johnson had said police officers “have no place in schools,” WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times reported. However, last year, he told the outlet he would leave the decision up to LSCs.

The resolution said the district would continue to partner with the Chicago Police Department, but district officials did not immediately explain what that relationship would look like.

Having police stationed inside Chicago schools came under scrutiny in 2019 as part of the police department’s federal consent decree. In 2020, amid protests and the racial reckoning that swept the country after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, Chicago schools began voting one-by-one on whether or not to keep their school resource officers.

Driven by similar issues, Denver Public Schools removed police from schools in 2020 and 2021, but its work to implement a new school safety policy, as Chicago’s board is seeking, was derailed by the pandemic. The Denver school board reversed its decision last June after a shooting inside a high school.

In 2022, the Chicago school board reduced its contract with the police department from more than $30 million to roughly $10 million and allocated money for schools to implement alternatives to police, such as restorative justice counselors. The contract was renewed last summer for $10.3 million and about $4 million to improve school climate was separately allocated to schools that had removed their officers.

Research from the University of Chicago released last fall found an improvement in student engagement and a decline in suspensions at schools that had implemented restorative practices in recent years.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools plans to end Aramark cleaning contract

2024-02-13T01:41:10+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools said Monday it is not planning to renew a multi-million dollar deal with Aramark for the management of school janitors and cleaning services after a decade.

The move comes after years of concerns and complaints over school cleanliness from staff, parents, and students.

The school board’s latest agreement with the Philadelphia-based company is set to end June 30, 2024. According to a school board committee agenda posted Monday, the district is asking board members to increase the current contract, which started Aug. 2021, from $369 million to $391 million “due to unforeseen expenditures associated with overtime, custodial supplies and custodial equipment.”

A district spokesperson confirmed Monday the district is not renewing the contract with Aramark and the school board will vote on seven new contracts at its Feb. 22 meeting.

Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer at CPS, said the district is looking forward to more direct oversight of janitorial services and supplies and allowing principals to have more say on school cleaniness. Mayfield said the district will contract with seven vendors for custodial services. He said he doesn’t anticipate any job losses with this change.

CPS employs more than 1,000 custodians, according to staffing records updated at the end of December.

“We had an opportunity to renew at Aramark and we opted not to,” said Mayfield. “There were some challenges there, but they’ve also been great partners over a number of years. Sometimes change happens.”

A spokesperson for Aramark wrote in a statement that the company was disappointed to not be selected to continue providing facility services for CPS.

“We are proud of the efforts of our dedicated employees and are committed to ensuring a smooth transition to the school district’s new provider,” said Chris Collom, Aramark’s vice president of corporate communications.

Chicago Public Schools first contracted with Aramark in 2014. Budget officials at the time promised that outsourcing the management of school cleaning would save money and ease the burden on school principals.

But the deal backfired in the first school year when staff returned from summer break to dirty classrooms and, in some buildings, fewer custodians. Then-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett admitted the shift to privatized management of custodians was not going smoothly and the board reversed nearly 500 planned layoffs. By the spring of 2015, the contract with Aramark had gone millions of dollars over budget, WBEZ reported.

The union representing school janitors called the move a victory for its members. SEIU Local 73 — the union that also represents school employees such as special education classroom assistants, bus aides, and crossing guards — has been meeting with the district’s facilities department for almost three years to raise concerns about Aramark’s management of equipment and supplies for custodial staff.

Stacia Scott Kennedy, executive vice president of SEIU, said she is thrilled the contract is over.

“I feel hopeful that this change in management will improve the outcomes of cleanliness,” said Scott Kennedy. “I also feel hopeful that it’ll improve the working conditions of our members who have suffered under private contract with management for the last 10 years.”

SEIU Local 73 has been in contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools since its contract ended June 30, 2023. One of the union’s economic proposals was to ask the district to get rid of the contract with Aramark. Scott Kennedy said they will keep the proposal as negotiations continue.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

As Chicago gets its first elected school board, Local School Councils may become a proving ground for candidates

2024-02-08T16:32:48+00:00

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect an extension to the deadline for candidates to file paperwork to run for LSC. It is now Wednesday, Feb. 14.

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In the halls of Uplift Community High School, Karonda Locust is known as “Mama T.”

“If you need help, go tell my mom,” her daughter Tiara, now 23, would tell her friends when she was a student there.

“That’s how I got stuck here,” Locust said with a laugh on a recent Monday.

For four years while her daughter attended Uplift, Locust served as a parent representative on the school’s Local School Council, the governing body of community members, parents, and school staff that make decisions about the school’s budget and academic plan and evaluate the school’s leaders. Locust has also served on the LSC at Willa Cather Elementary school, where her youngest daughter still attends, for nine years.

For Locust, the LSC was a gateway to more involvement in the school.

“That’s how it should be,” said Locust’s sister Taschaunda Hall, who is also an active member of the Cather’s LSC and briefly served on the LSC at Uplift as well.

Chicago’s LSCs are unique and powerful. There’s nothing quite like them in other school districts across the U.S. The Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 established that every CPS-run school would have a Local School Council. Today LSCs are made up of six parents, two teachers, two community members, a student representative, and the school’s principal.

But while the first LSC elections in 1989 had over 17,000 candidates, those numbers have plummeted over the years. The last LSC elections in 2022 saw just over 6,000 applicants, but voter turnout was at its strongest in a decade, with students making up the majority of the 110,700 voters.

Still, LSC members have successfully advocated for change and improvements and many believe the councils are the key to better schools across the city.

Now, with Chicago’s Board of Education adding elected seats for the first time this year and transitioning to a fully elected board in 2026, LSCs may become a sort of proving ground for positions with a broader reach.

“I do predict many of our LSC members may put their hat in the ring,” said Kishasha Ford, director of the CPS LSC Relations office. “Our LSC members [are] very well-equipped to do this work because they have some experience being on a kind of a board, because if you think about it, LCSs are like mini school boards for their local school.”

Elections for these “mini school boards’' are happening again this spring. The deadline to run for LSC is 3 p.m. next Wednesday, Feb. 14 and election day for elementary schools is April 10 and April 11 for high schools, with new two-year terms of office beginning July 1, 2024.

As of Feb. 1, 1,902 people had filed to run for LSC, according to district officials. At the same time last election cycle in 2022, 852 people had applied.

Over the decades, LSCs have changed the names of schools named after enslavers, removed controversial leadership, won capital improvements, even helped open new schools. Others have sat mostly empty, served as little more than a rubber stamp, or been rendered ineffective by infighting and conflicting interests.

It depends on who’s running the ship, says Kendra Snow, the lead parent organizer for grassroots organization Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

Studies showing that parent involvement in schools can have a major impact on student outcomes are abundant, but for LSCs to be effective, Snow argues, parents have to do more than just show up, they have to be informed.

But the “showing up” part is still a major part of the battle.

After elections in 2022, over a thousand LSC positions were unfilled and according to CPS data, 311 schools still have vacancies on their councils. Still, according to CPS, 97% of LSCs had enough members to meet “quorum,” which requires that seven members be present for the LSC to vote and conduct business.

Chalkbeat caught up with four parents who have served on LSCs, where they called for improvements and guided their schools through challenges. Their experiences demonstrate what LSCs are capable of, some of the reasons parents may be opting out, and how the role of LSCs may shift as Chicago gets an elected school board.

The mom who wants to open LSCs to more people

Karonda Locust (right), a current LSC parent representative at Willa Cather Elementary School and former LSC parent representative at Uplift Community High School, stands with her sister, Taschaunda Hall (left), on the playground outside Cather.

Karonda Locust is decked out in the red and black of Willa Cather Elementary school on a recent Monday morning. Today, she’s helping out at the security check-in at the front doors before heading to work, but “I’m always there, everywhere,” she says.

She chats easily with staff and students and no one questions her presence as she walks the halls. They all know who she is.

Locust has served on the LSC at Cather alongside her sister Taschaunda Hall for nine years. When her eldest daughter moved on to Uplift Community High School in 2019, she joined the LSC there as well. For four years, she served on both LSCs at the same time.

Her time on the LSC at Uplift helped her forge relationships with the staff and kids and she continues to volunteer there even though her daughter has graduated. That’s the point of LSCs, she said, to invest in not just your own kids, but the school community as a whole.

That’s why in 2022 when her daughter was a senior at Uplift, she and her daughter (who sat on the LSC as a student representative) advocated for a bus service to bring in more students from the West Side. Her own daughter would never benefit from it, but other kids would.

Now, a bus picks up kids from Cather Elementary to bring them to Uplift, giving West Side kids a chance to attend the school without leaving parents to figure out the hour-and-a-half commute.

“That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of – that we were able to bring kids from other neighborhoods to Uplift and they can have that experience as well,” said Locust.

With the first Chicago Board of Education elections happening later this year, Locust said several friends and community members have asked her to run for a seat, but she doesn’t have the time.

Instead, now that her daughter has graduated – she earned a scholarship to study education at Truman College and plans to become a teacher – Locust is shifting some of her focus to advocating for changes to the structures and rules of LSCs.

Some of the requirements for serving on LSCs, she says, are keeping people out.

When Locust herself was a teen mother, she had a hard time making it to her daughters’ school events. In her stead, she often sent grandparents or aunts or uncles, any way to make sure her kids felt supported. But none of those family members could run for the LSC as a parent representative – and none lived within the school’s neighborhood boundaries, making them ineligible to serve as a community representative.

Family structures have changed in the past three decades, said Locus, and she wants to open up LSCs to more family members outside of the traditional parent-child paradigm.

“We’re actually losing out on opportunities for family members that could support the school because of the structure that was created over 30 years ago,” said Locust. “This is a non-paid position, so if somebody wants to serve and help my kids’ school, God bless ‘em.”

She also hopes to end the fingerprinting and background check requirements for LSC parents, saying it alienates parents with criminal records and scares off parents who are undocumented, though, barring convictions for certain offenses, both are legally allowed to serve on LSCs.

The veteran LSC leader who built a new school

José Quiles, a community representative on LSCs at Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, Belmont-Cragin Elementary School in Belmont-Cragin, speaks inside of a classroom on Fri., Jan. 25, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

José Quiles has served on LSCs since they were first created in 1989. In his 35 years as a parent representative and then as a community representative, he’s seen it all.

The stories roll out of him with ease on a recent Thursday as he leads a Local School Council information session at the Belmont-Cragin not-for-profit organization he founded in 2015, the Education Community Committee (ECC).

He currently sits on LSCs at three schools – Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, and Belmont-Cragin Elementary School – and when he’s not conducting LSC business, he’s teaching other people in the neighborhood how to join their LSCs and get things done on them.

In the workshops at ECC, they talk about things like how to read a budget and the rules and expectations for LSC members.

But what he hones in on and repeats over and over in the workshops is that the LSC is about the kids. All of the kids, not just their own.

That’s what sustained the eight-year movement he helped lead to get a new school built in Belmont-Cragin, he said – knowing that it was what the kids in the area needed.

“Belmont-Cragin started because Mary Lyon had 1800 kids,” said Quiles.

Initially, to address the overcrowding, some of the Mary Lyon kids were sent to a nearby site on Mango St. that was formerly the Catholic school St. James. When it became clear that the principal at Mary Lyon was struggling to oversee both school facilities, the LSC requested a separate principal and LSC to separate the school from Mary Lyon altogether, thereby creating a new school.

“Basically, we gave birth to it,” he said with a laugh.

Amid the swath of school closures in 2013, the St. James facility was closed and the students were relocated to a site on Palmer St., but the LSC found that there were not enough bathroom facilities for the students.

The LSC and other community organizations began pushing for a new school to be built at Riis Park.

In January 2023, the new Belmont-Cragin Elementary School officially opened in the park, offering 32 classrooms with park views, a black box theater, library, music room, and access to the connected park fieldhouse.

Quiles’ own children and foster children have long since graduated from the schools where he currently serves as community representative on the LSCs.

At 68, he says he wants to retire, but he’s worried that the LSCs aren’t ready for him to do so.

“A strong council moves mountains,” he told participants in Spanish during a recent LSC workshop. “But a weak council goes in no direction. And when you don’t move in any direction, there is no progress.”

That’s what his work with ECC is all about – educating parents so they know what questions to ask and how to push for change, whether on LSCs or as members of the new elected school board or as the voters who put people on those governing bodies.

Despite his insistence that he needs to retire, Quiles still has his ear to the floor at his local schools.

Right now, he says the biggest issues his LSCs are working on are the social emotional impacts of the pandemic on the students and supporting immigrant students and parents.

Advocating for the South Side

Kendra Snow is running for LSC at Christian Fenger Academy High School in Roseland. She is a former LSC member at Harvard Elementary School in Auburn-Gresham.

Back in 2002 when Kendra Snow sat on her first Local School Council at a school in Auburn-Gresham, “it was like a puppet show,” she said.

The principal “hand-picked” the parents she wanted on the council and ran the meetings, quickly going over budget lines. No one asked any questions or knew what anything meant.

“We were just bodies here to put a signature to something,” she said.

Then, Snow began to learn on her own.

“I had to learn this for myself, it’s the parents with the power, and if you want to know something then you read into it the same way she did,” said Snow. “So now I’m the troublemaker, because I challenged things.”

CPS supports LSCs with trainings and office hours, as well as 13 specialists supporting 511 LSCs, according to the department’s director Kishasha Ford.

There is a 300-page manual for LSC members and online modules as well as in-person trainings, said Ford.

“That’s the biggest part of our job is the education piece.” she said. “Because it is a lot to know and we can’t expect every single LSC member to know every single nuanced thing. That’s why we’re here to help support and to guide them.”

Snow read the manual and did the online modules, but she says, it’s not quite enough.

“You got to just do more than just watch these videos,” she said, suggesting that CPS incorporate questions into the modules to make sure viewers understood the material before moving on to the next video.

She supplemented her CPS training with resources and workshops from community organizations. Now, Snow works to empower other parents so they can have a voice on their LSCs. She is the lead parent organizer with Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

The mother of seven, Snow has been entrenched in public education since her eldest son, now 31, first attended school. In fact, it was when her son was accepted into a school on the North Side that Snow was able to compare his experience there to the schools her other children attended on the South Side.

The biggest difference?

“Resources,” she said. “We’re not fighting the same battles. The resources that are in those schools, we don’t have in our schools.”

In her experience, Snow said parents are angry about the lack of resources and come into the schools shouting about it. She sees it as her job to give them a more effective way to get things done.

“You’re not getting results that way. So now let’s fight a different way for what we need in the school,” she said. “You hit them with policies. You hit them with facts.”

Snow has concentrated her efforts specifically on the South Side where she grew up and where most of her children have attended public schools.

In her work as a CPS-certified LSC trainer, she hopes she can not only encourage more South Side parents to run for LSC seats, but help make sure they are informed and therefore empowered to help improve their schools – one parent at a time, one school at a time.

“Know your power. Know that this is for your kids,” Snow said. “You have to fight for your kids. Just be there. Just show up. It’s a couple hours out of the month. Just show up. That time is worth it for public education.”

Educating fellow parents, ousting a principal

Vanessa Espinoza is former LSC member at Orozco Community Academy in Pilsen.

Vanessa Espinoza has been volunteering in Chicago Public Schools since before she had kids.

When she became a mother and began making friends with other parents, it opened her eyes to some of the inequities and challenges in CPS. Espinoza, who is bilingual, became particularly interested in supporting English language learners as well as students with IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs, to help students with special needs.

She soon joined the LSC at Orozco where her kids were enrolled and was surprised that few of the parent representatives understood the documents and policies they were supposed to be making decisions about.

“Why are you expecting the parents to approve something that they don’t understand totally?” she said. “You gave them the power just to say yes and no, but not do anything else.”

The trainings offered by CPS to parent representatives, she said, were superficial. For example, they teach the names of the budget lines, but not that each budget line can only be used for certain purchases.

“None of that was taught to the parents who were going to make this decision on the budget” she said.

However, Espinoza’s background as a support worker at another school gave her a leg up in this area. And her knowledge of finances turned out to be particularly important on Orozco’s LSC in 2014.

Because she knew how to read the budget, Espinoza soon discovered that the principal at the time was transferring large sums of money between budget lines, something that required approval from the LSC.

So she asked to see all of the reports on the budget and the school’s internal accounts. The principal refused and Espinoza requested an audit. The LSC tried to work with her, Espinoza said, but the principal was not amenable.

“This money’s for the kids. You don’t want to tell us where the money is and how you’re going to use it, then that’s it,” she said. " So we requested her removal.”

The council voted unanimously to remove Principal Nancy Paulette-Aguirre in November 2014.

But it wasn’t an entirely popular decision.

Most of the teachers at the school supported the decision, raising issues about turnover among other things and other LSC members said Paulette-Aguirre refused to work with the council, but non-LSC parents were split. On the day of the vote, 12 parents protested outside the school. Paulette-Aguirre was later removed from a second school in 2019.

“Even though the parents have the power to make significant changes, you have to be able to educate the parents with the information needed to make educated decisions, and [CPS] is not. In my opinion, they’re not.” said Espinoza.

She worries that these same issues might bleed over into the newly elected school board but is still hopeful that parents will gain some of the 10 elected seats this year.

“To have an elected school board that is going to be successful you have to have parents involved,” she said. “They know what their kids need.”

Espinoza’s children have graduated out of CPS, but Espinoza remains an advocate for education and serves as the bilingual communication specialist with Kids First Chicago and as the president and co-founder of Amigos de Gunsaulus, a parent-led non-profit that supports Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy in Brighton Park, where one of her children graduated.

Despite her challenging experience on Orozco’s LSC, she’s hopeful things can change as long as LSCs are filled with people who put the kids first.

“To be honest with you, it’s a lot of responsibilities, and it’s not well rewarded in a sense, not a monetary reward. Sometimes you get enemies,” but, she said, “If in your mind and your heart is the best for the kids’ education, I think you should run.”

Chicago charter school advocates urge Mayor Brandon Johnson to back school choice

2024-01-18T04:31:09+00:00

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Charter school advocates delivered 2,000 letters to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office on Wednesday, urging the mayor to keep school choice alive, after his hand-picked school board signaled they may try to shift more resources toward neighborhood public schools.

Charter proponents are concerned about the future of their schools under a new mayor who campaigned on a pledge to boost neighborhood public schools — just as dozens of charters are up for renewal and a city moratorium on closing schools ends next year.

For roughly two decades, Chicago Public Schools has operated a system in which families can apply to myriad charter, magnet, test-in, or other district-run schools.

Having options for school was critical, said Myisha Shields, a parent of three former charter school students, during a news conference Wednesday at City Hall.

“My five babies, my Black babies — they’re gonna go where I choose for them to go, because that’s the choice that I was given,” she said. “I really don’t need Mayor Johnson’s help in choosing anything for my children.”

Shields, who lives near Marquette Park on Chicago’s South Side, said she has three children who attended charter schools and are now all pursuing nursing degrees.

She credits Noble Schools for the success of her eldest, who pushed through “severe learning disabilities” to get straight A’s at Alabama A&M University, where she’s a senior. Shields said her other two daughters are in their freshman and sophomore years at the University of Illinois Chicago. Shields said her kids wouldn’t have had the success they’ve enjoyed if they’d gone to traditional public schools.

“Her self esteem at one point was so low, but now it’s as big as City Hall,” she said of her eldest.

Myisha Shields, far right, delivers thousands of letters to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's office from parents, administrators, and alumni in support of school choice programs on Wednesday.

Noble Schools is one of 47 charters up for renewal during the 2023-24 school year. More than half of Chicago’s roughly 51,000 charter school students are enrolled at one of Noble’s 17 campuses across the city.

“We are calling for Mayor Brandon Johnson and his CPS board to demand a fair charter renewal term that protects school choice,” Shields said “If charters are not treated fairly, please believe: We will be at your door every day. This is not the last time you’ll see this face.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the mayor said: “The Johnson administration believes in investing in neighborhood schools so that all of Chicago’s families have the choice to send their children to fully-funded, well-resourced, and celebrated schools in their community. As a former public school teacher, Mayor Johnson knows first-hand the harm that sustained disinvestment has on Chicago’s communities and youth. Furthermore, as the father of three CPS students, the Mayor is personally invested in ensuring the success of Chicago’s public school system.”

During the renewal process, district officials scrutinize charter schools’ academic performance, financial practices, and compliance with other standards. Chicago Board of Education members vote on the final renewal terms.

CPS spokeswoman Sylvia Barragan said in a statement that district leadership and the Chicago Board of Education “do not make charter renewal or revocation decisions lightly.”

The board voted last month on a resolution to move away from school choice and ensure “fully-resourced neighborhood schools, prioritizing schools and communities most harmed by structural racism, past inequitable policies and disinvestment,” according to the resolution.

It was the first time the board formally stated it wants to move away from its embrace of selective admissions and enrollment policies, because it “reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity,” according to the resolution.

In response to worried charter and school choice advocates, Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi said during an Agenda Review Committee meeting on Wednesday that the resolution “is, again, about prioritizing neighborhood schools, creating pathways from K-12 and (helping) schools and neighborhoods farthest from opportunity, so that we are not sorting our children and favoring those with more means.”

He added that it’s “not directing us to close selective enrollment schools.”

Even before Johnson took office, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration started a trend of shorter charter renewal periods. Johnson, a former educator and organizer for the teachers union, historically opposed charter expansion and said during the mayoral election runoff campaign that charter school expansion “forces competition for resources and ultimately harms all schools.” But he also has said he does not oppose charter schools.

This story was updated after publication to include a comment from the Chicago mayor’s office.

Three things to know about the Chicago Board of Education’s resolution on school choice

2024-01-03T12:00:00+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education made waves last month when officials revealed a vision to move away from its school choice system and boost neighborhood schools.

The declaration, included in a resolution the board passed in December, lays out priorities for the district’s five-year strategic plan, which will be finalized this summer. Any resulting changes will depend on feedback from the community, board members said.

But the board’s new vision immediately sparked misinformation. Here are three things to know about the board’s resolution.

Will schools close?

No. Not yet, at least.

The resolution does not say anything about closing schools. State law put a moratorium on school closures in Chicago until Jan. 15, 2025, the same day a new 21-member, partially-elected school is set to be sworn in. The current seven-member school board, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, would not be able to close schools of any type – charters, magnets, or neighborhood schools – until that time.

School board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland did indicate the board is scrutinizing charter school performance through the usual renewal process and questioned whether poor-performing operators should “continue to exist.”

But even a recent board decision to revoke a charter agreement with Urban Prep did not ultimately mean those schools closed. First, the district proposed operating the two campuses as district-run schools. But after a court order, the board extended Urban Prep’s charter until June 2024.

Will I have to go to my neighborhood school?

No. The resolution does not say anything about requiring families to attend their neighborhood schools.

The closest it comes to addressing enrollment policies is a bullet point about a “reimagined vision” that includes a “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”

Any school-aged child living in Chicago is guaranteed a spot at their zoned neighborhood school. Additionally, board policy amended as recently as last summer, allows families to apply to a myriad of selective, magnet, charter, or other speciality programs that admit students from across the city. Some schools require a test for admission, while others are a straight lottery.

These policies have not changed, but could after community feedback sessions.

“There likely will be policies that need to be revised and changed,” Todd-Breland said. “The admissions and enrollment policy is on the table.”

Data shows half of elementary school students attend their zoned neighborhood school and only a quarter of high school students do. These numbers shifted over the course of the past 20 years, when roughly 75% of elementary school students went to their local school and half of high schoolers did.

What do parents and students think?

It varies greatly.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked readers for their thoughts on school choice and got nearly 80 responses from families across the city about how they’ve navigated the system. Five families shared more about how — and why — they chose their schools.

The wide range of responses could be a bellwether for the kind of debate or disagreement that could emerge during community feedback sessions.

The Board of Education was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to create socioeconomically diverse schools. The district said it plans to use the money to engage the community on how to draw more families into neighborhood schools. Their application included a goal to reduce the percentage of families attending a school outside of their regions by at least 3%. The district did not answer questions to clarify their definition of region or why 3% was their goal.

The district is already collecting feedback on the next five-year strategic plan through an online survey and community meetings for the next Educational Facilities Master Plan. Officials have said they will host in-person and online meetings in February to gather feedback on the strategic plan.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

How do families use Chicago’s vast school choice system? Five people tell us their stories.

2023-12-20T22:53:13+00:00

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One mother in West Pullman on Chicago’s South Side sends her daughter to a charter school even though there are two neighborhood schools down the street.

Up in Albany Park, a mother is for the first time confident in her daughter’s neighborhood school after two decades of sending her older children to magnet and test-in programs.

A high school student attends one of the district’s most coveted high schools — but wants the city to undo the system she used to get there.

There’s a lot that goes into how families choose a school in Chicago.

Last week, the city’s school board made waves by announcing they want to move away from that system of choice and build up neighborhood schools, especially in areas that have lacked investment from the city. The board passed a resolution last week stating its intent, but does not call to close any schools or change specific admissions policies.

Originally established to help desegregate schools, the system has recently earned a reputation for stressing out students, who are competing for seats at a limited number of sought-after schools, many of which are segregated by race and income.

Despite that, students have increasingly chosen schools they’re not zoned for. Last school year, 56% of students attended their zoned neighborhood school, or roughly 20 percentage points fewer than in the 2002-03 school year. A quarter of students attended their zoned high school last year, compared to 46% 20 years ago.

The district also won a federal grant in October that they will use to collect community feedback on how they can make neighborhood schools more attractive. In the grant application, Chicago Public Schools said its goal was to reduce the percentage of families attending school outside of their regions by 3%. The district did not answer questions to clarify their definition of region or why 3% was their goal.

How much the district will try to change the city’s school choice system will depend on feedback from the community, board members said. Already, a mix of reactions have emerged. Some community groups praised the board’s support of neighborhood schools. But former CPS CEO Janice Jackson wrote in an op-ed to the Chicago Sun-Times that moving away from school choice would ultimately hurt Black and Hispanic children.

“Trying to do anything in a district that large is going to take a long time if you’re going to do it right,” said Jack Schneider, a professor at University of Massachusetts at Amherst who studies education policy. “It’s going to turn quite slowly and particularly so if your effort is rooted in engaging communities and really listening to them and trying to respond to what you’re hearing.”

Chalkbeat asked readers for their thoughts on school choice and got nearly 80 responses from families across the city about how they’ve navigated the system. We spoke to some of those families to understand how — and why — they chose their schools.

From left to right: Tiffany Harvey walks her dog, Mila, alongside her daughters Isabel Harvey, 21, and Amalia Harvey, 10, as they walk to Haugan Elementary School in Chicago on Dec. 18, 2023. Amalia is a fourth grader at Haugan Elementary School.

Preschool sells mom of four on neighborhood school

About 20 years ago, when Tiffany Harvey was deciding where to send her firstborn to school, she kept hearing that aside from some gifted and magnet programs, Chicago’s schools were “terrible.”

Harvey applied to magnet schools and had her son tested for gifted programs. She also toured a kindergarten classroom at the neighborhood school, Haugan Elementary, a couple blocks away from their Albany Park home. But at the time, Haugan didn’t have before- or after-care programs to accommodate her work schedule, while magnet and gifted programs came with busing. And Haugan’s test scores seemed low to her, she said.

“I honestly felt like I was a bad parent if I didn’t explore all the options and find the best option,” she said.

Over the next two decades, Harvey would send her first three children to magnet, gifted and selective enrollment schools outside their neighborhood.

A few years ago, that changed.

In search of preschool for her fourth child, Harvey applied for the district’s full-day pre-K program and saw that Haugan had seats. She didn’t want to pay for preschool again, and after so many years in Albany Park, she wanted to invest in her neighborhood school as someone who was better-off than some of her neighbors. Her daughter got a seat at Haugan, where 89% of students come from low-income families.

Some research shows public pre-K programs can “attract a more integrated group of families” to schools, while some districts notice families flee after preschool, said Halley Potter, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, who has studied school segregation.

Harvey, who had low expectations, found Haugan was “phenomenal,” she said. Her daughter’s teacher was creative and kind. There was a good combination of play-based learning and introduction to academics. Her daughter was meeting kids from all kinds of families. The next year, she enrolled her daughter in a nearby lottery dual-language program, but they missed Haugan. Her daughter returned for second grade and is now in fourth grade.

“We never looked back,” Harvey said.

Harvey supports families having the ability to choose a school for their child. However, she wishes more parents would realize that schools can’t be measured by test scores alone, and more-advantaged children, like hers, can flourish alongside peers who are different from them. It’s also easier for parents to get involved at schools that are nearby, she said.

As district leaders consider how to invigorate neighborhood schools, they should add more services, such as pre-K programs or after care, as ways to draw in more families, she said.

“I don’t know what the right balance is,” Harvey said. “I do want our neighborhood schools to be celebrated and promoted and have the resources they need, where parents don’t feel like they have to drive across town to find a better option.”

A mom who chose a charter school

Charity Parker lives a couple of blocks away from two neighborhood schools in West Pullman. But her daughter, Aikira, attends a Chicago International Charter Schools, or CICS, campus that’s a roughly 15-minute walk from their home.

Parker, who attended Catholic and charter schools growing up in Chicago, said the neighborhood schools close to her — Curtis and Haley — are “poorly funded” and don’t have good test scores. At both neighborhood schools and Aikira’s charter school, more than 90% of students are from low-income families. But CICS is designated as “commendable” by the state, the second- highest designation out of five. Haley and Curtis have lower designations.

Charity Parker, left, and her daughter Aikira Parker, 8, right, smile as they pose for a portrait together outside of CICS Prairie Chicago International Charter School, where Aikira is a second grader, in Chicago on Dec. 18, 2023.

Aikira is learning more advanced topics than other neighborhood kids Parker knows, she said. She placed fifth in the school’s science fair for a solar panel project, Parker noted.

“An 8-year-old doing engineering work — I’m not getting that at my local CPS school,” she said.

Another selling point for Parker, who is Black, is that about one-third of Aikira’s peers are Hispanic, so she’s exposed “to another culture besides her own.” At Curtis and Haley, more than 90% of students are Black, which is common in Chicago’s segregated neighborhoods.

Parker said all parents should have the right to choose where their children go to school, and the district should never mandate attending neighborhood schools. While Parker loves some things about CICS, she has some issues with the school.

Aikira “loved” kindergarten at CICS, but the next year, Parker had some disagreements with Aikira’s first -grade teacher over coursework. This year, Parker has some concerns about behavior issues in Aikira’s classroom and has considered transferring her out.

But other charters are far away, and she doesn’t have a car. Private school is too expensive.

So, she’ll stay at CICS, she said.

“I’ll admit there are some things about my daughter’s school that rub me the wrong way, but the education is awesome,” Parker said.

Dad sought out selective schools for his son

Since kindergarten, Clyde Smith’s son, Kadin, has exclusively attended selective public schools located 5 to 6 miles south of their Bronzeville home.

Kadin tested into McDade Classical School, a selective enrollment elementary school in Chatham. Then, he tested again in sixth grade and got a seat at an accelerated middle school program located inside Lindblom Math and Science Academy, a selective enrollment high school in West Englewood. Kadin, 16, is now a sophomore at Lindblom.

The stressful nature of admissions never felt “unhealthy,” Smith said. His son has always been surrounded by peers who aimed for similar programs, so he was used to the competition.

“It’s always been in the air,” Smith said. “It’s almost like asking a fish, ‘How’s the water?’”

Kadin Smith, left, stands with his father, Clyde Smith, at their Bronzeville home.

A simpler option might have been to attend his neighborhood school where he’s guaranteed a seat: Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts. District officials closed Dyett in 2015, but the school was revived in 2016 after protests and a hunger strike that Mayor Brandon Johnson participated in as an activist.

The district hosted a press conference in October at Dyett about the school’s rising graduation rates, and officials noted that the school’s 86% graduation rate had surpassed the citywide average.

Smith said he “understood the activism” that brought back Dyett, but it wasn’t enough to win him over.

“The test scores, the classes offered, the colleges they get accepted into overall, to me, doesn’t lay proof that that’s the strongest academic environment like some of these selective enrollment schools are,” Smith said.

Smith complimented the district’s desire to boost neighborhood schools, adding that segregation and “racial inequities” have left many schools under-resourced. Neighborhood schools need “strong teachers,” challenging courses, and more internship opportunities, he said.

Paul Hill, an architect of the idea that districts should create a mix of school options for parents, said the district could risk driving away parents like Smith.

“If the district is really serious about working hard on the neighborhood schools and trying to figure out what would keep people in them… that’s responsible,” said Hill, the founder of the Center for Reinventing Public Education. “On the other hand, if they really attack the schools of choice that probably will drive down enrollment.”

Smith agrees. After all, if Kadin didn’t get into a selective enrollment high school, he and his wife would have sent him to private school.

Mom is daunted by high school admissions

Laura Irons loves Logan Square and their neighborhood school, where her 7-year-old daughter is in first grade. But the thought of choosing a high school is so daunting, the family is considering leaving Chicago by the time their daughter finishes eighth grade.

Irons’ daughter passed up a seat at a magnet school to attend her zoned school, Brentano Math and Science Academy, because the family liked walking to school and didn’t want their daughter to lose friends.

“Being nearby the school, I think, has tremendous social-emotional benefits,” Irons said.

For the future, her family would consider the neighborhood high school. But other parents tell Irons it’s dangerous, with lots of fights and nearby shootings. Irons doesn’t know whether to believe them.

Laura Irons, far right, poses for a photo with her husband and two children at the Logan Square Blue Line stop.

Irons worries about the impact of the competitive application process on her daughter. Through friends and community Facebook groups, Irons hears about kids being “so tremendously stressed out” by the application process. She hates that some schools are considered good or bad without any clarity about why.

“I don’t like [the idea of] making such a big decision at such a young age,” Irons said. “It feels like the college process, which is hard already in itself.”

Even though Irons and her husband love city life, they’re leaning toward leaving unless there is more clarity and transparency around how the choice system works, she said. And she doesn’t know where to find accurate information.

“I do value choice in certain situations so I’m not anti-choice,” Irons said. “I think the system that we have, though — to sound so cliche — it’s just a broken, very opaque system. I wonder if kids would even be stressed if the parents weren’t so stressed.”

Selective enrollment student sees problems with the system

One of Tess Lacy’s earliest memories of discussing school choice was in fourth grade. Her physical education teacher told her class, “I want you to go to good high schools,” Tess recalled.

Comments like that were common throughout Tess’s elementary and middle school years. Teachers talked often about applying to sought-after high schools. Many of her friends felt they’d fail their parents if they didn’t get into those schools. While her own parents didn’t care where she went, the stress around Tess conditioned her to focus on selective enrollment schools, she said.

Tess Lacy poses for a portrait in front of George B. Swift Elementary School, which she used to attend, in Chicago on Dec. 18, 2023. Lacy is currently a sophomore at Jones College Prep.

She took the High School Admissions Test and got into her top-ranking: Jones College Prep in the South Loop.

Now, three years later, Tess wants to see the selective enrollment system abolished.

Selective enrollment schools tend to have more resources, not just from the district, but also from families who can fundraise, sometimes millions of dollars, Tess noted.

“If you intentionally, institutionally, structurally create schools that have more resources, parents with more resources will send their kids there,” Tess said. “I feel like a lot of people are able to realize that’s not normal, but there’s a lot of people who would rather forget about the tens of thousands of students who don’t have that privilege.”

Tess doesn’t regret attending Jones, where she finally feels accepted as a transgender young woman and has made friends from all over the city. She enjoys doing technical work for the school’s drama department.

But her decision to attend Jones now feels like it was influenced by everyone around her. She regrets not ranking Edgewater’s Senn High School higher. Senn was not her zoned high school, but is a neighborhood school closer to home that has a good arts program — one of Tess’s interests.

She would encourage eighth grade students to “really, truly think about what they as a student want.”

“Now I look back, and I see how my decision was so not my own decision,” Tess said.

Correction: This story orignally stated that McDade Classical School was a gifted program. McDade is another type of selective enrollment elementary school in Chicago.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s transition to elected school board up in the air as disagreements remain among state lawmakers

2023-11-10T01:30:46+00:00

How Chicago school board members will be elected one year from now is still in limbo after Illinois lawmakers couldn’t agree on the details of the transition this week.

But lawmakers in both chambers appeared to agree on the third draft of an electoral map dividing Chicago into 20 districts. That map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white.

However, they could not agree before adjourning their fall veto session on how elections would happen in 2024 and 2026 in order to transition to a fully-elected school board.

The state legislature is scheduled to meet again in mid-January.

According to a 2021 law — and its subsequent trailer bill — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor would appoint a school board president and 10 members from those same districts. In November 2026, the appointed seats would be elected and a school board president would be chosen by all Chicago voters.

By January 2027, Chicago will have a 21-member fully-elected school board. The shift comes after three decades of mayoral control over Chicago Public Schools.

Lawmakers were supposed to divide the city into electoral districts by July 1, 2023, but gave themselves an extension in May to get the maps drawn by April 1, 2024. Many lawmakers and advocates hoped to define the map and how school board elections would roll out during this week’s veto session.

“By Senate standards, we are years ahead of schedule by being months ahead of schedule,” said Senate President Don Harmon, before the chamber voted 38-12 to approve a plan he put forward earlier this week to have all 20 districts vote right away, leaving only the board president up for mayoral appointment.

Under that plan, Mayor Brandon Johnson would lose the power to appoint 10 members and keep control via a hybrid Board of Education with 11 mayoral appointees.

“I am very hopeful that when all is said and done, this will be the law in Illinois, and we will have a fully elected school board after November of 2024,” Harmon said.

But lawmakers in the House passed a different proposal that would more closely aligns with the current law. It would pair up the 20 districts and result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would be appointed by the mayor in 2024 and elected at-large in 2026.

“This has been a decade-long project, and is the product of years of advocacy and quite literally years of negotiation discussion with stakeholders, community members, leadership, elected officials, so it’s not surprising that it’s not an easy thing to implement,” said State Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group.

Williams said Harmon’s proposal to go to a fully-elected board and eliminate the hybrid period when the mayor would still maintain control by appointing 11 of 21 members was a surprise Wednesday.

“Opening up the bill again with only a day or so left in the veto session was a difficult prospect and created a lot of complications in the conversation,” Williams said. “I don’t think it’s something we could have done in just one day.”

Johnson said he was “very much committed” to the bill that passed in 2021 that would allow him to appoint half the school board in 2024. He also noted there are financial entanglements between the city and CPS that need to be “worked through.”

“This is going to be a tremendous adjustment for the people of Chicago and adjusting in a way that provides confidence in a new body of government is something that we have to take into real serious consideration,” Johnson said. “What we don’t want is to set individuals up with expectations that cannot be met.”

Harmon said Wednesday he would not call the House version for a vote in the Senate because it had “woefully inadequate ethical provisions” and “opens the door for corruption” by exempting future Chicago school board members from state law governing conflicts of interest for public officials, including school board members, throughout the rest of the state. The House, however, passed a bill Thursday afternoon agreeing to the Senate’s ethics provisions.

Senate Democrats initially proposed having voters in only 10 of 20 districts cast a ballot for a school board representative in 2024. That was met with criticism from advocates who said it would disenfranchise half of the city by making them wait until 2026 to have a say in who is elected to the school board.

In a statement Wednesday night, the Chicago Teachers Union said Harmon’s proposed changes could “delay and deny the democracy Chicago so desperately needs and deserves.” The union has been fighting for an elected school board in Chicago since 2013 and supports the House version.

Hal Woods, chief of policy for Kids First Chicago, said waiting until January or the April 1 deadline to finalize the details of school board elections will leave potential candidates less time to run and voters less time to decide on who to support.

Corrina Demma, an organizer for the nonprofit Educators for Excellence-Chicago, echoed those concerns.

“It gives us so little time to learn anything about these candidates, and get to know them,” Demma said.

“We’re on a budget cliff with the COVID funds running out,” she added. “There’s a lot of big decisions that are gonna have to be made that will affect all Chicago’s children and families. And who’s going to be making those decisions? How do we know if they’re gonna be qualified, if they have any lived experience, and can make choices that are best for the communities that they’re a part of?”

Demma said she wished lawmakers had also taken up the issue of compensating board members. State law currently prohibits school board members from being paid.

Lawmakers did also appear to agree on requiring the Chicago Board of Education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee that would focus on improving academic achievement for Black students.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Who will vote in Chicago’s first school board elections in 2024? Lawmakers are trying to decide.

2023-11-08T00:39:39+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are debating competing proposals that would allow all Chicago voters to cast a ballot in the city’s first school board elections in 2024.

A new proposal put forward by House Democrats pairs up the 20 districts the city is currently divided into under a third draft map released last week.

That plan, filed by Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, would result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would also be appointed by the mayor.

Meanwhile, following a Senate executive committee meeting, Senate President Don Harmon put forward a plan to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 and let the mayor appoint only the school board president. That came shortly after a senate committee passed an amendment that suggested only 10 of 20 districts vote in 2024.

Harmon said creating an elected school board for Chicago has been “a long journey.”

“Hopefully, we are in the closing chapter in Springfield,” he said.

According to state law passed in 2021, Chicago will move from having a seven-member school board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member elected school board by 2027.

But the transition from an appointed board to a hybrid one to one that’s fully-elected has puzzled lawmakers tasked with dividing the city into electoral districts.

According to the law — and its subsequent trailer bill passed in 2021 — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor is to appoint 10 members from those same districts and a school board president at-large. In November 2026, the appointed members would then switch to being elected, including the school board president who would be elected at-large.

By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected. Going forward, elections will be staggered, with half the board up for election every two years.

The senate’s previous proposal to assign each district a number and only have people living in odd-numbered districts vote in 2024 was met with criticism by advocates who spoke during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

Kurt Hilgendorf, special assistant to Chicago Teachers Union’s president Stacy Davis-Gates, said that while the senate’s plan proposes a more representative map and addresses concerns around candidate eligibility and ethics, the union has decided not to take a position because of the proposal to only allow roughly half of the city to vote in 2024.

“That creates a disenfranchisement lawsuit risk and that we think that maximum participation should be done in the first election,” said Hilgendorf. “We think that all the voters in the city of Chicago should have the right to vote in that first year election.”

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, expressed the same concerns as Hilgendorf and suggested all 20 districts vote immediately.

“All districts should be up for election with half the terms being two-year terms and the other half being four years and that would create your stagger,” Leonard said.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Harmon said having only 10 districts vote was the “Achilles’ heel” of the proposal Senate Democrats put forward late last week.

Shortly after the meeting ended, Harmon filed the amendment that would have residents in all 20 districts vote. Members elected in odd-numbered districts would serve four-year terms and members elected in even-numbered districts would serve two-year terms. The mayor would only appoint the school board president and in 2026, that position would be elected at-large by all Chicago voters.

If the House passes its new proposal to pair districts, it would need Senate approval. Similarly, the Senate’s proposal to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 would need House approval. Lawmakers are scheduled to be in session until Thursday.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers propose having half of Chicago voters select school board members in 2024

2023-11-03T23:45:00+00:00

Roughly half of Chicago voters would get to elect school board members in 2024 and the other half would vote in 2026, according to new language proposed by state lawmakers late Friday.

Earlier this week, legislators released a new draft map that divides the city into 20 districts. Each district has roughly 137,000 people in it. The new proposal assigns each district a number and says odd-numbered districts would vote in 2024. The state legislature could vote on the proposal during next week’s veto session.

In addition to outlining how Chicagoans would vote in the 2024 and 2026 election, the proposal includes ethics requirements for elected members and a conflict of interest provision that falls in line with state law.

The proposal also calls for the board of education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee to address the needs of Black students throughout the district and create a strategic plan to close the gap in academic achievement between Black students and their peers.

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, has pushed during public hearings for the Senate’s committee on the elected school board to create a Black Student Achievement Committee.

According to state law passed in 2021, 10 members of the school board are to be elected and 10 are to be appointed by the mayor in 2024. The mayor will also appoint a school board president. In 2026, the districts with appointed members will vote and the entire city will vote for a school board president.

People interested in running for Chicago’s Board of Education must collect 250 signatures from their districts and can begin circulating petitions on March 26, 2024. To get on the ballot, petitions must be filed by June 24, 2024.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers release third draft map for Chicago elected school board

2023-11-01T22:00:04+00:00

As trick-or-treating got underway Tuesday night, Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected Board of Education.

It’s their third attempt at drawing districts future school board members will represent.

The new map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts — one representing Rogers Park on the North Side and the other representing Portage Park and Old Irving Park on the North West side — are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

Chicago’s Board of Education holds significant power over public schools. School board members approve the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determine how schools are measured and held accountable, authorize contracts with third parties to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

The board has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. After former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools in 2013, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union began fighting for an elected school board.

Valerie Leonard, with the Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said under mayoral control, school board members were perceived to be not connected to the community.

“People felt — and I was one of them — like they were out of touch with what the community wanted, and they were only responsive to what the mayor wanted,” Leonard said. “It matters to have someone [on the school board] from your community who understands what people in your community are experiencing.”

After many years of advocacy and lobbying, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in 2021 to create a 21-member elected school board with phased-in elections.

Under state law, Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members from 10 districts in November 2024. The mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, and will also appoint a school board president. A 21-member hybrid board will be sworn in January 2025.

Then in November 2026, the 10 appointed members and school board president will be up for election, while the 10 elected in 2024 will continue serving their four-year terms. Going forward, all members will serve four-year terms and elections will be staggered, with half of the seats up for election every two years.

However, the law does not spell out how the map will move from 10 to 20 districts. Lawmakers continue to draw a map with 20 districts and have not made clear how they plan to divide the city into 10 districts for the 2024 election.

Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat representing the North West side of Chicago and west suburbs, said that figuring out how to create 10 districts for the 2024 elections and 20 districts for the 2026 elections has been difficult for legislators.

“The original idea was that we would draw ten districts and then after the election we would split them into 20 districts,” Martwick said. “Another variation on that would be to draw 20 districts and combine them for the purposes of the first election. The idea there was that everyone in the city of Chicago would get to pass a vote on this new elected school board.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats working on drawing school board districts, said the transition from 10 districts to 20 is “still under discussion,” but the goal is to vote on a map during next week’s veto session.

“At some point we have to get a map so that people can start looking at the districts and prepare to run for office,” Williams said.

“No map is ever going to be perfect. No map is ever going to make every single person happy,” she added. “But we really truly felt like this is the product that most incorporated the feedback that we got from the communities during all those hearings.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has been a longtime supporter of an elected school board. But when asked through a spokesperson Wednesday if he supported the latest draft or would weigh in on how school board districts are drawn, the spokesperson wrote back: No comment.

Lawmakers were supposed to draw a map of Chicago school board districts by July 1, 2023, but extended the deadline to April 1, 2024 after pushback from the public for not drawing districts that would be reflective of student enrollment.

That’s a difficult task in a city whose population does not mirror the public school enrollment. Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, 29% Black, and 7% Asian, but the school district’s student population is 47% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

School board seats are non-partisan so there will be no primary. According to the Chicago Board of Elections calendar, the first day candidates running for nonpartisan school board seats can circulate nominating petitions is March 26, 2024. They must collect 250 signatures from voters in their districts by June 24, 2024, in order to be on the ballot.

Last week, Martwick and state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat, put forward a proposal that would also allow school board members to be compensated.

Mixed reactions to new draft map roll in

Legislators held two public hearings last month to gather additional feedback on their proposed school board districts. On Wednesday, several of the groups who have repeatedly testified and submitted public comment on previous maps reacted to the latest iteration.

Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit education advocacy organization that supports Black and Latino families and has an Elected School Board Task Force, called the latest proposal “more trick than treat.” The group took lawmakers to task for dropping a new draft map on Halloween when “most Chicago families were out celebrating with their children.”

Hal Woods, director of policy for Kids First Chicago, said the map continues to give white Chicagoans “substantial voting power” over a school district that serves just over 10% white students. He said parents see “more work that could be done.”

“Even with redlining, even with segregation, even with discriminatory housing policies that have forced many Chicago neighborhoods to be segregated … we have put forward prototypes that even with those historical inequities still adhere to all relevant election law,” Woods said.

A group of parents and data advocates called The FOIA Bakery released an analysis of the third draft map that looks at the proposed districts through the lens of the 2023 municipal election results. They say only seven districts in the new draft map would have elected a “minority-preferred candidate.”

But others say the new draft districts are much better than previous versions.

Jeff Fielder, executive director of the Chicago Republican Party, previously raised concerns about gerrymandering and argued for an independent commission to draw the maps. He said the third draft is better than the previous two because it has less gerrymandering.

“I’m sure there’s going to be lawsuits as it is but of their efforts, this is probably the best one,” Fielder said.

Cassie Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, said she’s mostly concerned about not having a map solidified yet.

“The shorter the time between a final map and next year’s election, the worse it is for genuinely grassroots candidates who are trying to decide whether or not to run and then mustering the resources to do so,” Creswell said.

Political consultant Eli Brottman said the new map is “1,000 times better” and called six solid Latino districts a “huge win for our schools and our kids.” He said it took him multiple attempts to draw a map that would have six Latino majority districts.

Brottman said he suspects the lawmakers’ latest draft map has a “significant chance” of passing next week. Whenever that happens, he encourages people to get up to speed on what district they live in and who is running.

“Whoever we elect in these first couple rounds, helps to set a precedent for the future,” Brottman said.

Leonard, whose group Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting put out a 10-district map that tries to align school board districts with City Council wards, said lawmakers are getting closer with this latest iteration. But they need to figure out how their 20 districts become 10 for the 2024 elections, she said.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence Chicago that supports the map Leonard’s group proposed, raised concerns that lawmakers could propose residents in only 10 of the 20 districts would vote in 2024, meaning “only half of Chicago will have the privilege to vote … while the other half will lack a voice.”

“We need Illinois lawmakers to get the maps right, for the sake of the 323,000 students that are depending on it,” Demma said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago charter schools face potential crossroads with new mayor, dozens of renewals

2023-11-01T12:00:00+00:00

“What happens if our school isn’t renewed?”

Claudia Rodriguez read aloud that question, which was submitted from an audience of more than 100 parents gathered inside Noble School’s UIC College Prep’s gymnasium in mid-October.

Rodriguez, the chief of public affairs at Noble Schools, answered confidently: Non-renewal isn’t really something we’re worried about.

Noble opened one of the first charter schools in Chicago in 1999, when the concept of privately managed public charter schools was brand new. Since then, Noble has expanded to 17 campuses, and the Chicago Board of Education has renewed Noble’s charter agreement four times.

Noble is one of a record 47 charter schools up for renewal in the 2023-24 school year. In all, about 27,600 students are enrolled at these campuses — more than half of the roughly 51,000 students enrolled in charters this year.

The high-stakes renewal process, which scrutinizes charter schools’ academic performance, financial practices, and operational compliance among other factors, comes at a pivotal time, as Chicago’s political landscape is shifting under a new mayor and looming school board elections. Charter communities wonder what it could all mean for their schools.

There’s been a trend toward shorter charter renewals that began under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. In January 2020, the school board renewed seven charter operators for terms of five or more years. But in the years since, only two have received a renewal of five or more years, according to Chicago Board of Education records.

Lightfoot’s successor, Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former educator and organizer for the teachers union, has historically opposed charter expansion. During the mayoral election run-off, Johnson said that charter school expansion “forces competition for resources and ultimately harms all schools.”

But he has also stressed he does not oppose charter schools — and he is strongly against closing schools, which is what could happen if a charter is not renewed. There’s also a state-imposed moratorium on school closings in Chicago until 2025. The mayor’s office did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment.

An important limit on charter schools’ footprint is already in place for the next several months. In the 2019 contract agreement between Lightoot’s administration and the CTU, the district extended an agreement from 2016 to have a net zero increase in the number of charter schools until the contract expires in June 2024.

Johnson’s recently appointed school board will manage the charter renewal process alongside the CPS Office of Incubation and Innovation. Board President Jianan Shi is a former teacher who has taught at a district-run school in Chicago and a charter school in Boston. Before joining the board, he served as executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, which has previously gotten funding from the Chicago Teachers Union Foundation.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates believes the way the district handles charters altogether needs to change significantly. She wants more oversight of budgeting at charters and more-equitable engagement of parents and staff.

“The renewal process has to reflect the realities that we’re dealing with. There has been financial mismanagement, there is bloated administrative pay, there is a blind eye to culturally relevant curriculum and practices within the school community,” she said. “Now what do we do about it?”

In a statement, a district spokesperson said CPS is “committed to working with charter leaders and listening to members of our school communities to ensure we make the best possible decisions for our students.”

Nevertheless, charter school administrators, teachers, and parents are keeping a close eye on this year’s renewal process for a hint of what the future holds for the charter sector.

“I think renewal is very important in January,” said Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. “I think that will be a first signal from this board about what they think about charter public schools.”

The ‘renewal hamster wheel’ can impact classrooms

During the renewal process last school year, 11 of 13 charters up for renewal were granted terms lasting three years or less. In 2022, six of the seven charters up for renewal were given terms of three years or less.

Parents and staff in charter school communities have different views about what the renewal process can mean for charters.

Although Noble staff are confident about their renewal, Rodriguez said the possibility they and other charters might get a shorter contract is a concern.

“From a staffing point, it takes a lot of energy,” she said. “From our parents’ [perspective], the uncertainty and instability that that could cause if we’re always thinking in renewal mode.”

Claudia Rodriguez, left, the chief of public affairs for Noble Schools, is in charge of running the renewal process for the charter school network this year.

The heavy lift, Rodriguez said, is due to the large amount of paperwork required and the amount of data the school has to collect. In addition, Rodriguez — who runs the renewal process — said since the process requires reporting on different aspects of the school’s academic, operational, and financial performance, she has to pull in staff and educators from other departments to get the information she needs.

That, she says, “does take time and resources away from the work that we could be putting back into managing our schools and supporting our students.”

“Having to be in a renewal hamster wheel is not the best option for everybody,” Rodriguez said.

Stephen Palmerin, principal at Horizon Science Academy Southwest, feels roughly the same way.

His charter received just a two-year renewal last January, due to concerns about its suspension numbers compared to those of neighboring district schools, as well as the underperformance of elementary students with disabilities.

The K-12 school, which serves about 760 students, is working to reduce suspensions by 50 percent each year before its charter is up for renewal again in 2025. But Palmerin said it’s not entirely fair that Horizon Science’s stats are being compared to both elementary and high schools, since traditionally, elementary schools have lower suspension rates than middle and high schools.

And apart from his concerns about why his school got a relatively short renewal, Palmerin called the renewal process “so time consuming.”

“I wish people would keep the students at the forefront of all decision making,” he said.

But for some parents, the renewal process serves as a way to make sure their children’s schools hold up their end of the bargain.

Blaire Flowers, a parent liaison for education non-profit Kids First Chicago, which specifically supports Black and Latino families, said when her children were at Plato Learning Academy, a contract school, and North Lawndale College Prep, a charter, renewal season was when the schools would begin to “get themselves together.”

Plato is run by a different principal than when Flowers’ children attended three years ago. But at the time, she said, there was no Parent Advisory Council, which is meant to give parents a voice at schools that receive federal Title I funds for students from low-income backgrounds.

When renewal time came, the school established a PAC and began having meetings, created more programming, and held more enrichment events for students, such as a book fair and a Christmas gym shoe drive, she said.

“That’s when they were really doing what they were supposed to,” she said.

Plato received a two-year renewal term in January. Dating back to 2017, the district has given the school relatively low ratings for its financial status and student performance on standardized tests.

Hal Woods, the executive director of the Office of Innovation and Incubation from 2018 to 2020, said he advocated for more regular check-ins with schools to ensure they were staying on track and to make renewal time “a non-event.”

Giving shorter-term renewals to charter schools that aren’t in compliance is one way the board can show schools that they “mean business” and encourage them to do better, Woods said. But with school assessment data often coming in at renewal time, he felt like his office was playing catch up and addressing issues after they’d already taken a toll.

“I just want to make sure that CPS [is] providing better and more real time information to my old department so these things can be corrected in real time,” said Woods, who is now chief of policy at Kids First Chicago.

Palmerin said there is some concern among his staff about the Johnson administration’s sentiments about charters.

“I have no choice but to remain hopeful, because thinking that our days are numbered here, that’s going to affect our work,” he said. “I just know that if we’re committed to the work that we’re doing, let’s not give them an excuse but to give us a maximum renewal.”

Closing charters could be unlikely under moratorium

By law, a charter school must be given notice that they’re failing academically, operationally, or financially. And they must be given time to resolve the issues before officials can revoke a charter agreement and close the school.

The school can also appeal the decision to the Illinois State Board of Education and if successful, it can still operate under state management in Chicago. If that fails, they can appeal in court. That was the course recently taken by Urban Prep after CPS ended its charter; the state voted to uphold the district’s decision.

After a challenge in court, a Cook County Judge ruled that CPS could not “close, consolidate, or phase-out Urban Prep” until after the school closing moratorium expires in 2025.

Woods said he doubts that there will be any charter closings in the coming years, given the legal requirements and the appeal process. But more importantly, Woods said, “it’s very very hard to close a school … because every school is a community.”

At the same time, Woods said that charter expansion is also unlikely given the decline in school-aged children in the city over the past decade.

Flowers said charter schools have served her family well. Her daughter takes three buses to her school each day because Flowers wants her to take advantage of the Phoenix Pact college scholarship option available through North Lawndale.

Blaire Flowers’ three oldest children, pictured above, attended North Lawndale College Prep and Plato Learning Academy, both charter schools. Flowers hopes Mayor Brandon Johnson will “trim the fact” from the charter sector.

Nevertheless, Flowers said she does hope that the Johnson administration will “trim the fat” from the charter sector.

“Some of these charter schools are not really helping the community like they once were,” she said.

There is quite a bit of variation in student outcomes among Chicago’s charter high schools, according to a 2017 study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, one of the first studies to evaluate Chicago charters according to metrics beyond test scores. The study considered school organization and policies, the incoming skills and characteristics of enrolled students, school transfers, and student performance.

“The single most important takeaway from the study was how much variation there is within the charter sector,” said Julia A. Gwynne, the senior research scientist on the study. “There’s a little bit of a tendency for people to see the charter sector as being sort of monolithic all one way or all another way. And we just didn’t find that to be true.”

With the uncertainty about what a new mayor and new school board will do, Rodriguez said Noble representatives are attending more board meetings and encouraging parents and staff to speak at them to provide “a holistic view of what Noble does in the community and how we support our overall community in Chicago.”

Despite the challenges of the renewal process, Rodriguez said she doesn’t necessarily think the process needs to change. But she does believe that all schools, including traditional public schools who might not be serving students well, should go through that process.

Gates, CTU’s president, said she’s hopeful the education backgrounds of the mayor and new school board will play a role in how the district handles charters going forward. She thinks that the charter renewal process needs to be overhauled to make sure teachers and families have a voice.

Self-proclaimed “charter school mom” Myisha Shields is working to have her voice heard — she spoke at a school board meeting in August and attended Noble’s parent meeting earlier this month. She has had three children graduate from Noble charter schools, and two are current Noble students.

“It’s almost like charters have to prove a point just to stay open. We have to work harder. We have to work our kids harder to prove that these should be an option in the city of Chicago,” she said. “I just wish they would stop making it so hard. It’s so unfair.”

Regardless of how the process changes or stays the same in the coming years, Myisha Shields has one request for everyone involved.

“Just listen to us,” said Shields. “Our kids deserve a great education.”

The Chicago Board of Education is expected to vote on the renewal agreements for the 47 charter schools in January.

Correction: Nov. 1, 2023: This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Julia A. Gwynne’s name. It has also been updated to clarify Plato Learning Academy is a contract school, not a charter.

Illinois lawmakers propose allowing Chicago’s school board members to be paid

2023-10-24T23:13:18+00:00

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State lawmakers are proposing a bill that would allow elected Chicago’s school board members to receive compensation — a move advocates hope will encourage parents from low-income households to run for seats when the board shifts from appointed to elected.

State Sen. Robert Martwick and State Rep. Kam Buckner, who both represent parts of Chicago, announced at a press conference Tuesday morning a proposal to lift a prohibition in state law that prevents Chicago’s elected school board members from receiving compensation. The bills in the Senate and House, introduced during the fall’s veto session, would not mandate the school district to provide a salary or set minimums for how much school board members get paid.

Under a bill passed by the state legislature in 2021, Chicago’s board of education will transition from a seven-member mayoral-appointed board to a 21-member elected school board by January 2027. Ten of 21 school board seats will be up for election during the general election in November 2024.

Currently, Illinois law permits school board members to be reimbursed for certain expenses, but they do not earn a salary or stipend.

“I’ve had a number of conversations with people who live in my district from South Shore to Woodlawn who want to be a part of the solution, who want to be a part of this generational shift of a new elected school board,” Buckner said. “However, they don’t know how they’re going to do it and work the night shift.”

State lawmakers have a short window to pass the proposal. This fall’s legislation session is only six days and is currently scheduled to end on Nov. 9.

Courtney Hrejsa, executive director of Educators for Excellence, said in an interview with Chalkbeat the organization is behind this proposal because it hopes pay will persuade teachers to join the elected school board. The lack of a stipend or compensation is a major barrier to teachers who might be interested in running for school board, Hrejsa said.

“Teachers are typically middle-class residents of Chicago. They are breadwinners for their families and their income is required for their livelihood,” said Hrejsa. “If we are unable to provide them any sort of compensation for board service, we’re essentially excluding them from realistically being able to serve. That will not result in the best governance of our school system.”

Under the current law, employees of the school district are not allowed to sit on the elected school board, so a teacher would have to quit their job in order to serve.

Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, surveyed almost 800 Chicagoans earlier in the fall to ask their opinions on Chicago’s elected school board. Over 70% of respondents believe board members should receive a stipend of salary.

Lorena Lopez, a parent and advocate with Kids First Chicago, said in an interview with Chalkbeat it’s only fair to pay parents for the time spent “helping the Board of Education.”

The issue of pay for Chicago’s elected school board members was taken off the table in 2021. Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board bill, pushed for compensation at the time, but said he ultimately took out the provision to get support for the legislation from some suburban and rural legislators. Martwick believes now is a good time to revive this issue during the session.

In an interview with Chalkbeat Chicago, Martwick said the proposal only focuses on Chicago at the moment, but he would not be opposed to supporting a bill from other legislators that would allow school boards across the state to decide whether they want to compensate members.

“The reason that we’re doing it for Chicago is because that’s what we’re focused on.” Martwick said. “We’re in the midst of creating (district) maps, figuring out how the process of elections is going to happen, and figuring out how we’re going to transition from 10 to 20.”

In Los Angeles, elected school board members make $125,000 if they don’t have outside employment and $50,000 if they do. Appointed school boards, such as those in New York City and Philadelphia, are not paid.

In Indiana, school board members can get a stipend of up to $2,000 per year, in addition to meeting stipends that max out at $112. Florida and Nevada allow school board members to be paid a salary.

Currently, Chicago City Council members are paid. According to Block Club Chicago, most aldermen will make $145,974 in 2024, with the lowest paid taking home $118,392.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools reverses policy that docked pay from teachers taking religious holidays

2023-08-31T18:42:54+00:00

Chicago Public Schools teachers will no longer be docked pay when taking a religious holiday.

The Board of Education approved the change last week, overturning a yearslong policy that deducted the cost of hiring a substitute from the teacher’s salary. Different types of substitutes are paid at different daily rates, ranging between $170 to $264, according to the teachers union contract.

“I have friends who couldn’t afford to take off for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur because they couldn’t afford to lose that money,” said Wendy Weingarten, a physical education teacher at Lasalle II Magnet School, who’s advocated for a change since 2016.

Teachers will still get three paid days off for religious holidays, such as the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. But now, they must provide seven days advance notice before taking their holiday, instead of the previously required two days.

In a statement, district spokesperson Samantha Hart said the change was the result of feedback from teachers, school leaders, families, and others in the community.

“This is an important first step in ensuring that CPS’ holiday pay policy better reflects the values and diversity of the District and our staff,” Hart said.

During the board meeting, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates said it was “shameful” that the policy had remained unchanged for so long.

Chicago’s public schools are off on seven federal holidays, including Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day, according to the calendar.

Weingarten and Davis Gates noted that the district’s holiday schedule aligns with Christian holidays. While not denoted as an official holiday, Christmas is included in the district’s two-week winter break. Good Friday is typically included at the end of the weeklong spring break.

The district said the old religious holiday policy for teachers stretches back at least a decade. Weingarten, who has worked for CPS for 25 years, said she’s always been docked pay for taking off on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

Eliminating that requirement will cost the district about $250,000 a year, a spokesperson said.

Weingarten said she began formally pressing the board for a change in 2021, when the start of the school year clashed with Rosh Hashanah. But she didn’t receive an explanation for why the district didn’t want to change the policy.

The next year, Weingarten said she filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates employee discrimination. She does not know the status of that complaint. She mentioned it to district officials during a joint meeting this April with the teachers union and CPS over the school calendar, after getting pushback about changing the religious holiday policy.

A district spokesperson did not directly say whether the policy change was sparked by the federal complaint. However, they said the change was a “preliminary step in remediating the inequities related to pay,” and that the district will review other board rules “to ensure our policies reflect the values of our diverse workforce.”

Correction: Sept. 1, 2023: A previous version of this story said Wendy Weingarten began advocating for a policy change in 2014. She began advocating for the change in 2016.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Meet Jianan Shi: Chicago’s new Board of Education president

2023-08-31T10:00:00+00:00

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Jianan Shi describes himself as “an immigrant that’s fallen in love with Chicago.”

Born in China, he immigrated first to Toronto at age 5 and later to Boston at age 8. Raised and later adopted by his aunt and uncle, Shi said he was undocumented until age 16 and was “very much in the shadows as a kid,” always fearful of being deported.

Shi moved to Chicago in his twenties and taught at Solorio Academy High School.

“One of the reasons I think I love Chicago is I got to choose Chicago,” Shi said.

Now, Mayor Brandon Johnson has chosen Shi, 33, to be president of the Chicago Board of Education. He’s the first Asian American and youngest person in recent memory to hold the high-profile appointment to oversee the city’s largest sister agency and the state’s second largest employer. Previously, he served as the executive director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, though he’s not a parent yet himself.

When Shi reflects on his own education, he said he thinks a lot about access and opportunity. As an English learner, he developed a love of books early on and remembers getting extra reading support and sneaking “a few more books” than the three each student was allowed from the library, which he noted was staffed with a full-time librarian.

Shi sat down for an interview with Chalkbeat Chicago this week wearing a blazer and a T-shirt from the Solorio DREAM Team, a club for undocumented students advocating for immigrant rights, with a colorful butterfly and the saying: “Fear only limits your dreams.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You’ll likely be the last school board president on a fully-appointed Chicago Board of Education. Are there policies or practices you’d like to implement in the next two years before the shift to a hybrid and later elected school board?

It’s been 42 days so far, and I have 505 left. I feel the urgency of this work. Part of the reason why I accepted this role was to help transition us towards a fully elected school board. I think some folks in Chicago lack the imagination that we can have expanded democracy, right? I know, it’s gonna be messy, but it needs to be iterated on. We’re already meeting with the board staff to look at different structures.

The previous board, especially Vice President Elizabeth Todd Breland, has been doing work around that. The Agenda Review Committee is one way to start being more transparent. We’ve stood up the Special Education Committee. A lot of it is setting the tone of how a board should act. We should be in community, and we should be communicating publicly, way more than before. I think there’s a lot of work to do around training to make sure board members are ready. This is a $9.4 billion institution with lots of moving pieces.

Do you envision the 21-member Board of Education almost like a mini Chicago City Council?

I don’t know how often we’ll have all 21 folks in full agreement. I think that’s the beauty of democracy and discourse, right? We’ll get a chance to really have tough conversations in public and together. There aren’t many models for a 21-member school board and so the board staff has done a lot of work. And I’m hopeful that we can also work towards a way where these positions are compensated.

The board announced in July it would meet on the last Thursday of the month instead of Wednesday to not conflict with City Council meetings. Last week, the board set the time and date of its next meeting to be in the Austin community on the West Side and in the evening. Previous boards have done that, but only as a sort of one-off event. Are you committing to doing that regularly?

We’ve already committed to three — one in the Austin community in September, one at Kennedy High School, and another we’ve committed to the south side. I believe it’s almost every quarter we’re doing it. I hope that we continue that. We want to, again, set the culture and tone so that when the new school board gets elected, they understand that it’s our role to be out in the community. I also hope to do office hours in the community.

Chicago is now the nation’s fourth largest school district and has lost about 80,000 students in the past decade. As board president, how do you plan to grapple with the declining number of students enrolled in CPS?

I want us to shift from looking at lagging indicators, and move towards how we invest in communities. If we provide well-resourced neighborhood schools, if there’s abundant social services and affordable housing in Chicago, those communities will grow back, right? I am maybe stubborn enough to believe that an institution like ours, and all of our sister agencies cannot be influential in the population in Chicago.

I think we need a comprehensive plan, from pre-K to 20. And what does that look like in your neighborhood and region? If I send my kid here, I know that they’re going to do pre-K to 8 here, there’s gonna be a great high school nearby that has the programs that I want to see my kids in, and then also access to community college and higher ed or jobs. That’s what we need to tell parents. That you can choose any neighborhood and you will find a path.

Chicago is seeing an influx of migrant students. It’s not clear if all schools have enough bilingual staff, the enrollment process is not quick, and there have been reports of migrants being turned away at some schools. There are volunteers, union staff, and district officials working to enroll children. But what more, if anything, can be done to streamline that process, as potentially more buses show up?

It’s not “if.” More buses will show up. And it’s intentionally chaotic, right? It’s intentionally disruptive … Chicago should be a sanctuary city, but there are so many challenges in making sure our newcomers’ needs are met.

It’s about food, shelter, and education. We’ve enrolled, I think 1,700 (students) in the last two months, and we’re enrolling 1,000 more. We’ll be strategic about placing them in schools where they’re best fit. But then these are also folks who are STLS (Students in Temporary Living Situations). I think we have 15 shelters in the city, but that’s not a permanent solution. So how are we looking towards housing? I know that’s starting to go outside of what is in my purview. Some folks tell me to stay in my lane, quote, unquote, but then we’re not actually addressing those students and families (needs).

Last fall, a report required by the law creating an elected school board outlined several costs the Board of Education may take on as it becomes more independent from City Hall. This could exacerbate financial problems for the school district. What is your plan for sorting out the financial relationship between the board and the City of Chicago?

That’s part of the transition towards the 21-seat school board: How do we create working relationships? The city understands in order for it to succeed, the education system needs to succeed. There’s a lot to look at and I think this is just the beginning of the conversation. I’ve read both reports. Ultimately we need more revenue. We’re woefully short from the federal government, from the state government. I think that’s where my focus is.

The deadline to spend down federal COVID recovery money is next fall. There are a number of initiatives, such as the CPS Tutor Corps, expanded summer school, and additional staffing, including academic interventionists and social workers, that have been supported with this money. What happens when that money runs out?

When I think about that question, I often get, I don’t know, a little upset. Because wealthy communities never have to make that choice. Schools in the suburbs do not have to make that choice. What I appreciated about being on Mayor Johnson’s transition committee, is that we tried to shift out of a scarcity mindset and think about what students need.

The federal government provided us money that allowed us to hire these interventionists and allowed us to hire staff for after-school programs. These aren’t just good to have for students. These are essentials. And we need to maintain those.

To be honest, the amount of ESSER money we got doesn’t even meet the gap that we are owed from the state. And that’s a formula that says all the things that we need. Yes, we need to look at how money is allocated and reduce waste. But again, it’s my job as board president to build a coalition of folks that work towards increasing revenue for Chicago Public Schools at every level. Before January, I intend on meeting with every elected (official) that touches Chicago.

Wow, that’s a big task.

It is a lot. But I think it’s clear to me that one, I want to listen because they also hear from schools and their needs. But it’s important to know that the whole state needs more revenue. There’s a lot of things that we can work together on whether it’s transportation or early childhood. But the evidence-based funding formula is obviously a big one. We’re still owed a billion dollars from the state on that alone.

Are you going to advocate for any changes to the 2021 law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago?

I think that’s a collaborative conversation. The Chicago school board will be voting on a legislative agenda in January that we will all abide by and all advocate for. It’ll be the first time ever, so leading up to that we are having those discussions.

Again, I personally do believe that board members should be compensated. As a former immigrant, I obviously believe that non-citizens should have the right to vote and that was recommended by the transition committee. But that’s a long process. I want to make sure that folks feel safe doing that and there’s the structures and systems in place. It’s not just a snap of a finger. I think there’s also stuff around eligibility that needs to be examined.

The previous board approved a smaller-than-usual capital plan in June and Mayor Johnson said a supplemental plan would come later this year. Chicago Public Schools has not had a Master Facilities Plan since 2018 and in the past, many school construction decisions were made behind closed doors. Many school buildings are old and in need of repairs or updates. How will the new school board approach capital planning?

Let’s just say I’m eager to work with the district on a comprehensive facilities plan that actually looks at how we want our buildings and programs to look in the next 10 years. There’s a lot of data that’s still being collected. And then we are going out to the community in the fall. I don’t think dates are set yet, but we made it very clear to management that something like this requires lots of community engagement around what we want to do with our buildings, what programs you want to see in neighborhoods, and again, how do we rebuild this idea of neighborhood schools, feeder networks, where there are rich programs.

There’s going to be an emphasis on Sustainable Community Schools. In these 42 days, what I’ve understood about Sustainable Community Schools is I think everyone supports them, they just don’t know it yet. Who doesn’t want wraparound programs? Who doesn’t want deep, authentic community engagement, and culturally relevant curriculum? Those are all things that I think every school wants. How do we work towards that?

And the goal is to have 200 Sustainable Community Schools by the end of the mayor’s first term, right?

The education transition committee report said 200. I think the appetite is to expand. But I want to make sure we do it right. That we serve students. Sustainable Community Schools haven’t really had consistency to thrive with a pandemic and everything. I went to three schools on my first day, and they said it was a game changer, a lifesaver. They have additional staff, restorative justice, and a trauma coordinator. It’s all these great things that make a school whole. It’s what makes students feel like they are ready to learn. And what ultimately has parents send them to those schools, right?

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s first day of school is almost here. Here are five things we’re watching this year.

2023-08-18T20:42:43+00:00

Chicago Public Schools’ estimated 320,000 students will head back to class Monday for a school year that will be marked by old issues — and some new concerns.

The district’s enrollment has been dwindling for at least a decade, raising questions about how to best fund schools still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

Funding overall has become more complicated as the city’s federal COVID relief dollars dry up. Much of that money has been used for supporting existing and additional staff, many of them providing extra academic support for students.

As the district decides on how, if at all, to continue funding some of those programs, it must also contend with the continued enrollment of incoming immigrant students.

Here are five issues Chalkbeat Chicago will be watching this school year:

A fiscal cliff is approaching

This is the last full school year before Chicago must earmark how to spend what’s left of nearly $3 billion it received in COVID relief aid from the federal government. The deadline is September 2024.

That means the district will soon be staring down a financial hole that has been filled by that influx of federal funds since the pandemic.

The district spent a large share of pandemic relief money on staff salaries and benefits. The district also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on academic recovery efforts, including after-school programs, an in-house tutor corps, and more counselors, social workers, and other support staff.

District officials have projected a budget shortfall of $628 million by the 2025-26 school year, raising questions about how Chicago will sustain any programs and services supported by the federal dollars.

A financial analysis released under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot noted that CPS “will not have a funding source” to keep up these academic recovery and social-emotional learning efforts.

As the district’s financial picture is becoming more precarious, Mayor Brandon Johnson has shared lofty plans for schools, including expanding the Community Schools model — leaving complicated financial decisions ahead.

The district’s state funding could also be in jeopardy if it fails to comply with a state law requiring that at least two staffers at each school are trained on the use of student restraint and timeout. The deadline for that, coincidentally, is the first day of school.

Student academic needs persist

Three years since the onset of the COVID pandemic, there are still signs Chicago students need extra help in the classroom. Students appear to be improving in reading achievement, but they’re gaining less ground in math, according to recent state test scores obtained by Chalkbeat.

As the district’s COVID dollars fade out, questions remain about how district officials will approach academic recovery, and whether there will be efforts to keep any of the extra support CPS has funded with the federal dollars.

Some of those COVID dollars went toward the creation of a $135 million universal curriculum called Skyline, which has received mixed reviews. The district has pressed schools not yet using the curriculum to prove they’re using another high-quality option, so it’s possible more campuses will use Skyline this year.

Additionally, Illinois’ General Assembly passed a new law requiring the State Board of Education to create a literacy plan for schools, which is due by the end of January 2024.

District grapples with continued dipping enrollment

Chicago’s public school enrollment has dipped by 9% since the pandemic began — a trend also seen among other big-city school districts — and is almost one-fifth smaller than it was a decade ago. Last year’s enrollment dip of 9,000 students was enough to push the district’s ranking from the country’s third largest public school system to the number 4 spot.

This year’s enrollment figures won’t be publicly released until later this fall.

As the district’s student body has thinned out, funding has grown — to $9.4 billion for the upcoming school year. Still, as the district has logged fewer students — including those from low-income families — CPS has in recent years received less state funding than it has projected. And with COVID aid running out, officials must grapple with how to fund schools serving a fraction of the kids they used to. (There is a citywide moratorium on school closures until 2025.)

Some advocacy and interest groups, including the teachers union, believe funding should be divorced from enrollment, in part because investing fewer dollars will only encourage more families to leave or to never enroll in public schools. Just over 40% of new budgets for schools this year was determined by student enrollment, with the rest accounting for other factors, such as student demographics.

Still, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has emphasized that the district can’t factor out enrollment.

“In a large school district where schools serve 40 students, 400 students, and even 4,000 students, enrollment simply has to play a role in our funding formula,” Martinez previously told reporters.

Increase in migrant students poses new challenges

Last year, Texas officials began busing newly arrived migrants to Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. Since then, an estimated 12,000 migrants, many of whom are fleeing economic and political turmoil from South and Central American countries, have arrived in Chicago, While the district won’t say how many such students have enrolled, CPS saw roughly 5,400 new English learners last school year, Chalkbeat found.

Most Chicago schools have previously struggled with providing adequate language instruction for English learners. And with the city expecting more newcomers, educators and immigrant advocates recently told Chalkbeat that schools are not adequately resourced to serve these new students.

Some of these children may arrive without years of formal education and, if they’re learning English as a new language, are legally required to receive extra support.

The district’s number of bilingual teachers has dropped since 2015 even as the English learner population has grown, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. More teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements, which allows them to teach, but it’s unclear whether any of those educators are using those endorsements in the classroom.

District officials will be tasked with how to properly support these students. Officials had previously promised to release a formal plan by the first day of school but have not done so yet.

No district maps yet for the elected school board

As Chicago prepares to begin electing school board members next fall over the next two years, lawmakers have yet to approve maps that would designate which districts each board member would be elected from in the first round of elections. Ten members will be elected in November 2024, while the rest will be elected in November 2026, for a total of 21 members.

Illinois state lawmakers are in charge of approving those maps. In May, they extended their deadline to April 1, 2024, after concerns over whether the maps would match the makeup of the district’s student body or the city’s overall demographics.

Some observers cheered the extension. However, the delay presents new complications. If maps are not approved until April, the campaign season for the first set of districts would last just seven months, making it potentially challenging for candidates to prepare and for voters to have enough information ahead of Election Day.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago swears in new members to city’s last fully appointed Board of Education

2023-07-19T19:58:21+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education ushered in a new era of leadership Wednesday by swearing in five of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointees.

The new members, who include vocal critics of the system, took an oath of office during a meeting to review agenda items ahead of the board’s full meeting next week. They will be part of the last fully appointed board before it shifts to an elected body in 2025.

As board members introduced themselves, Mariela Estrada, director of community engagement at the United Way of Metro Chicago, recounted being a “fierce” parent advocate. New board president Jianan Shi, former executive director of influential advocacy organization Raise Your Hand, noted that he is the first educator appointed as board president.

“I am used to sitting on your side of the glass fence,” new board member Mary Fahey Hughes told the audience at the meeting. Fahey Hughes formerly worked for Raise Your Hand as a parent liaison for special education and is an outspoken advocate for students with disabilities.

The inclusion of board critics at the decision-making table is in some ways similar to Johnson’s path, who rose to power through his teachers union ties.

Earlier this month, Johnson nearly cleaned house by appointing six new board members, who come from advocacy, philanthropy, and business backgrounds. In addition to Shi, Estrada, and Fahey Hughes, the mayor also tapped Michelle Morales, Rudy Lozano, and Tanya Woods (read more about each here). Lozano and Morales were not present at Wednesday’s meeting; a spokesperson for CPS did not explain why but said they will be sworn in at the board’s July 26 meeting.

The only holdover from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is Elizabeth Todd-Breland, who will be the board’s vice president.

All seven members’ terms end Jan. 1, 2025, when the city’s partially elected, 21-member school board will be seated. Several members highlighted that shift. Todd-Breland called her term a “bridge” to that elected board with “so much hope and optimism for Chicago Public Schools.”

Wednesday’s agenda review meeting was the third of its kind, allowing board members to publicly ask questions about agenda items ahead of the meeting where they’ll vote.

During the meeting, members reviewed and asked questions about a slew of agenda items expected to come up for approval next week, including a new agreement for marketing services, the opening of a comment period for a new parental leave policy for CPS employees, and a renewed contract for math tutoring.

One agenda item — about X-ray machines in school — signaled a possible shift in approach that Johnson’s appointees may bring to the board.

Shi asked a school safety official whether there is research that such machines, which are meant to detect weapons, make schools safer. The official said it’s hard to determine exactly what makes schools feel safe, but that such machines have found weapons in the past. Last month, the old board approved a slightly costlier contract for campus police.

Shi asked that district officials engage in “actual community dialogue” on school safety policies as the district continues work on its Whole School Safety initiative. The CPS official said it’s the district’s goal to get more “buy-in” from the community.

Board members like Shi have also previously expressed interest in making meetings more accessible to the public, such as working parents who can’t attend the meetings that are held downtown during weekday mornings.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appoints new school board members

2023-07-05T20:47:19+00:00

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced his appointees to the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday, naming Jianan Shi of the parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand to lead the board and replacing all but one of the members appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Shi, a former high school teacher in Boston and Chicago, will replace former state lawmaker Miguel del Valle. He is resigning from Raise Your Hand to take on the new role.

The lone Lightfoot appointee who was reappointed, history professor Elizabeth Todd-Breland, will serve as the board’s vice president. The other new members are: Mary Fahey Hughes, Mariela Estrada, Rudy Lozano, Michelle Morales, and Tanya Woods.

Their terms will run until Jan. 1, 2025, when a new 21-member, partially elected school board will take over.

Shi, who has a master’s degree in education from Boston College, taught high school science in Boston and later at Solorio High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side. He stepped in as Raise Your Hand’s executive director in 2019.

In a statement, Shi vowed to be “the hardest working board member CPS has ever seen.” He noted that all newly appointed board members bring experience working with local school councils and have been district parents, educators, or both.

“As stewards of the transition toward an elected school board, we have much to add to and change over the next year and a half,” he said.

Johnson was elected this past spring after working for a decade as a Chicago Teachers Union organizer. He defeated former Chicago Public CEO Paul Vallas and ran on a progressive platform buoyed by the CTU, which has argued for a broader approach to school improvement focused on tackling issues outside classrooms, such as affordable housing, food insecurity, and gun violence.

His school board appointments offer another glimpse of his vision for the country’s fourth largest district as the city nears a high-stakes transition away from longstanding mayoral control of its school district to an elected school board. The new board takes over as the district also faces a more precarious financial picture, with federal COVID recovery dollars running out next year and rising costs related to employee pensions and other debt.

In the run-up to the appointments, some parent and disability rights advocacy groups argued the Johnson administration should have done more to clearly spell out its criteria for board members and solicit applications more broadly.

Fahey Hughes, who formerly served as Raise Your Hand’s parent liaison for special education, has been an outspoken advocate for students with disabilities in the district. She leads 19th Ward Parents for Special Education.

Estrada is currently the director of community engagement at the United Way of Metro Chicago; she also formerly worked at the city’s Inspector General’s office and at the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, a nonprofit that partners with the district. Lozano is a vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase; he formerly worked for the community group Enlace Chicago and taught in alternative high schools.

Morales is the president of the Woods Fund Chicago and formerly led the Mikva Challenge, a youth advocacy organization. And Woods is a practicing attorney who currently serves as the executive director of the Westside Justice Center.

Morales and Lozano both taught at alternative public high schools, according to their online profiles, while Woods and Estrada list community organizing roles in their past work experience.

“It’s my honor to bring together such a diverse group of people from community, business, philanthropy and elsewhere to collaborate around a vision for our schools that ensures every student has access to a fully resourced, supportive, and nurturing learning environment,” Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson’s school board picks follows his appointment of teachers union leader Jen Johnson as his education deputy. The teachers union’s foundation has contributed financially to Raise Your Hand and some of the other community-based nonprofits, such as Enlace and Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, where Johnson’s board picks have worked.

Education advocates sought a voice in board choices

Last month, about a dozen education advocacy groups appealed to Johnson to ensure a more open and transparent process for selecting board members. The groups representing parents and other advocates — including some of the city’s most prominent disability rights nonprofits — urged the Johnson administration to clearly spell out its selection criteria and to solicit nominations from the public.

Following longstanding concerns about the district’s services for students with disabilities, they argued that the board must include members who understand the needs of those students and have a track record advocating for them. They asked for a meeting with the mayor.

In a statement to Chalkbeat in June, the mayor’s office said the mayor is “a partner to many of these individuals and organizations seeking education justice,” and his selection would reflect their values.

Elizabeth Todd-Breland (center, in gray dress) will be the only appointee of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot who will continue to serve on the school board under Mayor Brandon Johnson.

But members of several of the advocacy groups that signed the letter said they never got a formal response from the mayor’s office — or any more insight into the process for picking board members. After one of the groups, Activate Chicago Parents, tweeted that the administration had not engaged with families about what they would like to see in board appointees, a Johnson spokesperson responded: “We haven’t asked because we already know.”

Cassie Creswell, a district parent who leads Illinois Families for Public Schools, one of the groups that signed the letter, said the appointment process could have been more transparent in a district where many families still deeply mistrust its leadership.

“That trust deficit isn’t as easy to quantify as the fiscal shortfalls, but it is also crucial to strengthening CPS in the long term,” Creswell said in a statement.

In his statement, Shi said the new board has the “tremendous responsibility” to improve services for students with disabilities, empower Local School Councils, grow career and technical education programs, and expand efforts to provide more services to students, such as the Sustainable Community Schools initiative, a partnership between the district, teachers union and community-based organizations.

“We will be advocating for more funding at every level and set up the future 21-seat school board for success,” he said.

The school board positions are unpaid volunteer posts, so Shi said he will focus on transitioning into his new role before starting to look for a new job. Natasha Erskine and Joy Clendenning will jointly lead Raise Your Hand on an interim basis following Shi’s resignation.

New board members will be elected in 2024

In November 2024, Chicago voters will get to elect 10 members of a new 21-member school board. The remainder of the board at that point, including a board president, will be appointed by the mayor.

The board will be fully elected by January 2027. State lawmakers this spring gave themselves more time to create a new electoral map for the school board election amid disagreement over how to fairly divide the city to yield a board that reflects the district’s demographics. The deadline to draw that map is now next April.

Del Valle, whose term expired in June, told Chalkbeat in a recent interview that he was not interested in continuing to serve on the board or in running for a seat next year. He voiced concern about the large size of the future board and about the fact that undocumented residents of Chicago would not be allowed to vote in the school board election under the current law.

“You’ll have labor versus business and charter schools in terms of funding,” he said. “Parents won’t stand much of a chance of getting elected.”

Several of Lightfoot’s appointees have been serving on the board for only a short period of time. She shook things up in June 2022, when she appointed three members, ousting one, Dwayne Truss, who vocally opposed the construction of a $120 million high school on the Near South Side. In March, after failing to secure a second term, Lightfoot appointed a former charter school official to the seat vacated by the former vice president, Sendhil Revuluri, last December.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board approves $9.4 billion budget as district officials warn of looming deficit

2023-06-28T22:05:00+00:00

The Chicago Board of Education approved a flat $9.4 billion spending plan for the next school year on Wednesday — and warned of looming deficits as federal COVID money runs out.

The 2024 budget is a fraction of a percent larger than last year’s, and allocates roughly half — or $4.8 billion — directly to schools. Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on moving school funding away from being based on enrollment, a shift officials say is underway.

But the overall budget could grow later this year after the district does a comprehensive facilities review and puts forward a supplemental capital budget. On Wednesday, the school board approved a smaller $155 million capital plan. It did not include a hotly contested proposal to build a $120 million new high school on the Near South Side, though money for that project was included in the state’s 2024 budget signed earlier this month.

District officials and school board members said Wednesday they hope the state will provide Chicago Public Schools with additional funding in the future to avoid a fiscal cliff when COVID recovery money runs out next year.

“Many districts around the country right now are pressured to cut,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez. “We’re seeing layoffs. We’re seeing school closures. And so it is, it is a warning for us.”

Chicago Public Schools used much of its COVID recovery money to pay for existing and additional staff, such as academic interventionists and social workers. The district also boosted summer school programs and went on a technology spending spree.

Most schools will see flat or increased budgets under the approved 2024 budget. But a Chalkbeat analysis of school-level budget data released earlier this month shows that on a per pupil basis, 39 schools, or about 8% of campuses, will see budget cuts. Of those schools, 24 were predominantly Black, eight were majority Latino, and three were predominantly white. But schools serving predominantly Black students also saw the most substantial per pupil increases overall.

The district is forecasting a deficit of roughly $628 million by 2026. Next year, the district will spend the last of its $2.8 billion in federal COVID money, leaving it no financial cushion against declining student enrollment and rising pension and debt costs. Roughly 80,000 fewer students are enrolled in Chicago schools than there were a decade ago. The district has not released enrollment projections for next year.

School board president Miguel del Valle, who also announced Wednesday he would be stepping down as his term ends this month, said the district was facing a structural deficit during his first budget in 2019.

“If it hadn’t been for the federal dollars, that began to arrive … we’d be in even worse shape than we are,” Del Valle said. He noted that roughly a quarter of the district’s state funding goes toward paying down debt for both teacher pensions and past school construction. “Those two combined have us in a bind.”

The nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation raised concerns about the “long-term viability” of Chicago Public Schools budget. The group’s annual analysis said it’s imperative the district work with the City of Chicago on a long-term financial plan that addresses several of the “financial entanglements” between the two before the school boards begins its shift to being elected, rather than appointed by the mayor.

Voters will elect 10 members in 2024, while the mayor will appoint 10 and a school board president. The 11 appointed seats will be elected in 2026 and by 2027, all 21 members will have been elected.

“Now is a critical time for Chicago Public Schools to plan for its financial future,” the watchdog group wrote.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Meet Chicago’s newest student school board member: Kenwood Academy’s Kate’Lynn Shaw

2023-06-28T19:26:18+00:00

When Kate’Lynn Shaw first ran for student council in eighth grade, she said her peers knew her as an energetic kid on Zoom. Now back in the classroom — and with years of experience as class president — she’s excited to expand beyond her school walls, this time as an honorary Chicago school board member.

The board inducted Shaw at Wednesday’s meeting. Though she cannot cast votes, she will represent students at the board’s monthly meetings and will serve on a district-level student committee through next school year.

“I hope that my presence marks a new era,” Shaw said at Wednesday’s meeting. “I hope that my passion leads you to listen more, but most importantly, I pray that my voice, my presence, and my passion act as a vessel for CPS students and their families who yearn to be heard.”

Shaw is a rising junior at Kenwood Academy High School in Hyde Park, and she has attended Chicago Public Schools since she began her education. Along with her student council experience, Shaw also hopes to bring her skills from debate.

Kenwood’s Assistant Principal Sherry Ball said that Shaw is an excellent choice for the role.

“She has just been taking her student voice and the leadership that she has at Kenwood by storm,” Ball said. “She has a really nice pulse on what students are thinking, what they’re feeling and she’s going to be very thoughtful and how she brings those issues to you guys and gives you her opinions.”

Ahead of her term, Chalkbeat spoke with Shaw about her leadership experience and priorities.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What made you apply to be the honorary student board member?

Being on the debate team, that makes you think about politics or policy on a level of not only these made-up scenarios, but also what you can do for yourself in your school as well.

When I heard about the honorary school board member application, and I looked up the importance of it and the magnitude that it held for students — not only in Chicago, but also to Illinois in general — it made me want to apply so that I can be that voice.

I’m someone that’s very outspoken, and I believe in the voice of students. And if that could be one way that I can contribute and say thank you to all the CPS students or even the CPS families that have helped me throughout these years, it will make me happy.

You said you’re pretty vocal. What are some issues that are particularly close to your heart or important to you?

The redistribution of funding within CPS has been a really big topic, especially in the last couple of years where we see schools such as my schools, or Hyde Park or King demand for more money, demand for equitable funding.

Another thing that I think is really important is student voice. A lot of time, we see students be pushed to the side because we’re not 18 and older. But when it comes to the kids that we’re teaching, we should give them every single moment to be able to express what they want in their school — whether that’s curriculum, whether that’s how you respond to certain policies and legislation that is going on within CPS.

What are you hearing from your fellow students in terms of their priorities?

Student voice and funding. Another concern I’ve seen is safety. The safety in our school is really important, and having kids comfortable with what those safety plans are is also very important. So are we talking to students about how they feel about [student resource officers]? How do they feel about having officers in their schools or even the idea of having security guards in their schools? What does that look like and how do we make those plans so that kids are more comfortable?

We’re headed into a period of turnover. Are there any priorities that you would like Mayor Brandon Johnson to have in mind when he’s thinking about school board appointments?

I would like him to think about who has the students in mind when they make decisions, and how they have relationships with students. Have they ever had to be in the room with students and hear their opinions? Or even if they’re comfortable with hearing those opinions.

What would you say your leadership style is?

I believe that you can never be a leader if you don’t have other people also becoming leaders with you. I believe that every person should be able to get a voice, and I don’t believe in fully controlling situations where a leader would “control.” I believe that to be a leader, you have to know when to help others and also when to uplift them.

You’re involved with your student government and your debate team. Tell me why you got involved with those activities.

My first year running for student council was eighth grade. It was online, and everybody kind of knew me as the very energetic person who was on Zoom, who really commanded the conversation and who knew what she was talking about. And so I ran because not only did I think that my peers would be supportive of me running, but also as I became more in touch with my school, even online, I knew that I wanted to be more involved and I wanted to help others get involved.

The learning experience has helped me be able to voice my peers’ concerns in a way that can actually resonate with admin and I can be a true liaison for students.

When it came to debate…I loved arguments. I thought that the idea of policy or policymaking was really interesting. And I also liked the idea of things like critiques, understanding the fundamentals of why we’re talking about it, and the issues that go into policymaking.

Being an honorary school board member, you also get $1,000 toward your college education. So I was wondering if you have any ideas of what you might want to do post-high school.

I want to major in chemical engineering and also Afro American Studies at Yale University. I love [Yale Professor] Elizabeth Hinton, I’ve read her book like, three times. Aside from college, I want to be able to kind of be a voice for students, even after I leave.

Of any career, I want to firstly be someone that other people can talk to and learn, someone they can look at and be educated by, and I want to be helpful to people. So even before I get into postsecondary education, I want to make sure I make that mark on students, one of those being that I want to also be a debate coach.

Max Lubbers is an intern for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Max at mlubbers@chalkbeat.org.

School board, community members weigh in on Chicago Public Schools budget

2023-06-21T23:02:24+00:00

At a pair of hearings ahead of the city school board’s vote on the Chicago Public Schools budget, advocates raised concerns over the time frame given for individual schools to respond to their campus’s spending plan and board members asked questions about strategies to allocate funding equitably.

City officials presented details of the proposal at hearings Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon. Community members also had the chance to weigh in on the specific capital budget Tuesday afternoon, but no speakers showed. Two more hearings on the capital budget are scheduled for 6 p.m. on June 21 and 12 p.m. on June 23.

Under the proposed plan, the CPS budget would remain steady at $9.4 billion, though more funds will be funneled directly to schools. Ninety percent of schools would see an increase on a per-pupil basis, with 39 schools slated to receive budget cuts, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. Three of those schools have a majority white student body, 24 are predominantly Black, and eight are majority Latino. Overall, schools with a predominantly Black enrollment would have the most significant per-pupil increases.

The district said proposed cuts were primarily driven by significant enrollment losses. But Dulce Arroyo, a community organizer and former CPS teacher, said enrollment losses should be taken as a sign of needing more support, not less.

“The youth have been demanding everything they need to feel safe, heard, and valued as human beings, not as dollar signs,” Arroyo said during public comment at the Tuesday night hearing. “Instead of keeping schools fully staffed and funded and making them safe spaces for these committees, the board continues to take away funds and resources. It makes zero sense that the district wants stellar enrollment rates, while it also takes more funds and resources away every year.”

Though enrollment remains a factor, the district has been moving away from mostly enrollment-based allocations. CPS uses an “opportunity index” — a formula based on community and student characteristics — to identify schools with high needs and to direct funding accordingly.

Of the school-level funding, about half — or $128 million — would go to hiring staff to support students with disabilities. This comes as the Illinois Board of Education found CPS violated state law in restraint and seclusion practices, an issue particularly impacting students with disabilities.

The budget would also continue to invest in nurses, social workers, and case managers, bringing staffing levels of each of these categories to what officials say are all-time highs.

Other staffing highlights include:

$15 million to provide additional district-funded counselors at 131 highest-need schools
50 advocates for students in temporary living situations
$15 million increase of funding for bilingual instruction, $8 million of which district officials say would go to schools with recent influxes of migrant students

Every school in CPS will be required to have a social worker by 2024, according to a contract between the district and Chicago Teachers Union. Ben Felton, chief talent officer at CPS, said at Wednesday afternoon’s budget hearing that the district is up 50 social workers, 50 nurses, and 80 additional counselors from this time last year.

In fiscal year 2024, the district will look to hire an additional 60 social workers, according to its proposed budget book.

“There’s opening the positions and budgeting for them, but there’s actually finding the human beings to do this work,” said Felton at Tuesday night’s hearing. “For the first time, as far as I can tell in CPS history, we’ve got a devoted school social worker recruitment team that’s in our office and we just launched that team a couple of weeks ago.”

Felton told Chalkbeat that it’s generally more difficult to fill social worker positions, so the district is hoping this effort will help. CPS instituted a similar recruitment team for nurses a few years ago, he added.

The school board is expected to vote on the budget at its June 28 meeting.

Push for more planning in future budgets

Two people at the Tuesday night hearing said there was not enough time for local school councils to review their individual school budgets before being asked to approve or appeal them in May. Principals received draft budgets in mid-April.

Natasha Erskine is the local school council director at education advocacy group Raise Your Hand. She said at the Tuesday night hearing that her organization sent a request signed by nearly 200 independent LSC members asking for more time to review these budgets.

“What I would hope that the board can really lean in on is making sure that the budget next year gives adequate time to local councils,” Erskine said. “That way we can make sure that all of these gaps that we’re talking about real time get the adequate support and accountability that it deserves.”

At Tuesday night’s budget hearing, school board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland also stressed the importance of planning for the loss of federal COVID recovery money, which must be spent by September 2024.

Michael Sitkowski, deputy chief of Office of Budget and Grants Management of CPS, said the district will need to seek additional funding to avoid cuts in the future.

“CPS is the only district in the state whose full teacher pension cost is not essentially covered by the state of Illinois,” he said at Tuesday night’s hearing. This coming school year, the district is expected to make a $700 million payment to the Chicago teachers pension fund.

The state uses an “evidence-based funding formula” to calculate how much each school district needs to educate the students it serves. For example, districts receive more money if they serve more students who are low-income or who are learning English.

CPS receives only 75% of what the evidence-based funding formula says the district needs to be adequately funded, leaving CPS with a shortfall of nearly $1.4 billion, Sitkowski said at Tuesday night’s hearing.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to decrease inequities here,” said Todd-Breland Tuesday night. “Hopefully we can have ongoing conversations with our state and other partners about how we can move forward in a way that is equitable.”

Proposed school construction budget smaller for now

The district also hosted the first of three public hearings on its $155 million facilities plan earlier Tuesday afternoon. Registration for public comment at these hearings has closed, but community members can attend the final capital budget hearings Wednesday and Friday.

The scaled-down proposal — a fraction of last year’s $644.5 million capital budget — is only an initial plan to cover what officials described as the district’s most pressing building needs through the summer and early fall. District leaders will unveil a more complete capital plan for the school year by the end of 2023, following a comprehensive review of its facility needs that’s now underway.

At the Tuesday afternoon hearing, no public speakers turned up to provide input on the capital budget proposal. Officials offered a brief overview of the plan and answered several questions submitted ahead of the hearing. For instance, they explained that the district took into account the urgency of repair needs and its “opportunity index” to decide on priorities for the plan.

The capital budget drew a livelier discussion during a Wednesday morning school board meeting to preview next week’s monthly meeting agenda. Board members wanted to know what new information the wholesale review of facility needs would yield — and how the district would address climate change in its planning, among other questions.

District officials explained that the new review will look more closely at whether campuses meet students’ educational needs, including whether there is a gym and a cafeteria. It will also evaluate what it would take to modernize district buildings, which are 83-years-old on average, and to make them accessible for people with disabilities.

They said the district is looking at ways to improve campuses’ energy efficiency, including piloting solar panels and adding electric vehicle charging stations to new parking lots.

Chicago parents, advocates call for transparency in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board picks

2023-06-16T19:26:03+00:00

A group of Chicago parents and advocacy organizations are urging the mayor’s office to keep the public better informed about upcoming appointments to the city’s Board of Education.

In a Wednesday letter, the advocates, who are primarily focused on education and disability justice, asked the mayor’s office to do an open call for members, increase transparency around the qualifications for selection, and outline the administration’s goals for the composition of the school board. Along with the letter, the group also asked to meet with the mayor.

Four of seven current school board terms are set to expire on June 30, but Mayor Brandon Johnson could replace all of them like his predecessors did. He will be the last mayor to appoint members of the school board before Chicagoans get the chance to vote for their school board members.

In 2024, the board will expand from seven to 21 people — a much larger school governing body compared to other major cities — with the mayor appointing the school board president and 10 of those seats. By 2027, the board will be fully-elected.

Until then, said Miriam Bhimani, Johnson should live up to his campaign promise to “stand for the people.”

“Standing for the people means that you need to trust and respect the deep reservoirs of experience and knowledge that families have in a city, and you do that by being transparent,” said Bhimani, a researcher for one of the letter’s signees, FOIA Bakery, which focuses on transparency.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said that “As a Chicago Public Schools parent and former educator who fought for an elected representative school board, Mayor Johnson is a partner to many of these individuals and organizations seeking education justice. He sees them, he hears them, and he will ensure that appointments to the Chicago Board of Education reflect the principles they value.”

While on the campaign trail, Johnson told Chalkbeat that in the transition to an elected board, “We need candidates who are deeply invested and knowledgeable from the communities served to have a fair chance to win races to influence the education of their children.”

In a press conference last week, Chalkbeat also asked Johnson when he planned to appoint school board members.

“We’re going through a process now where we are reviewing those who are currently on the board, and those who ultimately align with our vision,” Johnson said. He also said his deputy mayor for education Jen Johnson is working with him on appointing school board members.

Advocates say they want that vision to be more clearly defined and communicated to the public. Bhimani said the administration has stayed “opaque” about the process so far.

“What does the CPS board do and why do they do it? We really need the answer to that question from this administration,” Bhimani said. “What are the metrics of success and who are they doing it for? Are they there for the taxpayers? Are they there for children in the system?”

The letter sent Wednesday listed priorities for experience and expertise that board members should have, including in bilingual education, undocumented students, unhoused students, students who are incarcerated, and students with disabilities.

Terri Smith, a parent advocate who has a daughter with hearing loss, said she wants board members who have expertise and personal experience with students with disabilities.

“Unless you consciously decide how you want to comprise the board, then all you’re doing is hunting and pecking for solutions to things and hoping that you come up with the right one,” said Smith, who signed the letter. “Even if you do research, it’s still taking more time than it should if you had a content expert right there on the board.”

Cassie Creswell, director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, also stressed experience with students with disabilities as a priority. She said that’s especially important after a state investigation found Chicago Public Schools did not fully train staff on use of restraint and seclusion, which put students with disabilities particularly at risk. An April letter from the Illinois State Board of Education outlined violations, including untrained staff using outlawed methods of restraint.

Chicago Public Schools said in a statement that top district and Board of Education leadership has been “transparent about the need for improved systems, strategies, and services” to support students with disabilities, and that the district will “remain committed” to working with ISBE, parents and advocacy groups to develop improvements.

Creswell said that before the transition to elections, the appointed school board must be prepared to address this issue.

“There is a backlog of things to deal with that are extremely urgent right now – the district’s recognition status with the state being at stake because of unresolved special education issues that involve literally life and death matters for children,” Creswell said. “These board appointments, that’s who we’re legally putting in charge of addressing this, so it really matters.”

Creswell said transparency in the appointment process is not only crucial for the upcoming vacancies but for the transition to a hybrid and then fully elected board. She wants meetings to be more accessible. Currently, the board meets during weekday working hours in the Loop, which Creswell said prevents many people from attending.

Smith also said this is a time to set precedents.

“When elections happen, we want people to feel that it’s important to come forward and say ‘I’m electable because I bring this to the table, not just because I’m rah rah or I have a political affiliation.”

Max Lubbers is an intern for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Max at mlubbers@chalkbeat.org

Illinois lawmakers push back deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board maps

2023-05-26T20:50:13+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are giving themselves more time to divide Chicago into districts ahead of the city’s first school board elections.

Under a measure passed late Thursday night, the deadline for drawing the maps for the city’s school board moves to April 1, 2024 — seven months before the first elections are scheduled to be held. Chicago will move from a seven-member board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board, with 10 members elected Nov. 5, 2024 and the rest elected in November 2026.

In a statement, Rep. Ann Willliams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs the state House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, said conversations have been “extremely productive.” But, “in order to create the strongest possible map and ensure all Chicagaons are able to elect the candidates that best represent their values, our work must continue.”

The delay comes after Chicagoans voiced concerns over whether voting districts would reflect CPS enrollment or the city’s overall population.

They also criticized legislators for rushing to create districts that will determine representation for the next several years before adjourning their spring session to meet a previous July 1 deadline.

Several advocates applauded the decision to delay.

“I’m very glad that the voice of reason prevailed and they did not just ram a flawed map down our throats,” said Valerie Leonard, the leader of the Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map based largely on existing City Council Ward boundaries.

Leonard urged lawmakers to use the time wisely. So did Miriam Bhimani, a Chicago Public Schools parent who is part of The FOIA Bakery, a group of parents and data advocates pushing for a transparent map-making process.

“The extra time means that we can engage honestly and transparently with communities across the city about what an elected school board should look like and what their responsibilities are,” Bhimani said.

In an effort to spur more public engagement and conversation, The FOIA Bakery published 2,000 computer-generated maps earlier this month they say comply with the Voting Rights Act, and maximize minority representation, as well as take into account where public school students live.

Drawing a representative map in a segregated city, school district

Lawmakers released two drafts in recent weeks. The most recent draft has seven Black majority districts, five majority Latino, two with a Latino plurality, five majority white, and one with a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality. Currently, one of seven appointed school board members is white.

Typically, electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. In Chicago, the population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the public school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. The city is also one of the country’s most segregated, making that dissonance even more of a challenge to those trying to draw representative maps.

“It’s a segregated city, the North Side doesn’t know what’s going on in the South Side; a parent who doesn’t have a kid in CPS, they don’t know their needs,” said Vanessa Espinoza, a public school parent who’s part of Kids First Chicago, which submitted a map and testimony to state lawmakers. “Even if you have a good intention, you don’t have the knowledge and experience.”

Espinoza said lawmakers should try to draw a map that considers the public school student population.

Leonard, with African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said she also wants to see a responsive, representative school board with members who have “lived experience with our schools versus people in ivory towers who have never experienced poverty.”

But she said that giving neighborhoods where more Chicago Public School students live more weight could violate the constitution’s equal protection clause.

“It could fly in the face of the one man, one vote, equal protection under the law, even though it’s a noble idea.” Leonard said.

Jianan Shi, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, a parent group that was part of a coalition of community groups that submitted maps in partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union, said he hopes the extended deadline will allow everyone to “get to the table” to find a compromise.

“There’s no perfect map,” Shi said. “How do we take in as much feedback as possible and keep making versions until we get closer?”

New deadline could shorten school board campaign season

The first-ever Chicago school board elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 5, 2024. So when lawmakers approved the measure to give themselves a new April 1, 2024 deadline, Shi initially thought: “Shoot. I wish I was going to get out this information as soon as possible to our parents.”

“I want as much time as possible to educate people about the maps and where the boundaries are,” Shi said. Raise Your Hand is one of a few community groups that help train parents and community members to run for and serve on Local School Councils in Chicago. The councils are like mini-school boards serving individual campuses that make decisions over school improvement, principal selection, and parts of the budget.

Max Bever, a Chicago Board of Elections spokesman, said Friday the board had been planning to notify voters of their new school board districts through mailers around Labor Day this year, but will now face “a time crunch to get that all done.”

“Our team will be ready, but it’s more just having enough time for people to have awareness of: What’s your district? Who is running?” Bever said. “This also might be a very quick period for candidates.”

Bever said the timeline for candidates to collect the 250 signatures needed to get on the ballot will likely be during summer 2024. Because Chicago’s school board elections are nonpartisan, they will not be on the ballot in the March 2024 primary.

Rep. Ann Williams said the election is still on target for November 2024. The legislature will wrap up their spring session this week, but members are due back for a veto session in the fall when they could take action on a school board map. They could also wait until the next spring session begins in early 2024 to finalize how the city will be divided.

Lawmakers could also decide in the next session to clarify or tweak the law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago. There have been questions about whether board members should be compensated or if there should be campaign spending limits that are stricter than Illinois’ broader election limits. Neither exist in the law as it’s currently written.

“I think some of the campaign spending limits that people have talked about would be really helpful to ensure that the everyday Chicago mom and dad could run for the board without having to have either wealth or special interests backing them,” said Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago.

Another concern raised by Kids First Chicago and others is that noncitizens will not be allowed to vote or serve on Chicago’s school board. However, the existing law requires a noncitizen advisory committee be created. Leonard said she would like to see something similar for Black families. Her group is proposing the creation of an African American Affairs Committee.

“If, for some reason, we end up with representation that doesn’t necessarily reflect the school population, at least you’ll have those permanent committees in place to make sure the interests of minorities are represented,” she said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicagoans reject Illinois lawmakers revised draft map for elected school board

2023-05-19T02:13:27+00:00

Chicagoans lambasted Illinois lawmakers for failing to better represent public school families, which are mostly Latino, in a revised draft map for the city’s soon-to-be-elected school board.

They also took the legislators to task for giving the public less than 24 hours notice before holding a virtual hearing Thursday to gather more feedback before the spring legislative session is scheduled to end and ahead of a July 1 deadline for drawing the maps.

“This type of lack of transparency is exactly why so many people, especially people of color, don’t trust our government,” said Eli Brottman, a political consultant who testified Thursday night.

Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to draw districts for the November 2024 election, when Chicago voters are set to elect 10 of 21 school board members.

The new draft, which was released late Wednesday night, tinkers with three districts where no racial group has a 50% majority, tilting two of those in favor of Latinos. Under the current proposal, seven districts have a population that is 50% or more Black, five where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts have a Latino plurality, where roughly 40% of the population is Latino, and one has a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality.

Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

Chicagoans have voiced concerns over the last few months about whether voting districts will reflect Chicago Public Schools enrollment or the city’s overall population.

The state senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board and the House Democrats’ CPS Districting Working Group must also strike a delicate balance because electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. They must also draw districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population and also comply with the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts that aim to preserve clusters of minority voters.

A group of local researchers, CPS parents, and open data advocates in Chicago put forward 1,000 alternatives to the first draft and another 1,000 alternatives to the revised map.

Denali Dasgupta said that group has been trying to create maps that account for the student population in Chicago Public Schools, but are still based on voters. She admitted that it’s not easy, but said the current draft has a proposed district covering much of downtown with only about 2,000 public school students living in it.

“I think that people running for office there and people voting there might understand the assignment of electing a member a representative to the school board a little bit differently,” she said.

Vanessa Espinoza, a parent with Kids First Chicago, which has been organizing parents around representation on the school board, said the revised map still perpetuates “systemic advantages to Chicago’s white population at the expense of people of color.”

Chicago City Council’s Latino Caucus opposed the current map as well.

“As it stands now, Springfield has proposed a map that creates a majority white school board which will govern the outcome of black and Latino students,” said Michaela Vargas, executive director of the Chicago Latino Caucus Foundation.

Ald. Nicole Lee, who represents the city’s first and only Asian American ward, said the lack of Asian American representation in the proposed map is disconcerting.

“The current version of this map also does not allow for our community to have a sufficient voice in the school board,” Lee said, before urging lawmakers to postpone a vote.

Jeff Fiedler, executive director with the Chicago Republican Party, raised concerns about gerrymandering and said the map-drawing process should have been done by an independent commission.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting has advocated for a map that aims to follow the City Council’s Ward boundaries. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, said the revisions were disappointing.

“The map breaks up communities,” she said. “In some instances, the districts might include as many as seven wards.”

Leonard also continued to raise questions about how the first election in 2024 will be handled if lawmakers put forward a 20-district map right away.

In November 2024, the law says, 10 members will be elected from 10 districts and the mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, as well as a board president. In November 2026, the appointed members will be elected. By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected, with a school board president voted on by all Chicagoans and 20 chosen by district. It will be the country’s largest elected school board.

In her opening remarks on Thursday, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who chairs the special committee, said “lawmakers are seeking guidance on whether current laws should remain the same.”

During the hearing Thursday night, the Illinois House posted notice that it would hold a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Friday on “the creation of the new Chicago Elected School Board districts.”

Dasgupta said lawmakers should not rush to pass something before the spring legislative session ends in the coming days.

“I don’t want us to end up down the road two years where we’re looking at a critical issue like school closures and have people saying, ‘Well, the people spoke and this is what they decided,’ And someone’s saying, ‘How did we get here?’ and me being like, ‘Let me tell you. There was this one day in May …’” Dasgupta said.

Doing so would meet the July 1 deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board districts, but would be a “blow to civic life,” she said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago elected school board draft map underrepresents Latino students, say advocates

2023-05-10T03:09:48+00:00

The first draft of a proposed map for Chicago’s forthcoming elected school board underrepresents the Latino students who make up about 46% of Chicago Public Schools enrollment, said advocates attending a virtual public hearing on Tuesday.

Advocates who spoke at the Illinois Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board Districts hearing wanted to see more districts that represent Latino families and to ensure that undocumented residents can vote in future board elections. The latter would require a change to state law.

“Our students need representation who understand their communities and the challenges that they face in their daily life,” said Vanessa Espinoza, a parent with Kids First Chicago. “We know that board members who have shared experiences with the communities they serve can better understand the needs of the students.”

Espinoza called the draft map “unconscionable” because she said it underrepresents Latino families in Chicago. Kids First Chicago has published a map that will create eight Latino districts and seven Black districts, she told lawmakers.

This virtual hearing came after Illinois lawmakers released the draft map last Friday. The proposed map includes seven majority white districts, seven majority Black districts, and six majority Latino districts.

Drawing voting districts and outlining who can vote will be important for the general election in 2024, when Chicago’s Board of Education begins to transition to a fully elected school board. Chicagoans will vote for 10 board members during November 2024 elections, while 10 members and the board president will be appointed by the mayor. The board will become fully elected after the November 2026 general election.

Chicagoans have voiced concerns over the last few months about whether voting districts will reflect Chicago Public Schools enrollment, and have drawn their own maps. Chicago is majority white, while the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

It is unusual for lawmakers to use school district enrollment rather than city population numbers to create districts for an elected school board, but advocates say it is the only way to ensure that Black and Latino families are equitably represented.

During Tuesday’s virtual hearing, Balthazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council, called for more districts representing Latino students and for allowing undocumented residents to vote for their board members.

“The Latino community has half of the population, meaning half of the seats should be Latinos. We only got six seats,” said Enriquez. “When this bill began, the Little Village Community Council was against it because it did not include undocumented families.”

It remains unclear how many maps will be drawn during the general assembly’s map-making process. State lawmakers have published a draft map for 20 districts, and have received nine map proposals from the public, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents that city’s West side and west suburbs, said Tuesday.

Among the maps submitted was one from Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting. That group’s founder and leader, Valerie Leonard, asked lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing what they planned to do for the first round of elections.

“Will the mayor appoint 10 people to fill the vacancies of 10 districts, while 10 districts will hold elections in 2024? So effectively, only half of our city will be engaged in the election of the school board,” asked Leonard. “Will the 20 districts be coupled so that we effectively have 10 districts now and then you can kind of break them out again in 2026?”

State lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to draw Chicago’s elected school board districts, giving more time for advocates, parents, students, and educators to weigh in on how the map should look.

Illinois lawmakers release first draft of Chicago’s elected school board map

2023-05-08T16:00:58+00:00

Under a draft map released Friday, Chicago’s elected school board would eventually be drawn from 20 districts reflecting the demographics of the city overall.

The proposal from Illinois lawmakers is a long-awaited development in the school district’s shift away from mayoral control. If the draft were adopted, the school board would likely end up skewing whiter than the students it would be representing.

That’s because the draft map proposes seven majority white districts, seven majority Black districts, and six majority Latino districts. Chicago Public Schools student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

The public will get a chance to offer feedback before a July 1 deadline for lawmakers to approve the map. The first school board elections are scheduled for Nov. 5, 2024. At that time, 10 members will be elected and 10 members and a school board president will be appointed by the mayor. The 11 appointed seats will switch to being elected in 2026.

The debate about whether the map should reflect the makeup of the city overall or its student population has come up in recent weeks, as Chicagoans testified at public hearings. The city’s population is 33% white, 29% Black, and 29% Latino.

Two groups of Democrats — one from the state Senate and one from the House — have held public hearings about the maps. They jointly released the draft map.

A proposed map dividing Chicago into 20 districts for school board elections.

In a statement, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and is chair of the Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the committee took into account testimony from public hearings held in recent weeks.

“This draft map is intended to continue those conversations as the legislature works toward adopting boundaries that will help empower families and uplift children,” Lightford said in a statement.

Kids First Chicago, which collected feedback from hundreds of parents and submitted its own map proposal to lawmakers last month, said the draft map should be thrown out.

“We demand legislators go back to the drawing board and create districts that are more representative of CPS,” Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago, said in a statement Saturday.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map with 10 districts that mostly align with current Ward boundaries for City Council, also took issue with the draft map. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, called it a “non-starter.”

Leonard raised questions about whether only half the city will vote for school board seats in 2024 under a proposed 20-district map. The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

“Will the Mayor appoint 10 people to fill the vacancies of 10 districts while 10 of the districts will hold elections in 2024? Will the 20 districts be coupled, so that we effectively have 10 districts?” Leonard asked in testimony she submitted at a Saturday hearing and shared with Chalkbeat.

Others took issue with the sprawling nature of some of the proposed districts.

“This map is a gerrymandered disgrace,” Chicago Republican Party Chair Steve Boulton said in a statement. “Parents living at 79th and Western share a board district with parents in Hegewisch, 12 miles away. Parents in the West Loop share a board district with those near Marquette Park, almost nine miles away.”

The elected school board districts have to comply with the Illinois Voting Rights Act and must be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.”

The Senate’s special committee will hold a virtual meeting to gather feedback on the proposed map at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 9. It will be livestreamed on ilga.gov. The public can also provide comment at Additional opportunities to provide comment can be accessed online at www.ilsenateredistricting.com or by sending an email to ChicagoERSBCommittee@senatedem.ilga.gov.

This story has been updated with additional reaction to the draft elected school board map.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s elected school board is coming soon. Here’s what you need to know.

2023-05-04T20:36:02+00:00

Chicago voters will soon see a new office on their ballots: school board.

In November 2024, voters will elect 10 members to the Chicago Board of Education as the city moves to a 21-member school board that will eventually be fully elected.

The transition marks a dramatic change for Chicago Public Schools, which has been under mayoral control since 1995. Before that, school board members were seated through a nomination process.

The law — and its subsequent trailer bill — spells out a number of rules, regulations, and processes that have to be followed before Chicagoans are voting in school board elections every two years.

Here’s a closer look at some of the details – and outstanding questions.

How will the Chicago Board of Education change?

According to the school board’s website, it is “responsible for the governance, organizational and financial oversight of Chicago Public Schools.” Its mission statement promises “to set goals and standards and make policies that make a high quality public education system available to the children of Chicago.”

Currently, seven people are appointed by the mayor. They can step down or be replaced at virtually any time. Under mayoral control, the school board has been criticized by some as a rubber stamp that made decisions behind closed doors.

Advocates who lobbied for the elected school board wanted to change that and after many years of lobbying, lawmakers passed a law in 2021 to transition to an elected school board. That law expands the size of the board from seven members to 21. For two years starting in January 2025, the board will be a mix of elected and appointed members. By January 2027, it will be fully elected.

At that point, the school board will resemble Chicago’s current City Council — except instead of 50 aldermen elected from 50 wards and one mayor elected by all of Chicago, there will be 20 members elected from 20 different districts and one school board president elected at-large.

When and how will school board members be elected?

The first Chicago school board elections will be held Nov. 5, 2024. Ten members will be elected from 10 yet-to-be-determined districts representing different areas of the city. Those members will each serve a four-year term and will be up for re-election in 2028.

By Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson must also appoint 10 members from those same 10 districts to serve two-year terms. The 10 mayoral-appointed seats will switch to being elected to four-year terms in November 2026. Those seats will represent different districts at that point and will be up for re-election in 2030.

The mayor will also appoint a school board president by Dec. 16, 2024 from anywhere in the city to serve for two years starting in 2024. In Nov. 2026, all Chicago voters will elect a school board president at-large. That person will also be up for re-election in 2030.

In all, 21 new school board members — half elected, half appointed — will be sworn into office in January 2025. By January 2027, all 21 members will have been elected. From that point on, school board elections will be staggered, with half the seats up for reelection every two years.

Who can — and cannot — run for the elected school board?

Chicagoans who want to run to represent their community on the school board will have to collect 250 signatures from voters who also live in their district. Candidates for school board president will have to collect 2,500 signatures from registered Chicago voters.

Similar to other elected offices, candidates will have to submit those petitions to the Chicago Board of Elections a few months before the election in order to get on the ballot and could face challenges to the validity of their signatures. However, the threshold is far lower than other offices, like mayor, which requires 12,500 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The dates for when school board candidates can start collecting signatures to get on the November 2024 ballot are not set yet, according to spokespeople with both the city and state Board of Elections.

A number of Chicagoans won’t be able to serve on the school board, according to the legislation.

School board members cannot be employees of Chicago Public Schools or employees or owners of companies that hold contracts with the school district. It is not clear, however, if a candidate could run and then resign from those jobs in order to serve. Like other school boards across Illinois, members also cannot hold other elected offices.

One point of contention that has come up during public hearings is that non-citizens are not allowed to vote in school board elections or run for office. This disqualifies many public school parents in Chicago and is a departure from a separate state law that allows non-citizens to vote in and serve on Local School Councils, which oversee budget and leadership decisions at individual schools. The law does call for the creation of a non-citizen advisory board appointed by the mayor, but it does not spell out what powers or responsibilities that group would have.

How will my school or community be represented?

This is perhaps the most critical — and most up-in-the-air question. The short answer is: No one knows yet.

State lawmakers from both the House and Senate have been hosting public hearings to gather feedback on how they should divide the city into districts from which school board members will be elected. The next hearing will be held virtually on Friday, May 5.

The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

It’s not clear if lawmakers plan to draw both a 10-district map and a 20-district map by the statutorily required July 1 deadline.

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and a handful of near western suburbs and is chairing the senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the group is evaluating input from the public, including “proposals that suggest a map with 10 districts, and submissions that call for 20 districts.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs a working group of House Democrats focused on Chicago’s elected school board maps, said the number of districts drawn in the next two months is still “to be determined.”

Like all electoral maps, the elected school board districts have to be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population and consistent with the Illinois Voting Rights Act.”

Several groups are already advocating for representation and have proposed maps, including Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and Kids First Chicago.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicagoans want elected school board to better represent Black and Latino students

2023-04-06T02:28:54+00:00

Chicagoans who spoke at a public hearing Wednesday evening want to see the soon-to-be elected school board better represent the mostly Black and Latino students attending the city’s public schools.

The hearing was the first of five held by the Illinois’ Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, which is tasked with drawing the districts where school board members will be elected. The board has a July 1 deadline. The first Chicago school board elections will be held November 2024.

According to state law, school board districts must reflect the city’s population. In Chicago’s case, public schools serve predominantly Black and Latino students, while the city’s overall population is 33% white.

Kee Taylor, a band teacher at Michele Clark High School on the West Side, said they want the maps drawn in a way that gives a voice to Austin, North Lawndale, and Garfield Park residents, because schools in these neighborhoods don’t have the resources necessary to be academically successful.

“For me, it’s important that as we draw these boundaries that we are prioritizing and centering communities that we neglected,” Taylor said. For example, Taylor said Michele Clark does not have a race track, and students on the track team have to practice in the hallway.

Valerie Leonard, founder of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said that in addition to drawing representative maps, there needs to be a stronger relationship between local school councils and the board of education to amplify the needs of schools in different communities.

“We need you to strengthen the relationship between the local school councils and the Board of Education to further amplify the voices of schools in their communities,” said Leonard. “This can be achieved by seeking local school council representation, or by developing an advisory structure where local school councils can provide more robust feedback.”

Chicago’s mayor has appointed the members of the school board since 1995. That will come to an end under an elected school board bill that Gov. J.B. Prtizker signed in July 2021. The new school board will eventually have 21 elected members, creating one of the largest school boards in the nation.

Elected members will be phased in starting with the November 2024 election, when 10 members will be elected and 11, including the board’s president, will be appointed by the mayor. In November 2026, the 11 appointed seats will be up for election.

By January 2027, a fully elected board will be in place. The school board will then have staggered elections, with half the seats up for election every two years.

Chicago Public Schools is the fourth largest public school district in the nation, serving roughly 322,000 students. A majority of students are Black and Latino, and 72% come from low-income families.

As the district transitions to an elected school board, it could face a budget crisis. While Chicago’s operating budget is $9.5 billion, federal COVID-19 relief money will end by 2025.

The district may also pick up more costs after transitioning to an elected school board.

There will be four more public hearings this month, and Chicagoans can also submit feedback through an online portal.

Chicago Public Schools is paying $4 million to help fix its bus woes

2023-03-22T22:49:14+00:00

The Chicago Board of Education approved a $4 million contract with a longtime transportation vendor amid ongoing problems with student bus routes.

School board members Wednesday approved contracting with Education Logistics Inc., also known as EduLog. The contract with the bus routing software company will run from April 1, 2023, to June 30, 2026, according to the board agenda.

Chicago Public Schools provides transportation for over 17,000 students. According to the district, nearly 870 students have commutes that exceed an hour, while just 11 students have commutes that exceed 90 minutes.

About 435 students currently lack transportation, including 52 students who are in special education programs or are medically fragile and are legally entitled to transportation.

The district said in an email statement that it is committed to providing a solution for those students.

Persistent problems with busing have plagued the district since schools reopened in August 2021 after the pandemic shutdown. For two years, parents have raised concerns about canceled routes and unreliable bus service. Last fall, the district failed to provide reliable transportation for students with disabilities.

In August, the district could not arrange buses for about 1,200 children while another 365 students faced commutes that exceeded 90 minutes.

The district has blamed the national bus shortage for its transportation woes.

The busing problems have prompted the district to resort to taxis, vans, and $500 monthly stipends for parents to drive students to and from school.

EduLog has intermittently contracted with the district for three decades, starting in 1991. Board records indicate its last contract ended in 2015. Under its new contract, EduLog will help Chicago Public School schedule bus routes, assign bus vendors during the regular school year, and determine summer school start times, among other things.

The district may pay EduLog up to $307,000 for the current school year, and more than $1.2 million until 2025-26. The cost is not to exceed $4 million over three years, and the board can terminate the contract after issuing a 30-day notice.

The district has long been plagued with transportation problems.

In 2010, Chicago Public Schools entered into a resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to ensure bus services for students with certain disabilities.

Last year, the annual report from the CPS Office of Inspector General revealed that the district had spent millions on bus companies that laid off drivers, contributing to ongoing transportation shortages.

This story has been updated to clarify the vendor’s services.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago schools poised to vote on keeping police on campuses

2023-03-22T21:47:35+00:00

Forty Chicago public schools soon will decide whether or not to keep police officers stationed on their campuses — part of a districtwide plan to re-evaluate safety plans.

During Wednesday’s monthly board meeting, Chief Safety and Security Officer Jadine Chou said the district has been changing its approach to safety since summer 2020 and is considering reducing or eliminating police in schools.

There are 59 police officers stationed across 40 Chicago Public Schools. Each school will convene a safety committee of administrators, staff, parents, and students before Local School Councils vote by June 2, Chou said.

The Whole School Comprehensive Safety Plan was developed in partnership with five community groups, including Mikva Challenge and COFI, to empower school communities to make the decision of retaining or removing officers, Chou said.

“We said we really want to do this in such a way that engages community stakeholders,” Chou said. “We don’t want this to be a top-down decision.”

The presentation comes as Chicagoans decide on a new mayor — with public safety a top issue among voters. Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and former teacher and union organizer Brandon Johnson are on the ballot and differ vastly on education issues, including police at schools. Vallas supports having police in schools to deter shootings, while Johnson said police have no place in schools.

Even while dozens of schools have moved away from officers on campus, the district still maintains a partnership with police, Chou noted.

Last summer, the district approved a $10.2 million contract to station police officers at 40 campuses in the 2022-23 school year. The contract covers salaries and benefits for 59 police officers at campuses mostly on the South and West Sides. Other schools voted to remove police, or never had them on campus.

In 2020, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers prompted a nationwide conversation about removing police officers from schools. In Chicago, some students, parents, and activists called for the removal of officers from schools and for shifting those resources to mental health and restorative practices.

Dozens of campuses have voted in recent years to shift funds away from punitive discipline measures and toward more restorative practices, such as healing circles and alternative interventions.

Schools that remove police officers can put the money they save toward safety measures on campus. So far, schools have used about $3.8 million of those funds to hire youth intervention specialists, at-risk student coordinators, and security officers, and to create social and emotional learning programs, among other initiatives.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Lightfoot appoints a juvenile-justice official and former charter leader to Chicago school board

2023-03-03T20:36:34+00:00

Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed a probation official and former charter network chairman to the Chicago Board of Education, her last appointment before her term comes to an end after she lost her bid for reelection.

Miquel A. Lewis, a current acting director of Probation Services at the Cook County Juvenile Probation and Court Services Department, is replacing Sendhil Revuluri, who stepped down in December, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.

Lewis trains graduate students and professionals pursuing education certifications, and serves on the state Supreme Court Committee on Juvenile Courts, according to the press release.

He formerly served as a chairman of the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

It’s unclear how long Lewis will serve on the board before new appointments are made by the next mayor.

“As a trained Behavioral Health Practitioner, I look forward to sharing my expertise and experiences as a resource to center our work on the emotional wellbeing and academic success of our students,” Lewis said in a prepared statement.

Lewis received his doctorate in clinical psychology and his master’s in counseling psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Southern Illinois University

Lightfoot said in a statement that Lewis’ “years of experience serving young people who are impacted by other institutions will be a great asset to our board and will benefit our students and teachers.”

Revuluri was appointed to the board in 2019.

In announcing his departure in December, Revuluri lauded fellow board members for their work navigating the pandemic and the road to recovery, while also sounding alarms about the financial solvency of the district and its future as it begins transitioning to an elected school board in 2025.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago keeps August start for 2023-24 school year

2023-02-22T21:54:47+00:00

Chicago Public Schools will start classes in August next school year, once again aligning its schedule with suburban districts and local colleges and universities.

On Wednesday, the Chicago Board of Education approved the district’s proposed 2023-24 academic calendar. The school year will start on Aug. 21 and end on June 6, one day earlier than the 2022-23 academic calendar.

“We know how important calendars are and how they drive everything for both our staff and families,” said CEO Pedro Martinez. “It’s not easy because you’re trying to please many people.”

A major factor in the calendar was feedback that families and staff wanted consistency, Martinez said.

The Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday approved the district’s proposed 2023-24 academic calendar.

Chicago Public Schools has traditionally started after Labor Day weekend, but board members last year opted for a new schedule that would align its academic calendar with other suburban districts, local colleges, and universities.

Students will also have a full week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks for winter break, and one week for spring break in March. The approved 2023-24 calendar also includes 10 holidays and 12 professional development days for teachers and staff.

During the Wednesday board meeting, Chicago Public School staff said the overall comments from students, parents, teachers, and staff indicated a desire for consistency with the current calendar.Classes started this year on Aug. 22 — the earliest school opening in recent memory.

The district embarked on formal and informal engagement with principals, the Chicago Teachers Union, parents, and community members early on to come up with the upcoming school year calendar, said Mary Beck, the district’s deputy chief of teaching and learning.

Last fall, the district spoke with principals to understand the impact of the current calendar and necessary changes for the coming year, Beck said.

“Principals indicated that the top two factors to drive the calendar should focus on uninterrupted stretches of instruction and maximizing learning at the beginning of the year,” Beck said.

Last month, district officials solicited feedback from students, parents, teachers, and school leaders. The district received 2,500 comments mostly from parents and teachers, Becky said. Over 1,200 comments gave positive feedback on an earlier start, compared with over 400 that expressed concerns about the start date, Beck said.

Some administrators, parents, and teachers raised concerns that some quarters are longer than others, Beck noted.

“We truly appreciate the ongoing feedback from our families, communities, teachers, and administrators, and some of these concerns shared, we were able to address,” Beck said.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Urban Prep loses charter agreement for last Chicago campus

2022-11-17T22:56:02+00:00

After months of controversy surrounding Urban Prep Academy, the Illinois board of education ended the charter school’s agreement for its downtown campus Thursday, citing enrollment declines.

The move marks the latest blow to the nationally recognized charter network that specializes in serving Black boys on Chicago’s South and West Sides.

Last month, Chicago Public School moved to revoke its charter agreement and take over Urban Prep’s Bronzeville and Englewood campuses following a report from the district’s inspector general that substantiated misconduct allegations against the charter school’s founder.

Illinois board members voted to revoke the Urban Prep charter agreement after the charter school failed to maintain enrollment numbers at a certain level for its West/Downtown campus. Since originally opening in West Garfield Park, the campus has moved various times. Most recently, it relocated to Roosevelt University two years ago.

Board member Jaime Guzman, who voted to revoke the agreement, said the most important constituency were the 51 students who would require support from ISBE in the transition.

“This is a sad decision,” Guzman said.

Board member Donna Leaks, who abstained from casting a vote, said she could not support revocation of a charter for a school that’s provided a “unique opportunity for African American young men” in Chicago. Still, she said she understood the issues around sustainability.

“My hope is that there will be an effort to maintain this model that empowers our young African American men to feel pride, high expectations, and know their value,” Leaks said, fighting back tears.

Urban Prep’s downtown campus will be required to surrender its charter and close at the end of the 2022-23 school year. The charter school leaders will still be able to appeal the decision in court.

The state has had oversight of Urban Prep’s West campus since 2019 after the Chicago Board of Education voted to revoke the organization’s charter for the West campus citing concerns over financial mismanagement and dwindling enrollment.

As part of the charter agreement with the state, Urban Prep was required to maintain enrollment at 155 students. The charter’s West/Downtown campus, located at Roosevelt University in South Loop, currently has 51 students enrolled. The charter school has failed to meet enrollment requirements for three consecutive years and the numbers have fallen precipitously, state officials said.

During the meeting, Dennis Lacewell, chief academic officer for Urban Prep, lobbied board members to keep the school open, arguing enrollment declines are not unique to Urban Prep, but something local schools serving Black students are grappling with in Chicago.

“We do not dispute the fact that our current enrollment numbers are not ideal,” Lacewell said. “However, we will like to highlight how this is a challenge that is not unique to Urban Prep and other schools serving Black students, particularly post-pandemic.”

Concerns over enrollment numbers were first raised in a letter sent to the school last month, leaving the school with only a few weeks to increase enrollment by over 40 students, Lacewell said.

“We simply ask that Urban Prep Downtown campus is allowed to continue to grow and move forward in an upward trajectory,” Lacewell said.

At Thursday’s meeting, several students spoke fondly of their experiences at the charter school, expressing interest in wanting to finish out their high school career at Urban Prep.

Michael Woodard said he had witnessed “nothing but Black excellence” in his three years as an Urban Prep student. He described support from teachers, staff, and peers — and cited the charter school’s record of seeing all graduating students receive offers to attend college:

“I believe that I speak for all of my brothers in every graduating class when I say: ‘We want to finish what we started by graduating as Urban Prep young men.’”

Still, state board members remained unmoved and voted to revoke the agreement of the once-lauded charter school.

Jackie Matthews, executive director of communications for ISBE, said the board will work with the charter school’s families and CPS “to ensure that students have adequate supports before and during their transition into other CPS schools and programs that meets their unique needs.”

Chicago Public Schools plans to continue the Bronzeville and Englewood programs with teachers and staff for the 2023-24 school year, Matthews added in an email.

The district has assured the state board that Urban Prep students at the West/Downtown campus will be prioritized for the programs should students want to continue under the Urban Prep model absorbed by the district, Matthews said.

The state action also came early enough to allow Urban Prep students to participate in Chicago Public Schools’ high school application process for the 2023-24 school year, Matthews added.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board moves to take over once-lauded charter serving Black boys

2022-10-26T22:35:09+00:00

Chicago’s school board moved Wednesday to take over two South Side charter campuses that specialize in serving Black boys — an unprecedented step to pull the school’s charter but preserve an academic model officials acknowledged has delivered for many students.

School board members voted unanimously to revoke the Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men’s charter. They forcefully rejected the school’s arguments for more time to prove they are on the right track, and voicing dismay at the school’s response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving the school’s founder.

Urban Prep leaders pushed back forcefully, calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to halt the district’s plan to take over its two campuses.

Urban Prep, which once received national recognition for steering its students to graduation and college admissions, has come under intense district scrutiny in recent years. Its founder, Tim King, resigned his positions as CEO and board chair this summer after a district watchdog report substantiated allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a former student — allegations King has strongly denied.

The district has also rung alarms about the school’s financial management, which is the focus of an ongoing district inspector general investigation, as well as its services for students with disabilities and the number of licensed teachers it employs.

In a Tuesday news conference on the Englewood campus and during Wednesday’s board meeting, the school’s leaders and supporters decried the district’s own track record of serving Black male students and said the school, run largely by Black men, has delivered better outcomes. They said Urban Prep has gotten its finances in order more recently, and accused the district of using the allegations against King to launch a takeover of the school.

But school board officials were unmoved.

“It’s an egregious report, and it should make everybody upset,” said board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, referring to the investigation’s findings about King. “It’s shameful to me that the Urban Prep board had this information and did not act swiftly.”

However, district officials said Urban Prep has forged a strong academic model and a supportive environment for Black boys, who in Chicago and nationally have long faced the widest academic disparities. In an unusual move, district CEO Pedro Martinez said Wednesday the two campuses, which have a combined enrollment of about 370 students, will remain open under district management — either as free-standing schools or as programs of existing high schools. It plans to keep teachers and staff at the school.

“We want to make sure high-quality programs continue for children in Bronzeville and Englewood — it’s essential,” Martinez said. But, he added, “We cannot compromise. We need ethical behavior, and we need to make sure we are protecting our children.”

The school can appeal the district’s decision to the Illinois State Board of Education. The state took over a third Urban Prep campus in 2018 after the school board revoked its charter.

Tensions between school, CPS boil over

The inspector general’s report alleged King groomed and sexually touched a student who was 16 at the time. According to the report, the relationship continued after the student graduated, and he eventually came to work at Urban Prep; the report also says he continued to receive pay and benefits long after he stopped working there.

The district said the school’s handling of the investigation was troubling because it allowed King — who was featured on a 2010 People Magazine cover as “hero of the year” — to continue interacting with students after the inquiry substantiated the allegations.

Urban Prep also refused to email families about the investigation’s findings, and appointed King to two boards after he resigned, according to board documents.

Meanwhile, an ongoing district watchdog investigation is taking a closer look at the school’s finances. The district says that for years the school relied on district cash advances and high-interest loans to make payroll, racking up more than half a million dollars in finance charges in the process.

Yet Urban Prep still defaulted on paying salaries, leases, and vendors providing services for students with disabilities. The school was able to use a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan during the pandemic to balance its books, but a separate inspector general investigation found it inflated the number of employees on the loan application.

During public comment at the school board meeting and during a Tuesday press conference, Urban Prep officials and supporters decried the plan to revoke the school’s charter. They argued that district leaders can’t come in and replicate the charter’s climate and culture, which is steeped in the sense of identity and backgrounds of its leaders.

They touted the school’s outcomes, from its attendance rate to the 100% college acceptance rate that the charter has long made a cornerstone of its model.

(The rate of College Prep students who actually enroll in college within a year of graduation has plunged in recent years to 48% on the Bronzeville campus and 63% on the Englewood campus, according to state data.)

Troy Boyd, the chief operating officer, asked the board to at least delay the vote on revoking the school’s charter, insisting the school has done everything the district asked of it, and that its financial problems are a thing of the past. He called Wednesday’s vote “tragic.”

“The non-renewal of Urban Prep would mean the end of something that has been transformational for the city,” he said. “We won’t stop fighting.”

At the meeting, a string of students, dressed in the school’s uniform of navy blazers, red ties, and khakis, spoke about the impact the school has had on them, which many credited to the Urban Prep’s leadership and educator team of largely Black men.

Avery Barnes, a sophomore at the Bronzeville campus, said at the school he came to see his value as a Black male, built close relationships with educators, and went on several college visits as an underclassman.

“I feel like Urban Prep has already started the process of preparing me for adulthood,” he said, adding that, “Urban Prep Academies needs to be renewed simply because they make young Black males feel accepted and seen in a society where we are often predicted to go to jail or end up in an early grave.”

Kevin Scott, a senior at the Bronzeville campus, said the school gives students positive role models who look like them in the classroom and principal’s office. Unlike district-run schools, it remained open for in-person instruction throughout the 2020-21 school year, Scott, a National Honors Society member, pointed out.

“Urban Prep is more than just a school,” he said. “It’s been like a family, a safe place, a hangout and so much more.”

Urban Prep Charter Academy leaders and parents hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Englewood.

Inside Urban College Prep Englewood Tuesday afternoon, Dennis Lacewell, chief academic officer at the charter school, said the charter has made progress in rectifying past financial problems, and said Urban Prep officials had completed more financial reporting than at any CPS schools.

Leaders dismissed the district’s claim that the school has compromised its students’ safety. He also argued that the district has been unfairly attacking Urban Prep for some time by revoking the license for its downtown campus in 2018, and disparaging the charter to potential financial lenders.

“Despite CPS’ lack of success and commitment to Black male students, they have the audacity to think they can be successful taking over Urban Prep and turning it into a program of another CPS high school,” Lacewell added. “It is both ludicrous and infuriating.”

But school board members and district officials said they could not allow the charter’s current leadership to continue on. The board has granted the school a series of short-term extensions of its charter amid mounting concerns, in part because of its reluctance to cause any disruption to students at the height of the pandemic, members said.

“At this point, unfortunately, all doubt has been removed that the leaders of the organization do not have students’ best interests at heart,” board Vice President Sendhil Revuluri said.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Longtime Illinois educator Steven Isoye named chair of state board of education

2022-09-20T17:58:17+00:00

The Illinois State Board of Education has a new chairman: Steven Isoye, a science teacher-turned-superintendent from Chicago’s suburbs.

Isoye was sworn in Tuesday at the board’s monthly meeting, one day after Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the announcement.

Isoye replaces former chair Darren Reisberg, who left the state board in May to become President of Hartwick College, a small liberal arts college in New York. Reisberg said in his exit interview with Chalkbeat that it will be important for the next board chair to spend time with school leaders, teachers, parents, advocates, and others invested in education to make good policy.

As chair, Isoye will be responsible for overseeing the state’s continued efforts to recover from the pandemic, diversify the teacher workforce, retain educators, and figure out the best way to test students. He will serve for four-year terms and can serve up to two consecutive terms, according to the state board of education.

In a statement, Isoye said he is honored to be appointed.

“I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Board and State Superintendent Dr. Carmen Ayala to foster an academic environment in which every student in the state can be successful,” Isoye said.

Over Isoye’s career, he worked his way from a science teacher to superintendent with roles at several school districts in the Chicago suburbs. Before becoming a superintendent, he was a principal at Maine East High School in Park Ridge and Warren Township High School in Gurnee. He also served as science department chair at Highland Park High School.

Prior to his leadership roles, Isoye spent 12 years in the classroom, teaching chemistry, biology, and physical sciences at Highland Park, Deerfield, and Warren Township High Schools, The Latin School of Chicago, and Loyola Academy.

Isoye was named the Illinois High School Principal of the Year in 2010 and Illinois Teacher of the Year in 1998.

Isoye is “an exceptional educator and person,” Pritzker said in a statement, adding that he is a great fit to lead “the best educational leadership team in America.”

Isoye most recently served as superintendent of Niles Township High School District 219, but his first superintendent job was at Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200. Colleagues there applauded his appointment.

“Not only is he an exceptional educator, but he also has a deep commitment to equity and the work of ensuring that race, socioeconomic status, and other social factors are eliminated as predictors of students’ academic achievement and social emotional growth,” Karin Sullivan, executive director of communications at Oak Park and River Forest High School, said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

In addition to being an educator and administrator, Isoye has sat on a number of state boards and committees over his career and holds membership with several state and national associations. He currently sits on two state committees, one focused on tests for students and one on evaluating teacher performance in classrooms.

Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, said he is looking forward to working with Isoye in his new role.

“As a recent sitting superintendent, Dr. Isoye understands the issues impacting public school districts across the state of Illinois and will be a great partner in helping address those challenges,” Clark said.

Pritzker’s office said Isoye’s appointment awaits confirmation by the state Senate, which is scheduled to meet in November.

North Chicago may transition back to an elected school board, state officials say. It’s unclear when.

2022-08-23T11:00:00+00:00

A decade after being placed under state control, North Chicago School District 187 may go back to having a locally elected school board.

The Illinois state board of education says the suburban school district, which serves more than 3,000 students, has made enough progress academically and financially in recent years to justify considering lifting state oversight.

The district, which has a majority Latino student body and 81% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, was placed under state control in 2012.

The state changed how it measures student academic performance twice since taking over North Chicago’s schools, making it difficult to track improvements back to 2012. But since 2015, the percentage of students considered proficient in English and math has increased, according to data provided by the state. In 2015, just 12% of students were proficient in English, compared to 16% in 2019. In 2015, 9% of students met the bar in math, compared to 12% in 2019.

State officials also said the North Chicago school district’s financial score went from 3.25 out of 4 in 2012 to an estimated 3.7 in 2021.

North Chicago’s modest gains while under state control are rare. A national report from 2021 found little evidence that districts see a rise in test scores as a result of being taken over by the state. The report found that state control had slightly negative effects on students.

Before the state stepped in, North Chicago schools were riddled with troubles, including a quick turnover of superintendents.

A former school board member and former school transportation director were also indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2011 and later convicted for getting more than $800,000 in kickbacks for school bus contracts over almost a decade before getting caught. Students were barely meeting or exceeding the state’s standards, putting the district on the state’s academic watch list for years.

During the state board of education’s monthly meeting last week, state superintendent Carmen Ayala said she is open to transitioning the district to an elected school board by 2025. However, the decision will be made after the board completes community engagement meetings that have been running throughout the year. The next meeting will be Sept. 7.

North Chicago district parents, community members, and local politicians also think it’s time to move to an elected school board. At the state board meeting last week, North Chicagoans urged the district to move the process along.

Rayon Edwards, a North Chicago resident, said he understands why the district was taken over by the state, but thinks it’s time for an elected school board.

“We’re tired of not having any say in who educates our kids and how it’s being done,” said Edwards.

“We can no longer allow this to happen,” said Thomas Coleman, another community member. “Every other city surrounding us in the state of Illinois has an elected school board. We want the same thing for our community. It’s unfair.”

Later in the board meeting, Donna Leak, a member of the state school board who also serves as superintendent of Community Consolidated Schools District 168 in Chicago’s south suburbs, asked if the transition will happen next year or in 2025.

Board members agreed that earlier could be a good option, but said the transition depends on evidence that the district can govern itself. If not, they said, a longer transition with additional support could be helpful.

Board member Roger Eddy said state oversight was only supposed to be for a certain time period and that the board should consider moving forward with transitioning.

“When folks have a passion to become self-governing and self-determinant of how their school is going to serve them,” said Eddy, “we should provide them an opportunity with whatever means we can while still giving them support for that little transition period.”

More than 1,400 seats remain unfilled on Chicago’s Local School Councils

2022-08-18T17:43:35+00:00

Chicago Public Schools saw its biggest overall voter turnout in a decade for the Local School Councils election this spring, but more than 1,400 seats — mostly at South and West Side schools — remain unfilled, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Across CPS, 1,408 seats remained empty as of Aug. 5, with more than half of the unfilled positions designated for parents. Students, who were the largest voting bloc in the spring election, accounted for 239 vacant seats, followed by community representatives with 212 empty seats, according to data Chalkbeat obtained through a records request. The remaining vacancies were among school staff.

These mini-school boards have been a fixture of Chicago schools for more than three decades, putting school-level decisions in the hands of parents, students, and staff. But as Chicago moves toward a fully elected school board by 2027, it’s not clear what role the hyperlocal governing bodies will play.

Natasha Erskine, who holds LSC training workshops independent of the district through parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand, said it is important to strengthen community participation in LSCs and reclaim parent and community governing power at schools.

“We see this as a critical organizing moment,” Erskine added, “We don’t know what we don’t know about the relationship between LSCs and elected boards —we’ve never had that in the city of Chicago.”

Local School Councils have at least 12 seats. At more than 100 schools, 40% of those seats are unfilled, data shows. About 24 schools did not garner enough applicants to meet quorum and did not hold elections in the spring, according to the district.

South and West Side schools have the highest number of unfilled seats. Garfield Park, Little Village, New City, Englewood, Roseland, Grand Crossing, and Chatham had the highest overall total number of vacancies across schools within each neighborhood, data shows.

Garfield Park has an average of about five vacancies per school, while Little Village and New City both averaged almost four vacancies per school in their neighborhood.

It’s still possible for people interested in being on an LSC to fill these vacant seats. Interested parents and community members are asked to file nomination forms and participate in an interview or presentation during an LSC meeting. Afterwards, LSC members will vote on whether to appoint a candidate to a vacant seat on the council.

In 2021, the Illinois Legislature revised quorum requirements to make it easier for schools to fill vacancies. If the number of members fall below seven because of vacancies, four members are allowed to vote to fill outstanding vacancies.

Erskine attributes the vacancies to barriers such as accessing applications and a lack of information around LSC meetings.

Parents and community members aren’t running at schools where there’s been an “erasure of the LSC” and parents may not even know when meetings are being held, Erskine said.

Information isn’t getting to parents and community members and apathy is setting in, she added.

Instead of relying simply on individual administrators to distribute LSC information, the district should be doing more such as robocalls and emails to ensure information on LSC meetings and elections is readily available to parents and community members, Erskine said.

Local School Councils, a facet of Chicago school governance since the first election in 1989, are elected every two years. The councils vote on the annual school budget, approve the school academic plan, and select and evaluate principals.

The councils are traditionally made up of the school’s principal, six parents, two community members, two teachers, one non-teaching staff, and one to three students. This year, for the first time in the district’s history, elementary students in the sixth grade were eligible to serve one-year terms on their school’s LSC.

“LSCs serve as an important vehicle for participatory democracy, providing a wide variety of stakeholders an opportunity to make important decisions about how students in their communities will be educated,” the district said in an emailed statement.

The Office of Local School Council Relations will work with principals and a school’s LSC to fill vacancies in the fall. Staff and student vacancies will also be filled through an election process or a poll of their peers. The district said it would raise awareness about filling remaining LSC vacancies.

During a speech Wednesday at City Club Chicago, CEO Pedro Martinez said the district saw “the highest engagement in more than a decade for both in our LSC elections for both candidates running for LSC and our parents community members coming out to cast their votes.”

More than 110,700 people voted for council candidates at nearly 500 schools this spring. That’s more than three times as many votes cast than in 2020, when about 35,066 people voted.

The largest turnout was among students, who cast 71,142 votes – a dramatic increase from the 2020 election when only 4,869 students cast a ballot, data shows.

But parent and community voters only saw marginal increases of 2 to 3%, figures show. About 17,065 parents cast a vote in the spring election, compared with 16,802 votes in 2020. Parent voters turned out at higher levels prior to the pandemic when 28,888 cast votes in 2018.

The district has struggled with tepid participation in the last decade. After the 2020 election, about 900 seats remained unfilled — a situation that prompted a wave of appointments by administrators and members from local school councils.

A few days shy of the district’s deadline this March, only 722 candidate applications had been submitted for 6,239 total positions on councils across 509 schools. About 307 schools had no candidates for open positions.

The district ultimately received enough candidates to reach a quorum at 485 of the 509 schools.

The district hosted 100 engagement sessions to promote candidacy and elections. In all, 6,149 parents, students, and community members ran for seats during the April election, compared with 5,910 people running for seats in 2020. The district added more seats for student representatives.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board approves $170 million pension payment

2022-05-25T22:36:33+00:00

Chicago Public Schools leaders raised alarms about long-term financial pressures looming for the country’s third-largest district, arguing that like others in the state, it should have the ability to ask its residents to raise their own taxes to pay for operating and building project expenses.

The wide-ranging discussion came Wednesday as a divided board voted to significantly increase the district’s contribution to a city employee pension fund. The board also faced ongoing criticism over trimming some campus budgets next year, though officials recently reversed some of those cuts.

At the board’s regular monthly meeting, the district administration reiterated that it’s investing more in schools next year amid steep pandemic enrollment declines and is putting a premium on ensuring “reasonable” class sizes, arts programming, and academic interventions across the board. And officials gave a broad breakdown of how they have spent about $1 billion in federal COVID relief dollars so far, along with a more detailed outline of $600 million in additional spending planned for 2022-23.

But those dollars will be gone in two years, officials stressed, and the district’s prospects for additional revenue are murky at best — as Chicago gears up for a transition to an elected school board.

“This elected school board should have some of the same authority every other district in the state has to go to the voters for both operating and capital expenses,” said board president Miguel del Valle.

CEO Pedro Martinez similarly expressed frustration that the district is currently limited in asking Chicago’s taxpayers for help in chipping in for building improvements — an option he says was available at districts where he worked in Nevada and Texas.

CPS, which is gearing up to release its complete budget later this summer, announced its campus budgets in April. The district is allocating more dollars to schools overall, but critics pounced on proposed budget cuts at 40% of campuses amid significant pandemic-era enrollment losses.

The district’s principal association, teachers union, and some parent advocacy groups have argued that the district should hold school budgets harmless for the third year in a row to account for heightened student academic and mental health needs.

The district has since restored about $24 million in cuts, including $14 million for special education, following appeals from school leaders. The district also divvied up educator professional development and other dollars that had previously been centrally budgeted among school campuses, boosting overall school budget amounts. With these revisions, the overall amount of the cuts decreased to $18.6 million, with about 23% of campuses now seeing lower budgets.

But advocates and outgoing Chicago Teachers Union president Jesse Sharkey continued to make a case against any cuts to the board Wednesday.

“As long as staff is being cut from schools that are already short-staffed, you’ll hear me speak out against these cuts,” Sharkey said.

Sharkey also decried a ballooning payment to a city employee pension fund at a time when Illinois, by its own calculation, found Chicago receives about 63% of the money it needs to be fully funded.

The district is on the hook for $170 million to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a pension fund that covers its support staff — up from $100 million last year. This will be the third year the district will contribute for its employees’ pensions, an expense the city has previously handled.

“If the money isn’t there, let’s say we cannot afford to give $170 million to the city,” Sharkey said.

But del Valle said stepping in to cover pension expenditures for the district’s own employees is a key step in “disentangling” the district from the city as Chicago Public Schools transitions to an elected school board from one historically appointed by the mayor.

He called on the teachers union to join the district in advocating for more money from the state to help meet these pension obligations, which he said threaten to open up a “humongous structural deficit.”

Still, he stressed, “These pension payments are CPS employees. They are our responsibility.”

Board vice president Sendhil Revuluri said that over the years the city put “wildly inadequate” contributions into the fund, and Chicago now faces growing payments to catch up on increasing obligations. The $170 million represents about 65% of this year’s tab, with the city picking up the rest.

The board backed the increased payment on a 3-to-2 vote. Member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, one of the no votes, argued the district really needs every dollar it can steer toward student needs as it tries to bounce back from the pandemic.

“I’m not comfortable with having City Hall balance any more of their budget on CPS’ budget,” said Todd-Breland, who added “This is one of those times where we’re being asked to do this on a timeline that does not work for CPS.”

Correction: The article’s headline has been updated to reflect the total pension payment approved by the board.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board ‘discouraged’ by district’s spending on academic, mental health support: ‘This is an emergency’

2022-03-23T22:27:06+00:00

Some Chicago school board members are urging the district to pick up the pace on its federally-funded push to address the pandemic’s academic and mental health fallout, saying the money isn’t being spent fast enough to meet the immediate needs of students.

The district has so far spent only 12%, or $62.9 million, on a two-year, half-billion dollar initiative called Moving Forward Together, which was designed to help students bounce back from COVID disruption. And it has made use of less than 7% of its $1.8 billion allocation under the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan, the third and final round of federal COVID relief dollars.

District officials said they have run into a slew of hurdles to spending the money faster: The delta and omicron variants diverted energy from academic recovery efforts, and the national “Great Resignation” made it harder to line up the staffing needed to roll out new programs to support students.

CEO Pedro Martinez also noted that the district had to spend dollars from earlier federal relief funding rounds first, and that not all expenses are included in the American Rescue Plan figures because the district hasn’t reported them to the state.

Some school members said they understand the challenges, but still would like to see stepped-up efforts to get help to schools now.

Board president Miguel del Valle said the district needs to expedite its hiring processes for community-based organizations that provide CPS with social, emotional, and mental health support.

“This is an emergency,” del Valle said. “Schools are crying out for additional help.”

Board member Luisiana Melendez acknowledged the persistent challenges, but said “timely interventions” for students were immediately needed to prevent more problems in child’s learning, and social and emotional development.

“I am a little discouraged by the low amount of investment so far,” she said.

The Moving Forward Together plan announced last June uses $525 million — a portion of the $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan dollars the district received — to address academic and mental health trauma from the pandemic over the span of two years. Chicago Public Schools got a total of roughly $2.8 billion from three rounds of federal COVID relief.

The program investments include:

learning acceleration and access to grade-level content ($35 million)
targeted intervention and tutoring ($15.3 million)
supporting students with disabilities and English language learners ($7.6 million)
early literacy ($1.9 million)
transition-year support ($11.1 million)
social, emotional, and healing supports ($3 million)

Real-time spending data that Chalkbeat obtained and analyzed suggests that the district has so far used a significant portion of its federal COVID relief dollars to cover the salaries and benefits of existing teachers and support staff and other routine expenses for which it had previously budgeted state and other funds. The district told the state it would use about $764 million in federal emergency relief to pay for existing instructional positions alone. It plans to separately cover support staff such as cafeteria workers and security guards as well as pre-kindergarten personnel with COVID dollars.

During a meeting at the beginning of the school year, board members pressed district officials to spell out how they would track whether the initiative was paying off for students. Some members voiced concern about the possibility of making a substantial investment without having results to show for it.

At the time, officials said they were still exploring ways to capture the program’s outcomes, noting some challenges such as quantifying student mental health improvements. But they promised to report back with concrete measures of success.

On Wednesday, district officials didn’t outline a metric for measuring the success of the program. Rather, board members echoed Melendez’s concerns around the pace of spending for such interventions.

The school year had been dubbed as a “recovery year,” but in reality the district has been focused on reopening and keeping schools open amid surges, staffing retention, and other issues, Martinez said.

“We all wanted this to be a recovery year, but it has not played out that way,” Martinez said.

Across the country, school districts are grappling with learning gaps and mental health challenges created by the pandemic that upended the education system. The federal government has issued billions in COVID relief funding to help school districts respond.

In detailing the initiative last summer, Chicago Public School officials said about 84,500 students had been flagged for target support and another 18,130 students would qualify for more intensive outreach. The district’s effort would primarily be focused on the South and West communities hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, officials said at the time.

The initiative is broadly focused on re-engaging students who tuned out after the district shifted from in-person to remote learning in March 2020. Chicago Public Schools used portions of the funds to create behavior and mental health teams at school, while also partnering with outside providers for mental health services.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Melendez and other board members asked the district how they planned to speed up the use of these funds to ensure students were receiving necessary interventions now and in the coming years.

“This is not meant to be finger-pointing or blaming anybody,” Melendez said, “but I think this is an issue that is becoming increasingly urgent as time continues to go by and children are suffering from the long-term learning impacts — and social emotional impacts— of COVID.”

The presentation was only “a partial picture,” in part, because of the complexity around how those funds are reported, Martinez said, promising a more in-depth analysis of spending by May. Still, Martinez said the district was “doubling down” on providing support that principals were asking for including social workers, counselors, and nurses by next year.

Board member Melendez acknowledged the complexity of the funding but argued that “schools are hurting, they need support now.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago moves up school start day this fall to Aug. 22

2022-03-23T20:13:29+00:00

It’s official.

Chicago Public Schools students will be returning to classes for the next school year on Aug. 22, marking the district’s earliest start in recent memory.

On Wednesday, the Chicago Board of Education approved the district’s proposed 2022-2023 academic calendar. The upcoming school year is now poised to start on Aug. 22 and end on June 7.

CEO Pedro Martinez said the decision was reached after engaging school leaders, teachers, parents, and students.

The newly adopted calendar is more aligned with suburban districts and will allow the district to wrap up the first semester before winter break, Martinez said. “It’s a much more balanced calendar.”

Chicago Public Schools has traditionally started after Labor Day weekend, but will now align its academic year with other suburban districts, local colleges, and universities.

This year, the school district also bucked tradition by opening ahead of Labor Day, marking a return to in-person learning after nearly two years of unpredictability amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The approved 2022-23 calendar includes 176 student instructional days, four teacher institute days, four improvement days, two report card pickup days, four teacher professional development days, one parent-teacher conference day for high school and elementary students in the fall, and another in the spring.

Students will also have a full week off for Thanksgiving as opposed to three days.

In February, district leaders solicited feedback from students, parents, teachers, administrators, principals, and community members on an online survey that gave the option of an Aug. 22 or Aug. 29 start.

About 24,409 people voted for an Aug. 29 start, compared to 24,001 people who voted for an earlier start, district officials said.

During the Wednesday board meeting, Martinez said district officials were hoping to see a more decisive preference for one option over the other, but that wasn’t the case. Ultimately, the district opted for Aug. 22 because a majority of principals, teachers, and students preferred an earlier start, Martinez said.

Parents, guardians, local school council members, vendors, and community members supported the alternative option, which would have kept the start date as Aug. 29, officials said.

In responses to the online survey, some parents who supported the Aug. 29 start date said the early start was too drastic a change with little communication to families, while other parents thought an earlier start would allow more preparation for exams such as the SAT. During public comment at Wednesday’s board meeting, parent Celeste O’Connor said she was “shocked” about the district’s decision to move up the start date by two weeks.

Asked why individual schools could not pick their own academic calendar, Martinez noted that parents with students at multiple schools rely on consistent calendars for planning. He said having school-based calendars would pose operational challenges around transportation and capital investment improvements, which typically occur during the summer months when schools are empty.

Still, Martinez said the district would be building engagement efforts to gather more feedback.

“I think the district is becoming more and more open to different ideas around the calendar,” Martinez added.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools could have an earlier start this fall

2022-03-21T16:18:00+00:00

This story has been updated to include a comment from district officials.

Chicago students could return to school a week earlier this fall under a proposed calendar that would align the district with other suburban school districts, local colleges, and universities.

The Chicago Board of Education will vote on the calendar during Wednesday’s monthly board meeting.

Under the proposed calendar, the 2022-2023 academic year would kick off on Aug. 22 and end on June 7. It would include 176 instruction days, 12 professional learning days for teachers, one parent-teacher conference day for high school and elementary students in the fall, and another in the spring.

The proposed calendar also includes two weeks of winter vacation, one week for spring break, and no student instruction during the entire week of Thanksgiving.

Earlier this year, Chicago Public Schools asked parents for feedback on the upcoming school year, which gave the option of an Aug. 22 or an Aug. 29 start.

About 24,409 people voted for an Aug. 29 start, compared to 24,001 people who voted for an earlier start, district officials said.

But the district opted for the earlier date after a majority of administrators, school leaders, teachers, central office staff, and students selected Aug. 22 as a preference from an online survey. Parents, guardians, local school council members, vendors, and community members supported the alternative option, which would have kept the start date as Aug. 29, officials said.

Under the proposal, Chicago Public Schools would line up with other suburban school districts and local colleges and universities.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago comes closer to solving school bus woes six months into school year

2022-02-23T22:58:36+00:00

After wrestling with transportation woes for six months, Chicago Public Schools said it has finally met its obligation to provide bus services to students with disabilities amid ongoing bus driver shortages, but 1,000 general education students are still waiting for routing assignments.

The district said Wednesday that it is prioritizing students who require transportation under federal law — and is now planning to make transportation policy changes to ensure those students are at the front of the line for the upcoming school year.

During Wednesday’s meeting, CEO Pedro Martinez said 715 students with disabilities who were previously without bus service during the last board meeting had been routed, and the district was now transporting about 10,000 students with disabilities.

“I know this has been a struggle with the national shortage of drivers,” Martinez said. “I’m glad we are at this point.”

The district was planning ahead and would make changes to its transportation policy for next school year, Martinez said. The district’s goal is to provide services to all students but would prioritize medically fragile students, students with Individualized Education Programs, those with temporary housing, and low-income students should the driver shortage persist, Martinez said.

However, some students still remain without bus service halfway into the school year, one school board member noted at Wednesday’s board of education meeting.

Board member Lucino Sotelo lauded the transportation team for “making progress” to provide bus service for students with disabilities. Still, Sotelo acknowledged there remained “many unserved” students with temporary housing, or low-income students..

In a statement following the board meeting, Chicago Public Schools noted that transportation requests fluctuate throughout the year as students’ needs change. Since the last board meeting, the district had received 427 new transportation requests from students with disabilities, but 170 of those students had already been assigned a pick-up route.

The district currently has 17 active transportation requests for students with temporary housing and about 1,000 general education students waiting for a routing assignment.

“Like many other school districts across the country, CPS continues to adapt amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Chicago Public Schools said in a statement. “The District continues to work tirelessly to provide transportation to students amid a national driver shortage.’

Last month, the Board of Education adopted a resolution that would shift bus service away from selective enrollment schools and magnet schools by March 7 if the district was unable to meet legal obligations to provide services to students with Individualized Education Programs, medically fragile students, and students in temporary housing.

Chicago Public Schools annually provides transportation to about 12,754 students, of which 56% are students with disabilities. Students with disabilities have transportation written into their IEP, a legally binding document that outlines services they receive. The requirement is backed by federal law.

Since the start of the school year, Chicago, along with districts nationwide, had been plagued by school bus driver shortages, leaving thousands of students without a dependable ride to school. The district struggled for months to make headway.

CPS started the school year with 500 bus drivers instead of the 1,2000 required to meet student transportation needs.

Since the fall, the district’s transportation department has been teaming up with taxi firms and a company called RideAlong, which specializes in providing rides to children, in order to make up for the bus driver shortages. The district has also offered to reimburse families who opt to find alternative transportation for their child.

During Wednesday’s board meeting, Martinez called the school year a “learning process” and said he hoped to work with his transportation team to see how the district could leverage different modes of transportation in the future to meet the needs of its students with disabilities and other vulnerable students.

The district plans to go through a formal policy change over the next two to three months and gather feedback from families before proposing changes to the Board of Education, Martinez said.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

An earlier start? Chicago asks parents to weigh in on 2022-23 school calendar

2022-02-10T18:04:24+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is asking parents to weigh in on possible changes to the 2022-2023 academic year.

The district is inviting parents to select one of two options through a survey. The changes would either keep the calendar similar to the 2021-22 year or move the start date a week early, according to a letter from CEO Pedro Martinez.

The survey will close on Friday, Feb. 18 at 5 p.m.

This is the first time CPS families have been invited to weigh in on the calendar, Martinez said in the letter sent out Thursday.

Under option number 1, which mirrors the current school year:

The academic year would begin Monday, Aug. 29, 2022 and end Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
The first semester would end after winter break in January 2023.

Option number 1, which mirrors the current 2021-22 school year.

Under option number 2, which would line up with other suburban school districts and local colleges and universities, includes:

The academic year would begin Monday, Aug. 22, 2022 and end Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
The first semester would end before winter break on Friday, Dec. 22, 2022.

Under option number 2, Chicago Public Schools would line up with other suburban school districts and local colleges and universities,

Both options will begin before Labor Day and include 176 days of student instruction, 12 professional learning days for teachers, and one parent-teacher conference day for high school and elementary school students in the fall and another in the spring.

They would include two weeks of winter vacation, one week for spring break, and no student instruction during the entire week of Thanksgiving.

The feedback will be evaluated and a final recommendation on the next academic year will be made to the Chicago Board of Education in March.

Chicago school bus service still a daily gamble for some families

2021-10-27T23:01:42+00:00

Nine weeks into the school year, nearly 4,000 Chicago Public Schools students are still without reliable transportation as bus driver shortages continue to plague the country’s third largest district.

In his first Board of Education meeting Wednesday, CEO Pedro Martinez pledged by Friday to have a solution in place for the students who’ve had to sit out school as a result — about 3% of those without steady bus service.

“We are monitoring this on a weekly basis,” said Martinez, who recognized parents’ frustrations.

Since the start of the school year, parents have raised concerns about canceled bus routes, unreliable bus service, and last-minute cancelations. Currently, 3,800 students remain without reliable school transportation, according to data presented Wednesday to the school board.

Of those students, 107 have not returned to school since the start of the academic year. Those students will be routed by Friday and will have rides by next week, officials said.

During the meeting, Kimberly Jones, executive director of Student Transportation Services, said the nationwide bus driver shortage continued to present challenges. Even so, Jones said the district was “leaving no stone unturned” to find alternative options to provide transportation for students.

In addition to a stipend for families to transport their children on their own, the district last week rolled out rides by taxi cab companies, Jones said.

The district is using smaller transportation vehicles and partnering with vendors including Ride-A-Long, which will bring 80 additional drivers by the end of November. The district hopes to have 300 drivers, which will serve 3,600 students, by the end of the year, district officials said.

Martinez said the rollout of the Ride-A-Long drivers would be a “game-changer” for the district’s transportation challenges.

Chicago’s bus problems made headlines the first week of school, when about 2,100 students were left stranded. At the time, district officials promised $1,000 cash payments for transit assistance and a fast solution. But weeks later, several families told Chalkbeat, bus service is still a daily gamble. They cited late pick-ups and drop-offs, last-minute cancelations without notification, or no service at all.

The latest data presented to the Board of Education shows that even more families lack service since the start of the year.

Chicago Public Schools is responsible for transporting about 16,000 students to and from schools every year.

Currently, students with disabilities make up more than half of the outstanding transportation requests, and families say the stakes are high. One parent previously told Chalkbeat their child had a route canceled and was subsequently denied remote instruction. Others said the problem isn’t new.

Board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland raised concerns about how Chicago Public Schools prioritizes who receives bus service, since it transports some students to selective enrollment and magnet schools.

Todd-Breland wondered when the district should pivot to make sure students with disabilities and students experiencing homelessness were being prioritized.

In responding, Martinez said they were monitoring the situation week to week. “We have seen great progress.”

Board president Miguel del Valle said they also needed to consider safety concerns parents have with their children using public transportation.

“Because of the CTA route, they do not want their kids on the CTA bus —for safety reasons,” del Valle said. “It’s something that we want to consider if we are forced to make decisions about the distribution of those resources.”

Illinois masking debate takes center stage at state board meeting as parents and school leaders push back

2021-08-18T23:41:13+00:00

One Illinois superintendent told the state board of education that she had to request police presence in her district because the debate over masking in schools has grown so heated. A parent said mask mandates made the state feel like “Nazi Germany.” A mother of seven said she decided to homeschool rather than have her children wear masks to school.

Dozens of other speakers, testifying at the state board’s first in-person meeting after a one-month break, urged the board to reconsider the mask mandate it issued earlier this month and return reopening public health guidance to local school boards.

The speakers, who included parents and superintendents, echoed the debate roiling school board meetings around the country, as districts wrestle with issuing whether to pass mask mandates amid a new spike in COVID-19 cases and the emergence of the highly contagious delta variant.

States and school districts, meanwhile, have issued a patchwork of mask guidance. Colorado has left masking up to school districts, but Gov. Jared Polis and public health leaders are urging school districts to adopt masking requirements. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee issued an executive order on Monday allowing parents of students to opt out of school mask policies. In Michigan, the state has not required masking but recommends that schools require universal masking.

Chicago Public Schools announced in late July that it would require all staff and students to wear masks inside schools regardless of vaccination status.

Before the Illinois state board started public participation, State Superintendent Carmen Ayala said there were no agenda items on masking because the state board is following public health guidance from the Illinois public health department, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Masking works. It’s simple, easy and effective,” said Ayala.“And it works best when everyone in the school building wears the mask.”

At the state board meeting, almost 80 speakers — a mix of superintendents, state legislators, parents, and local school board members — signed up for the public participation section, requiring the board to extend the public comment section. Most speakers came to talk about masks.

Many were critical of Ayala’s recent letter to local school districts about the mask mandate. The letter stated that the mask mandate was backed by law and that any public or private school going against the mandate would have its state recognition revoked, resulting in the loss of state funding and blocking school sport teams from participating in state competitions.

Several superintendents, who said they support masking, called the board’s recent letter and actions an overreach.

PJ Caposey, superintendent of Meridian Community School District 223, said there were more opportunities last year for school districts to decide how to respond to a spike in COVID-19 cases in their local communities.

“I think it was a much harder decision last year to determine whether we should be in person or not in person,” said Caposey. “But last year we were trusted to make that decision locally.”

Tonya Evans, superintendent of Central Community School District 4, said her small school district received a lot of pushback from parents when they went from a mask-optional guidance to the state’s mask mandate.

Parents have said that they will not send their children to school with masks and that they will sue the school district, Evans told the state board. The situation has become so intense that the district has requested police presence at the district.

“We are in a community where we are 30 miles away from police presence,” she said. “This is not what school should look like for children, where we’re asking for police presence due to the unrest.”

Bob Barbwell, superintendent of Eureka Community School District 140, asked the state board to work closely with local school districts to create reopening plans.

“Parents feel they have no voice. School districts feel they have no voice. We are asking you to give us that voice,” said Barbwell. “No one cares more about the health and well-being of students than local school districts. Local control is the only way to truly meet the needs of our students.”

Throughout the meeting, parents spoke about not wanting to send their children to school wearing masks. Some were worried about their children’s ability to recognize faces and learn visual cues.

Ruby Johnson, a mother of sevenn, decided to homeschool her children last year because she wanted them to have a consistent school year and didn’t want them to be in masks.

“Who better to develop a plan for the students being served, then people who know them. There is not one of you sitting here who personally knows our children, or our towns, our teachers or our schools,” Johnson said. “Yet, you send letters threatening to pull funding, recognition, or support if they won’t mask our kids everyday.”

Stephanie Helmut, whose four children attend public schools, fears that masks will limit her children’s ability to learn language, especially those who have speech delay or hearing impairment.

“How can children learn to make proper sounds or mouth movements as their speech develops when they cannot see anyone’s faces for them to learn?” asked Helmut.

Four things to know about the elected school board debate in Chicago

2021-04-19T23:14:51+00:00

The debate over whether Chicago should embrace an elected school board has a new twist: A mayor-backed proposal for a hybrid board that would continue to give City Hall influence.

Sen. Kimberly Lightford filed legislation last week with the Senate that would create a hybrid school board. Under the plan, the majority of the board would be appointed by the mayor with a few elected seats.

Meanwhile, a bill that would establish a 21-person elected school board has picked up speed in the Illinois legislature. Currently, the fully elected school board bills are moving fast through the general assembly.

Here’s what you need to know about the current conversation.

The mayor’s proposal would not entirely eliminate mayoral control.

Under the city-backed proposal, the mayor would appoint five members of a seven-member board. Two members would be elected by the public, for a total of seven seats in 2026. (The current board has seven members, all appointed by the mayor.) In 2028, the board would expand to 11 seats. With the expansion, the mayor would still appoint the majority of the board, with eight appointed members and three elected members.

The board could then revert back to a mayoral-controlled seven-member board in 2032.

The legislation says that the mayor must appoint people who reflect the diversity of the city. To be eligible for an elected or an appointed seat, a board member would need to have served on one of the following for at least two of the 10 years preceding the date of the election: a Local School Council, the governing board of a charter school or contract schools, or the board of the governors of a military academy.

All board members would receive an annual salary of $40,000. Currently, school board members across the state are not paid and can’t have any financial interests in the district that they serve.

The hybrid proposal has come late in the game.

Proponents of the elected school board push have been organizing around the proposal that would establish a 21-person elected board for years, but the reopening debate appears to have helped recruit supporters. The legislation cleared another hurdle in the Illinois House last week, passing through committee with 71 votes in support, 39 against and 3 abstaining.

The Senate executive committee also voted last week to pass the Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Robert Martwick, with an 11 to 5 vote. It will head for a second reading on April 20 before further action is taken.

Supporters of the elected school board don’t have a clear path to victory.

Proponents of having a fully elected school board have been here before. In 2019, a bill to create an elected school board passed in the House, but was not called to the Senate floor. This happened again during the lame-duck session in January.

The issue might not be resolved this session either, despite support from members of the general assembly, community organizers, and parent advocacy groups.

Both proposals have critics.

Proponents of the fully elected school board bill want to ensure that members of the board are held accountable by the public through regular elections. A hybrid school board, under the current proposal backed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, would ensure that the majority of the board remained political appointees.

Jitu Brown, board president of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, talked about the decades-long battle for an elected school board during the Senate Executive Committee hearing last week. Brown said the call for an elected school board was a direct response to past decisions by the appointed school board to close down multiple schools on the city’s South and West sides, which disproportionately affected Black and Latino low-income families.

“[Chicagoans] want an elected representative school board. I want to be clear: not a hybrid. Not mayoral-control light. The one thing we understood with this school board, who could raise our taxes, was that there is no instrument to hold them accountable,” he said.

However, critics of the fully elected school board bill worry that an elected board would not represent the city’s diverse population. In a letter published in Politico, a group of advocates said they want to make sure that parents who are undocumented or are low income are represented on an elected board. The current bill does not allow parents who are undocumented to serve on the board.

“These parents entrust their children and their children’s future to CPS. They deserve a voice — and a vote —in any new governance structure,” they wrote.

The advocates expressed concern about the cost of elections, citing the steep costs of school board elections in Los Angeles. The group also is concerned about balancing members with parental experiences and those with expertise in education. They want parents to be the primary voice of the board, but include members with expertise in administrative work in education.

Illinois sees bigger than expected drop in K-12 student enrollment this year

2021-02-18T23:25:05+00:00

During an unusual school year, Illinois public schools saw student enrollment drop in greater numbers than expected, according to recent projections by the state board of education.

The state said Thursday during a monthly board meeting that an estimated 35,822 students, or 1.9%, left public schools this year, exceeding a projected drop of about 20,000 students, or about 1.1%. Between 2015 and 2020, Illinois schools have seen enrollment drop an average of 1% per year, the board said.

Many states have reported enrollment losses during the pandemic, even those that typically see a boost every year. A fall analysis by Chalkbeat and The Associated Press looked at kindergarten to 12th grade enrollment data from 33 states that showed that school districts lost 500,000 students, or about 2%, since the same time last year.

Chicago Public Schools announced an enrollment decline of about 4% in October — the sharpest enrollment decline in two decades.

Across the state, kindergarten through third grade enrollment saw significant declines, while middle schools and high schools saw modest or low declines. Kindergarten enrollment declined by 7.8%, first grade by 4.6%, and second and third grades by more than 3%.

While enrollment fell among all four of the largest race/ethnicity groups — Asian, Black, Latino, and white — the drop was steepest among white students. The board had estimated a decline of 52.5%, but instead numbers of white students fell by 71.4%, or 35, 471 schoolchildren. Between 2015 to 2020, Black and white student numbers remained steady or had modest declines, while Asian and Latino students saw an increase in enrollment. This year, Asian student enrollment dropped by 3.2% and Latino students declined by 13.6%.

Enrollment is a key factor for new evidence-based funding from the state. Currently, school districts will not be penalized for losing students and will retain current funding. However, they will not be eligible for any additional funding.

Keeping the state education budget flat for another year due to the coronavirus pandemic means that school districts will not receive additional funding even if they see an influx of students once the pandemic subsides. This could create budget shortfalls for districts that saw enrollment fall sharply.

“Districts that have an influx of students will be provided funding based upon a percentage of adequacy from the prior year when they had a lesser enrollment due to the pandemic,” said Robert Wolfe, chief financial officer of the state board.

“We’ll have disharmony between the resources that are provided and the actual student population that that school district is going to have to provide services for.”

Board members said they suspected students were lost to homeschooling, private schools, or public school districts in other states. Currently the state board does not require non-public schools to provide enrollment data, nor does it require homeschooling families to register with the state, making it difficult to determine where students went. School districts can identify where students transferred, and there is a voluntary form for homeschooled students to complete.

State school board members raise concerns about Illinois’ proposed high school graduation requirements

2021-01-22T23:05:24+00:00

Should Illinois put into place more stringent high school graduation requirements amid a pandemic and a teacher shortage?

Some state board of education members this week raised concerns about one of the proposals in an ambitious education bill that is heading to the governor’s desk. The Black legislative caucus passed a bill that would require high schoolers to take two years of a world language, two years of laboratory science and a course with computer literacy — matching general admission requirements at the University of Illinois. The new requirements could go into effect as early as the 2024-2025 school year.

The bill has not yet been signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Susan Morrison, chair of the education policy planning committee, was concerned about whether school districts would have enough educators to teach the required classes as the state is facing a teacher shortage, especially of world language teachers.

“I know an elementary school in our area who was looking for an immersion program, which I would strongly urge support at the elementary level. They couldn’t find a second language teacher so they could continue to have that program,” she said.

Morrison recommended that the board assess its current high school graduation requirements before adding more onto local school districts, teachers and students.

And while college prep programs might be a priority for some students, state school board member Christine Benson, a former educator, said not all students want to go that track.

“I’m looking at all the [career and technical education] people who have worked so hard to get away from college prep being the only image that you go for, and we forget, we have students with all decisions to make to their passions, and we’re not allowing them to make these decisions,” she said.

Donna Leak, a state school board member who is superintendent of Community Consolidated Schools District 168, agreed with Morrison and Benson, saying that high schools have worked hard to create tracks for students to ensure that their courses match their career goals.

The bill would mandate changes to all of Illinois schools. Chicago, the state’s largest school district, made those changes in the mid-1990s, but the transition was bumpy and, in some cases, had negative consequences for students.

Elaine Allensworth, director at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, said that many schools in Chicago were not prepared to drastically change their curriculum to a college preparatory curriculum. Schools did not have enough teachers who could teach college preparatory classes and the quality of instruction went down.

“For students who would have been taking more of the general classes they actually became more likely to fail,” said Allensworth.

To avoid that, Allensworth recommended providing students with support to succeed in their classes and more close monitoring of student performance.

One learning strategy Allenworth mentioned is giving students with weaker skills in one subject another class with the same teacher. For example, if a student struggled with math concepts, that student would take a math class in the morning and a second class with the same teacher in the evening. That student will have a chance to catch up with their peers and keep the first class on the same pace.

Lame duck legislative session ends with no passage of Chicago elected school board bill

2021-01-13T19:35:25+00:00

The reopening debate in Chicago renewed energy around a bill that would create an elected school board. But a tumultuous lame-duck legislative session ended Wednesday, at least temporarily slowing progress for the effort.

The day after schools reopened to some students in Chicago, state senators were expected to debate HB 2267, which would create a 21-member board of education and establish elections beginning in 2023.

The bill received multiple hearings in the session, but it did not get called for a final vote in a session that had been dominated by behind-the-scenes political maneuvering to replace Speaker Michael Madigan, the state’s powerful longtime speaker of the House. It will be up to the next legislature whether to take up the bill or back another effort.

Community organizations, education advocates and some elected officials have long pushed for an elected school board to govern Chicago Public Schools, where the mayor appoints the seven-person board and can appoint or replace members at will. Calls grew louder in the years after Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision, in 2013, to close schools on the city’s south and west sides, a move that disproportionately affected Black and Latino students.

The decision by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and schools chief Janice Jackson to reopen school buildings during the pandemic has reignited the argument. Opponents of the bill have said that the board would be too big and ineffective. They have also raised concerns about monied or political interests overtaking the board, instead of giving parents more power in decision-making at the district level.

“The mayor feels strongly that the current proposal would lead to instability for CPS,” said a statement from Lightfoot’s’s office in response to questions from Chalkbeat. “She has long been clear that she has significant concerns about the bill, which includes a number of provisions that could make the body unworkable.”

Jackson has said that the risk of school board elections is a group controlled by private interests who can pay for campaigns. “It’s not a silver bullet.”

All week long, advocates connected the discord over school reopening — and complaints that educators and families don’t feel heard — to the call for an elected board. On Wednesday morning, the city’s teachers union organized a press event in front of school board president Miguel del Valle’s home in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood. Several pre-kindergarten and special education teachers spoke about how they were locked out of their email and remote classrooms for refusing to report to school buildings. One teacher walked up the steps and knocked on del Valle’s door as cameras rolled.

“We are here today to demand that the (school board) stand with thousands of families who have chosen remote learning,” said Linda Perales, a special education teacher and union delegate at Corkery Elementary School.

The day before, education advocates, national and local teacher unions, and elected officials gathered for a virtual press conference to push the Senate to vote in favor of the bill.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, joined the group on zoom to talk about the importance of voting.

“Voting is a franchise that we need to ensure that people who are unseen have rights and have agency. That is what this is about; making sure that there is a school board that reflects, listens to and is responsive to the needs of the community, particularly its parents, its families, and the educators that work with them,” said Weingarten.

Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, cited school plans created and voted on by past appointed school boards that drastically impacted school communities with no public input.

“The same people who were the most affected by the travesty of 50 school closings are the same people who are most affected by our inability to have an agreement about safe reopening of our schools,” Sharkey said.

The majority of school districts across the country have elected school boards, according to a 2016 Pew Charitable Trusts study. But there are notable exceptions among big cities, including New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. In New York, the mayor appoints the majority of a 13-person board; in Boston and Philadelphia, mayors appoint members from lists drafted by citizen nominating panels.

There’s no consensus among researchers that any particular type of district governance yields improved academic performance or better fiscal management.

Reopening debates in New York and Philadelphia have stirred sentiments about mayoral control. In New York, the state legislature can extend the term for how long the mayor can appoint board members. The term for mayoral control ends in 2022, after Mayor Bill de Blasio leaves office. Education advocates want to urge state legislators to consider an elected school board, but fear that the effort will be overshadowed by the budget crisis due to the pandemic.

In Philadelphia, education advocates have also challenged mayoral control amid reopening, arguing that Mayor Jim Kenney has too much control over the district and is not transparent about decision-making.

Reema Amin and Johann Calhoun contributed to this report.

Two members of the Illinois Board of Education push for more action to address racism

2020-06-18T00:58:38+00:00

The Illinois State Board of Education adopted a resolution Wednesday to reignite their commitment to address racism within education. But two board members said it wasn’t enough.

Board members brought forward the resolution after seeing student-led protests across the state about police brutality toward Black people. The resolution says that the agency will support educators, promote state education policy to address racism, and ask public school boards to address racism. It listed the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, both killed by police officers in separate incidents, and Ahmaud Arbery, who was chased and killed in Georgia by a former police officer and his son.

The resolution was supported by the entire board, but board members Cristina Pacione-Zayas and Donna Leak wanted to make sure that the board also meets the moment with action.

“I support the spirit of the resolution, but I’m frankly tired of statements. I’m tired of words. I feel like they are platitudes,” said Pacione-Zayas. “I just want to make sure that this isn’t another nice statement. I didn’t come to this table to put my feet up or to build my resume. I came to do the real work. I don’t want to leave here with incremental change.”

Leak added, “My support is that these words become very real to people across the state of Illinois.”

In Illinois, the majority of students are Black and brown but the majority of teachers are white. At Wednesday’s board meeting, several public speakers said that the state needs culturally responsive teaching and learning standards to train educators to have uncomfortable and difficult conversations about racism. State Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala said that the board will look at the agency’s social science standards and mandated units of study over the summer.

Josh Kaufmann, executive director of Teach Plus, spoke about the urgency of adopting culturally responsive teaching and learning standards to help teachers engage with students about racism in society.

“Acknowledging whiteness, race, and privilege is difficult and is a skill that teachers can learn and that every teacher needs to be able to provide for their students, whether they are white, Black, Latinx, or Indigenous,” said Kaufmann.

Keisha Rembert, an assistant professor of teacher preparation at National Louis University in Chicago, spoke about her experiences as a parent raising Black children in Plainfield.

“I’ve witnessed my own children wondering about their place in a system where they don’t see themselves reflected, whether that be in the staff or in the curriculum. My son advocated to be placed in the only African American teacher’s class in his school his senior year because he realized that he’d never before had a Black teacher and wanted to have that experience,” Rembert said.

As an educator, Rembert said that she has seen her colleagues shy away from or dismiss conversations about race. But with the recent killings of Black people by police officers, she believes that the conversation cannot be ignored.

Rembert added, “I believe it’s imperative to our humanity, and the cries of the people around the country tell us that it is time for Illinois to coalesce around standards that are inclusive of all students.”

By the numbers: How Illinois plans to spend federal emergency money for schools

2020-05-21T22:32:12+00:00

The Illinois State Board of Education plans to divide $569 million in federal emergency funds to help school districts bridge the digital divide and train educators, but it remains unclear how much will go to private schools.

In their first meeting since March, the board on Wednesday focused on how to allocate federal CARES Act monies intended to help fill funding holes created by the battle against the coronavirus. Federal guidelines require the State Board of Education to give 90% to school districts, totaling about $512 million. The state may spend 9.5% of the funds, a little over $54 million, and less than 1% of the funds may be used for administrative costs, about $2.8 million.

From a separate federal grant designated for governors to use at their discretion, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker will receive $108 million for education. He said in April he planned to spend it on expanding resources for remote learning, teacher support, and meal distribution. Asked for more particulars, his office did not respond by deadline.

Here’s how the Illinois State Board of Education spending breaks down so far:

$512 million is going to school districts across the state.

Districts can spend the money on technology, professional development, support for low-income families, meal distribution, and summer and extended learning opportunities.

The state will allocate funds based on how many low-income students a district serves. A survey by Chalkbeat and the Better Government Bureau revealed that since campuses closed, five of the largest school districts in the state — which are set to receive a large portion of the funding — have devoted most of their spending so far to tech devices for home learning.

Nearly $33 million will go to additional device purchases.

The state board will make a little over $54 million available to school districts via a competitive grant application.

Most of that money is intended to provide schools with technology and internet access; $32.9 million will go to additional device purchases and $7.1 million will go to improve internet connectivity.

Almost $12 million will go to coaching educators.

The board will invest $6.5 million into virtual coaching for newly licensed teachers to help them navigate remote learning. It will set aside $6.4 million for training teachers and for parents who are struggling to educate their students at home.

State Superintendent Carmen Ayala said that the board is still designing professional development and parent support and deciding who will provide those services.

$1 million will go to the state’s wealthier districts.

The board will give $1 million to 186 agencies, including 15 school districts that don’t serve areas with concentrations of poverty.

It’s unclear how much will go to private schools.

One of the more controversial aspects of CARES Act funding is set-aside for private schools. The federal act suggested sharing funds with private schools based on their proportion of low-income students, but U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos later instructed districts to base private schools allocations on their total enrollment — thus a much larger sum, which will come at the expense of public schools.

The state board has directed school districts to set aside an amount based on total private school enrollment, but to initially hand out a smaller amount based on enrollment of low-income students. Depending on additional guidance expected from the U.S. Department of Education, the difference of the two totals would go to either private or public schools.

As of Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the state board had not shared estimates. The Archdiocese of Chicago, which runs more than 200 schools in Cook and Lake counties that enroll 71,000 students, told Chalkbeat this week it is still unclear how much it will receive.

Amy Meek with the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights read a joint statement during the public comment section of the board meeting Wednesday asking members to award federal funding in an equitable way to help prevent education gaps for vulnerable students.

The statement, also delivered on behalf of Illinois Raise Your Hand, Brighton Park Neighborhood Community Council, and Chicago United For Equity, urged the State Board of Education to reject Devos’ recent guidance. “(The recent guidance) misreads the CARES Act in telling states to identify federal funds for all private schools no matter how high their household income. Instead, we ask ISBE to direct districts to set aside funds for private schools based on students’ poverty rate consistent with legal precedents.”

Everything we know so far about Chicago’s growing strike threat

2019-10-14T12:31:00+00:00

No deal was reached over the weekend, so bargaining between the Chicago Teachers Union and City Hall was set to continue Monday as a large teachers’ rally took shape for the afternoon.

Schools are closed Monday for Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day.

After Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made public a new offer on Friday, the Chicago Teachers Union summarily rejected it.

A deal so far remains elusive in separate negotiations between Service Employees International Union Local 73 and the city. If the city’s 25,000 teachers walk off the job Thursday, it’s possible that 10,000 teachers’ aides, bus drivers, and other support staff could join them, along with park district workers who are also SEIU members.

One of the issues here is that Lightfoot and schools chief Janice Jackson fundamentally disagree with the union about the scope of what should be on the table during contract negotiations. Lightfoot this week put a sign outside of her City Hall office that said it had been 142 days since she’d last received a union counterproposal. The union said it did respond — and that the city’s focus on pay and benefits is way too narrow.

Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said Thursday that a last-minute deal was unlikely, and that some agreement must be reached in time to call a vote of the 700-member House of Delegates, which would ratify or reject a deal.

But what’s the back-and-forth actually about, policywise? Here’s everything we know so far about the Chicago strike threat, as well as what we can learn from past actions in 2012 and 2016.

It’s about policy, not just pay.

The pay issue has not yet been resolved. See here how Chicago pay stacks up with salary schedules in other large districts.
The union, however, has said the bargaining is not just about salaries, but also about other critical issues it has brought to the negotiating table. That strategy, honed in Chicago, is known as “common good’ bargaining. Here’s how it factored into a win for Los Angeles teachers.
A major point of contention: In a high-need district where 14% of students have been identified for special education services, should a number of additional support staff — such as nurses and social workers — be enshrined in the contract? The mayor has vowed to increase staffing as part of a five-year plan she unveiled in late July. Chicago Public Schools also pledged to decrease reliance on privatized nursing services that parents complain lack quality and consistency. The union has challenged her timeline and demanded promises be put in writing.
The city’s latest offer, made public Friday, put more money on the table for these critical positions. The union said it was not enough.
Class sizes have emerged as another crucial issue. Chicago has class size caps but does not enforce them. The union wants lower caps — and compensation to teachers when they are exceeded. Chalkbeat looks at the issue here.
There’s also been discord over teacher prep time, how much to give teachers, and how much principals should have a say in how it’s used. Additional prep periods could affect school start times, effectively resulting in a shorter instructional day. We talked to teachers about prep time and explained the latest twist in the conflict.
Other broad social issues have emerged as well, such as affordable housing.
One of the few areas of agreement is a contract measure that would declare schools sanctuaries from immigration enforcement.

Parents face a triple whammy

During past strikes and one-day walkouts, Chicago families have relied on support staff and park district centers to help with child care. Lightfoot has said that schools will remain open and staffed by principals and central office personnel, even if support staff are out on the picket line. Here’s more about Chicago’s contingency plans.
This has raised many questions for parents, who’ve asked us about average strike lengths, services for students with individualized education programs, and other questions. Find them asked and answered here. Have a question you don’t see addressed? Send it our way: chicago.tips@chalkbeat.org.
Some community groups have begun offering camps and day care activities. Here’s a running list of contingency plans we know about so far.
Parents of children with special needs face particular challenges during strikes. Chalkbeat Colorado examined their issues when teachers in Denver went on strike earlier this year.

The likelihood of a walkout is growing

Both of the major newspapers have editorialized in favor of City Hall’s latest offer, but that hasn’t quieted the union’s call. Here’s our #TrackingtheContract that chronicles day-to-day developments.
Chicago has been here twice in the past decade, with a seven-day strike in 2012 and a short-lived walkout in 2016 that ended with a last-minute settlement. In some ways, 2019 has echoes of both 2012 and 2016. We looked back at the past to see if similar pitfalls can be sidestepped.
Who’s actually sitting at the bargaining table? The Sun-Times has this guide.
Could Chicago’s pattern of rocky October weather dampen enthusiasm? Not likely. It rained the first day of the L.A. strike, and teachers still turned out in droves. Chalkbeat was there.