Chalkbeat

Jennifer Custer drops out of race for Chicago school board president

2026-08-27T20:35:15+00:00

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Jennifer Custer, an incumbent school board member, is withdrawing from the race to be the first elected Chicago Board of Education president.

In a statement, she said she filed paperwork Thursday with the Chicago Board of Elections to withdraw. Custer was the only candidate in the race whose petition signatures were not challenged.

“I am exiting because it became abundantly clear that various special interests are prepared to spend millions of dollars in this race,” she wrote in the statement. “Going up against that kind of spending in our political system creates an uphill battle that I ultimately decided I did not want to put my family, endorsers, volunteers, and supporters through.”

Custer did not make an endorsement, but left the door open to doing so. Four other candidates remain: Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal and incumbent school board member; Hilario Dominguez, former political director for the Chicago Teachers Union and former special education teacher; Victor Henderson, an attorney, and Sendhil Revuluri, a consultant and former vice president of the school board appointed by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“I know the other candidates in this race well, and I will ask the same question I have asked throughout my time on the Board: Who shares my North Star of doing what is best for our children?” Custer wrote.

The former suburban educator and mom of three narrowly won her seat in 2024 over Michelle Pierre, who is now running again to represent district 1b. Custer had the support of the Chicago Teachers Union, but forged a more independent path over the past two years serving on the board.

Recently, she was the only no vote on the board’s decision to put two non-binding referendums about raising new revenue for CPS on the November ballot. Both questions were put forward by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s allies and Custer was the only one of a more independent bloc of school board members to attend the meeting. She was also the lone no vote against hiring Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King as the permanent leader.

In July, Custer joined with six other school board members to vote against an amended budget that assumes $150 million more in state revenue. She also voted against taking out a high-interest loan last year to reimburse the city for a portion of a payment to a municipal pension fund that supports non-teaching staff and retirees in CPS.

Custer’s fundraising lagged behind the other candidates in the race. One of her top donors has been the political action committee of the Operating Engineers Local 150, where her husband, Jeremy, is the political director. In April, she told Chalkbeat one of her biggest campaign expenses has been child care, which is a permissible expenditure under state campaign finance laws. Arranging care for her children had allowed her to visit schools, meet with potential supporters, and attend board meetings, she said.

In her statement, Custer thanked her campaign staff and her family, “especially my three little ones, who have seen less of me than they deserve,” she wrote.

Prior to serving on Chicago’s school board, Custer worked as a paraprofessional, and classroom teacher and administrator in school districts in Wisconsin and Chicago’s suburbs. She served for two years as president of the teachers union in Itasca and was an assistant principal and interim principal in Addison School District 4.

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

Chicago Board of Education 101: Know the basics of the soon-to-be elected board guiding Chicago Public Schools

2026-08-20T10:00:00+00:00

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If it seems like you’ve heard more about Chicago’s school board in the past two years than ever, it’s for good reason.

That’s because for the first time after 30 years of mayoral control, the Chicago Board of Education will be fully elected in November. No matter what involvement you might have with CPS — as a teacher, a parent, an administrator, a student, or a community member — all registered voters can cast a ballot for one representative from their local electoral district and one person to lead the board as president.

It’s historic. It’s unprecedented. But if you’re not tapped into CPS school board politics, it might also be confusing.

Here’s everything you need to know about the school board and the shift from mayoral control to elected representation.

What is the Chicago Board of Education?

The city’s school board is the primary entity tasked with creating the vision and setting priorities for Chicago Public Schools. Its role differs from that of CPS’ central office, led by CEO Macquline King, which handles more of the district’s day-to-day operations.

The Chicago Board of Education shares many responsibilities with school boards across the country. It is meant to follow several guiding principles laid out by the Illinois Association of Schools Boards, including clarifying the district’s purpose and monitoring its progress toward the goals it sets.

Chicago’s school board is enshrined in state law, but its structure has proven malleable in reality. Most notably, in 1995, as part of a broader state legislative package to improve CPS’ academic performance, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was given responsibility for appointing a five-member board — known as the Reform Board of Trustees — to spearhead transformative reform.

In 1999, it reverted to its old title as the Chicago Board of Education and increased its membership to seven people. It grew to 21 people after 10 members were elected in 2024 and were joined by 11 mayoral appointees.

What does Chicago’s school board specifically do?

Some Chicagoans may be most familiar with one of the board’s core functions: making financial decisions. The school board has the power to raise local property taxes and decides how to allocate local revenue and streams of state and federal funding to schools.

While more granular spending decisions are usually left to school and district administrators, the board’s budgetary clout can supersede their authority. This was demonstrated in the board’s latest budget approval last month, when a narrow majority of members voted to rescind hundreds of staff layoffs that King’s office had made to address the district’s more than $700 million budget deficit. The board instead built in a revenue assumption that state lawmakers would provide $150 million more than they had already allocated.

Another one of the board’s key powers, hiring a district leader to fill the roles of CEO and superintendent, has been in the spotlight for much of the past year. After choosing someone to head the district, the board evaluates that person’s performance.

Important paperwork, such as collective bargaining agreements with labor unions and contracts with charter school operators, also requires board approval.

A school board is supposed to be responsive to the communities it serves. In Chicago, the board now has power to gather community input through referendums. It also must gather input on proposed changes to district policies.

Receiving community input is one of the main functions of the Chicago Board of Education, which can included feedback from Chicago Public Schools students themselves.

It’s not always easy to reach a consensus on these recommendations. The board now has 21 members, each with differing views on how best to serve CPS students and educators.

Why do we have so many school board members in Chicago?

We know, 21 people is a lot of school board members. Chicago has one of the largest elected boards among major U.S. cities. It dwarfs Illinois’ average of about seven school board members per district, according to Ballotpedia.

The Illinois General Assembly passed a bill in 2021 to triple the board’s membership from seven to 21 people, including the board president.

A desire for better representation on Chicago’s school board — rather than unceasing mayoral control — played a large part in adding more members. To determine how those members would represent different parts of Chicago, state lawmakers passed separate legislation in March 2024 dividing the city into electoral districts.

The expansion received mixed feedback. Some education advocates applauded the move, while others feared the large school board would create a messier policymaking process.

As a compromise, lawmakers created a transition period that started in 2024 with the election of 10 members who joined 11 mayoral appointees for a two-year hybrid period.

Why didn’t Chicago always vote for school board members?

Outside Chicago, elected school boards aren’t a novel idea. Most school boards in Illinois and across the U.S. are elected.

Illinois legislators initiated the process to fully elect the board by 2026 in the same law that put 21 members on the Chicago Board of Education. Despite pushback from some local groups and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the bill passed the legislature and was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2021.

Demands for an elected school board long preceded the bill’s passage, with prominent organizations such as the Chicago Teachers Union championing the change as a way to hold the board accountable to families and educators. Several decisions made by the appointed board had soured public perceptions of the governing body, including its unanimous vote approving former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close about 50 schools, which disproportionately affected Black students.

As part of the path to a fully elected board, lawmakers required half the board to be elected in 2024. The other half remained mayoral appointees. Voters delivered disparate results on what local factions they wanted to represent them by voting in four CTU-backed candidates, three pro-charter candidates, and three independents.

Two years later, Chicagoans will be deciding who represents them in all 21 board positions.

Does that mean I have to vote for my school board member every two years?

It depends where you live in your district and what year it is.

Each of the 10 districts Chicagoans voted in during the 2024 election had about 275,000 residents and has since been divided into two subdistricts. Voters will elect a candidate running in their half of the district, referred to as the “a” or “b” subdistrict. That means each district will produce two elected school board members.

Per state law, members elected to replace mayoral appointees will initially serve two-year terms, while those taking office in subdistricts represented by members previously elected in 2024 will serve four-year terms.

The term lengths will swap starting in the 2028 general election. So, a school board member elected this year to serve a two-year term will be up for a four-year term if they win reelection in 2028.

What’s in it for the CPS board members? Do they get paid?

No, members do not get paid for serving on the board. Illinois state law prohibits it, although members can be reimbursed for related job expenses. Serving on the board averages about 25 to 30 hours per month for members, according to the board’s website.

Some current board members have quit their day jobs to give more of their time to the position. Critics argue the lack of pay disincentivizes working parents and teachers from running for office and have called on state lawmakers to legalize some form of compensation. An effort to make that change fizzled out in the House earlier this year.

Opponents of board compensation contend that creating salaries for board members would siphon money away from already underfunded school resources.

For now, board members are compensated with something a bit less tangible: influence over the fourth-largest school district in the country.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Firms linked to 2 men convicted of public corruption have gotten campaign business from JB Pritzker and the CTU

2026-08-11T22:04:41+00:00

This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project.

Two political campaign firms with close ties to men with public corruption convictions have gotten business in recent years in Chicago and statewide political races, including the current, hotly contested race for Chicago School Board president and more than $1.5 million from Gov. JB Pritzker in his gubernatorial campaigns, records show.

In the governor’s campaigns, about $1.2 million went to a firm formed by a former Illinois Department of Children and Family Services deputy director, Bamani Obadele, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to a state contracting scheme under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obadele was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to repay more than $80,000.

Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaigns also spent more than $420,000 with the firm tied to Isaac “Ike” Carothers, a former Chicago City Council member who pleaded guilty in 2010 to taking $40,000 in home improvements from a developer who wanted to build homes in an industrial area in Carothers’ 29th Ward on the West Side.

In the school board race, the Chicago Teachers Union has spent more than $36,000 with the two firms and a company tied to a campaign worker, Karina Escobar-Perez, who pleaded guilty last year to forging signatures on campaign petitions in Indiana for the presidential race. The CTU work was for the campaign of Hilario Dominguez, whom the teachers union endorsed in June for school board president in a five-way race.

Dominguez’ campaign has reported $99,500 in contributions as of its latest filings, on Aug. 5. All of that was in-kind contributions from the CTU, and about one-third was to firms linked to Obadele, Carothers and Escobar-Perez.

The CTU’s political organization has used Carothers’ and Obadele’s firms in other school board races, and all three companies have done extensive work in other political races.

The Dominguez campaign did not respond to questions about the firms.

The governor’s campaign did not answer questions about Obadele’s and Carothers’ work but said: “The campaign hires consultants who are experienced and well-known organizers in their communities.”

A CTU spokesperson said the people and groups they contracted with as “vendors are the same as those hired by Gov. Pritzker, Rep. [Margaret] Croke, and numerous other candidates.” In her statement, she didn’t explain those choices, focusing instead on their endorsed candidates: “What voters should know about the candidates we are supporting is that they will be the fiercest advocates for Chicago’s children instead of administrators of unnecessary cuts to their education.”

Pritzker is seeking reelection this year, again running against Republican Darren Bailey, whom he defeated by more than 12 percentage points in 2022. In 2018, Pritzker defeated incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner by more than 15 percentage points.

Pritzker, who was among contenders to be Kamala Harris’ 2024 vice presidential running mate, has been attending political events across the country amid speculation he might run for president in 2028.

Obadele is president and director of Goshen Impact Solutions, according to state records. He admitted in federal court that in 2004 and 2005, when he was at DCFS, he steered contractors working for the state agency to buy promotional items from a company he owned and overcharged them, using proceeds for personal expenses, including an all-expenses-paid vacation for himself and friends to Jamaica.

Separately, he admitted having generated business for a company whose board he sat on by telling DCFS contractors to hire the firm.

Records show Pritzker’s campaign paid Obadele’s firm more than $1 million during the 2022 election, though that spending appears to have escaped notice during the last election. So far, in the governor’s race, the campaign has spent $76,000 with the company, state records show.

Since 2015, just under half of all the state and local campaign cash that went to Obadele’s firm came from Pritzker’s campaign organization. Pritzker started using Obadele’s firm in 2022.

The CTU spent more than $16,000 with Obadele’s firm for work on behalf of Dominguez’s campaign. The union also gave his firm $5,250 for work related to Katherine Dunneback’s campaign in school board District 9b. The union endorsed Dunneback and a slate of other school board candidates in July.

In 2018, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul came under scrutiny for spending $13,000 with Obadele for campaign work.

Obadele said his work on campaigns includes a variety of get-out-the-vote efforts across the South Side and elsewhere in Cook County. “I have done this the past 15 years with fidelity,” he wrote in response to questions.

In a written statement in response to questions, Obadele defended the work he’s done: “I’m neither ashamed nor proud of my past conviction. I paid my debt to society and have remained committed to pushing forward in a positive and impactful way. Since then, I have built and operated a successful professional business … This work has provided hundreds of individuals, including those who face barriers to employment. I stand for and believe in second chances and the importance of allowing people who have also paid their debt to society to receive the same opportunities I too was given.”

Obadele is also the “community and civic engagement director” for Acclivus Inc., a community health organization focused on violence prevention that has had dozens of state contracts in recent years worth more than $100 million, including $16 million in contracts for this fiscal year with the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Obadele said he doesn’t run Acclivus and that he’s proud to work there because of the anti-violence work it does in Chicago.

“My role there is to oversee community engagement and workforce development,” he wrote.

The governor’s office wouldn’t comment.

Sheila Regan, the chief operating officer for Acclivus, said, “It’s unclear what connection could be made between Obadele’s campaign work and Acclivus grants because there is no relationship between them.

“All state grants to Acclivus have been awarded in alignment with state law, primarily via competitive grant processes,” she said.

Obadele’s campaign business has also worked for Mayor Brandon Johnson, Ald. Pat Dowell, Rep. Kam Buckner, Croke and a Pritzker-backed group that campaigned unsuccessfully for a graduated income tax in 2020.

Another firm, Senior Wizdom Consulting (which is listed under various spellings in election records), is closely tied to Carothers and was paid more than $366,000 by Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaign in 2022 for “strategic field consulting” and has already made $55,000 for work done for the governor this year.

Carothers was indicted in 2009 over taking home improvements and sporting tickets from a developer who wanted to build homes at Galewood Yards, partly in Carothers’ ward. Carothers wore a wire to help the federal government in other investigations before being sentenced to 28 months in federal prison. He also admitted in his plea agreement that he took cash payments from two other individuals looking to develop property in his ward and another person who wanted to run carnivals there and needed city permits.

It appears that Pritzker is Carothers’ largest client for state and local campaign work, accounting for nearly half of all of Carothers’ campaign work in state disclosures since 2015, although a precise figure is difficult to determine given the various spellings of the company’s name.

Senior Wizdom also received $11,600 from the CTU to help the Dominguez campaign. As for CTU, records show the union paid Carothers’ firm at least $47,000 since 2023, including to work on Johnson’s mayoral campaign. It also paid Carothers’ firm $3,920 this summer to support Michilla Blaise, the CTU-endorsed candidate in the District 5b Chicago School Board race.

While dozens of Chicago City Council members have gone to prison, Carothers has the distinction of following in the footsteps of his father, former Ald. William Carothers, who also went to prison in a political corruption scandal.

Campaign records indicate Carothers has had dozens of other clients over that time as well, including former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, state Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, and several Cook County judges.

Carothers could not be reached for comment.

A third consulting firm, Moving Forward Strategies, received $8,250 for work on Dominguez’ campaign. The union also reported $10,000 paid to the firm earlier this year. According to state records, the business is run by Escobar-Perez, a Chicago-area campaign operative.

In 2025, Escobar-Perez was charged with forging signatures on behalf of a 2024 presidential candidate named Dean Phillips in Indiana. She pleaded guilty to a felony for the forgeries and was sentenced to a year in prison and a year of probation. Escobar-Perez served one day in custody, and the prison sentence was suspended. Indiana court records show she owes more than $1,100 in fees and fines.

Escobar-Perez and two companies linked to her have taken in more than $400,000 for campaign-related work since 2020, most of which was from before she was charged. Since Escobar-Perez’ plea deal, the CTU has been one of Moving Forward Strategies’ largest clients.

Escobar-Perez did not return a written request for comment but told a police investigator she felt pressured to turn in the Indiana campaign petitions within a five-day deadline, according to a police report.

Chicago Board of Elections rules on final challenges to school board candidacies

2026-08-11T18:42:22+00:00

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Four final candidates for Chicago school board — including two incumbents — survived challenges to their signature petitions and were cleared to get on the November ballot at a Tuesday meeting of the city’s Board of Elections.

The board commissioners rejected efforts to block the candidacies of board members Karen Zaccor and Michilla Blaise and would-be members Claudia Peralta and Connie Anderson. Candidate Kernetha Jones was kicked off the ballot.

With those decisions, the ballot for November’s historic Chicago school board races is close to set, though appeals of decisions clearing six candidates are pending in Cook County Circuit Court.

For the first time, Chicago residents will elect all 21 members of the board, after decades of mayoral appointments and a transition stretch in which the board was partly elected and partly appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. In three of the races, incumbent board members will be the only options on the ballot, though in at least one case a challenger has vowed to mount a write-in campaign.

The circuit court is slated to rule on a number of dual circulation petition challenges in which challengers argued the petitions should be thrown out because the candidates in the nonpartisan board races enlisted petition circulators who had also collected signatures for partisan candidates in Illinois’ March primary.

The Board of Elections commissioners roundly rejected the argument that those petitions should be invalidated earlier this year. Adam Lasker, general counsel for the board, said Tuesday he expected more appeals could follow the meeting. The board’s work on school board petition challenges is now done. `

Signature challenges to remove candidates from the city’s ballot are a longstanding fixture of Chicago’s rough-and-tumble electoral politics. Of the 51 would-be board members who filed petitions to run in November, 28 faced objections alleging issues with the signatures they collected or other problems. Most survived the bids to kick them off the ballot.

With the ballot now largely finalized, campaigning for the volunteer seats overseeing Chicago Public Schools can begin in earnest — and the races are shaping up to be costly and competitive. Candidates had already raised almost $2 million by the most recent quarterly deadline for reporting campaign fundraising to the state. Some likely heavy spenders, such as the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, have largely held off on spending until the ballot is set and the start of the school year draws more attention to school issues from parents and other voters.

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

These Chicago school board incumbents face no opponents. What does that mean for voters?

2026-08-07T20:27:06+00:00

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Katrina Kasten, a mother of two CPS students on the North Side, remembers a lot of political flyers and canvassers at her door two years ago when the city’s first school board elections were underway. That year, the North Center resident had six candidates competing for her vote.

Now, there’s just one person running in her district: incumbent Ellen Rosenfeld.

“I always appreciate when there’s more than one candidate on the ballot, because it brings to light conversations — people are forced to share their plans a little bit more than when it’s just an unopposed slate,” Kasten said.

Instead of courting voters at block parties and farmers’ markets as she’d originally planned, Rosenfeld said she doesn’t have a campaign operation because no one filed the 500 signatures needed to run against her.

She isn’t the only incumbent who entered the race without any challengers. Angel Gutierrez, who represents parts of the Southwest Side, also is running unopposed. Petition challenges have knocked even more candidates off the ballot, leaving three additional districts uncontested.

This November, Chicago voters will for the first time choose all 21 members of the Board of Education, ending more than three decades of mayoral control. But after a yearslong fight to establish an elected school board, the lack of competition in some districts raises questions about how often voters will be able to choose who represents them — or if the new board will favor insiders and incumbents.

Nine of the dozen people interviewed for this story who live in Rosenfeld’s or Gutierrez’s districts said they wished they had more choices in November, even those who liked the incumbents.

A combination of factors likely led to both races being unopposed: Gutierrez and Rosenfeld easily won their districts in 2024 and are backed by powerful officials and organizations, possibly scaring off potential opponents. Serving on the school board is similar to a part-time job but it’s unpaid, which could deter people who would otherwise run.

Some competition is good in electoral politics, said Joanna Klonsky, a political consultant who helps run Democratic campaigns and is currently working on elected board member Jessica Biggs’ run for school board president.

“It’s better for our democratic system (and) it’s better for the candidates because it requires them to engage in robust debate,” Klonsky said, adding that election season can be an opportunity for unopposed candidates to build a following for years to come.

Gutierrez and Rosenfeld won big in the 2024 election

Rosenfeld and Gutierrez, who are running in vastly different districts, each dominated in the 2024 election.

Last election, 10 of the 21 board members were elected, and candidates ran in larger districts. Rosenfeld competed against five others in district 4 and won almost 42% of the vote. Gutierrez won his district with almost 63% of the vote against a teachers union-backed candidate.

Now, each candidate is only running in the half of the district where they live. A Chalkbeat analysis of last year’s election results at the precinct level show signs that both Gutierrez and Rosenfeld could have put up a strong fight if they were opposed this year. Gutierrez won double the number of votes as the second-place winner in precincts that overlap with the subdistrict he’s running in now, while Rosenfeld won by a margin that was almost as large.

“Other potential candidates probably looked at that and decided to pass,” said Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools.

INCS says it supports both candidates.

Gutierrez described himself and Rosenfeld as “physical representations” of their districts.

Gutierrez’s Southwest Side district, 8a, encompasses the Ashburn, Chicago Lawn, West Lawn, Clearing, and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods. It is more than 60% Latino, more than double the share of Latinos citywide, according to data analyzed by the University of Chicago’s To&Through Project, which uses the most recent available U.S. Census data. Roughly a quarter of people have college degrees, less than the city as a whole. About 40% of households earn $100,000 or more, and 83% of high schoolers in the area attend CPS schools.

In Rosenfeld’s district of 4b, 75% of residents are white, more than double the rate of the city overall. They’re also wealthier and more educated than the city as a whole: 62% of people earn more than $100,000, and 86% have a college degree. Just over half of high schoolers attend a CPS school.

Gutierrez’s district is more politically conservative while Rosenfeld’s is more liberal. But they have one similarity: During the 2023 mayoral runoff election, voters in both areas rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer and progressive, and voted for Paul Vallas, the more conservative candidate and former CPS CEO.

Gutierrez and Rosenfeld have been criticized by the Chicago Teachers Union. CTU did not respond to a request for an interview about not backing a candidate in these districts this election.

Because of Rosenfeld’s and Gutierrez’s commanding wins in the 2024 race, the political makeup of their districts, and who they were backed by in the last election, opponents may have decided it wouldn’t be worth their resources to jump in, according to multiple Democratic political consultants and other observers.

Rosenfeld and Gutierrez were endorsed by organizations other than the union, such as the anti-CTU Chicago Democrats for Education, and many local elected officials. In 2024, Rosenfeld was endorsed by more than a dozen elected officials, including state lawmakers who helped create the elected school board, the Chicago Federation of Labor, and the 44th and 47th Democratic Ward Organizations, the latter of which her husband leads. Gutierrez was also backed by many elected officials, including powerful 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, and the Chicago Laborers’ District Council.

Unpaid nature of the job may have scared off competition

The lack of candidates could be because many people still don’t know about Chicago’s elected school board, political consultants said.

One survey of more than 1,300 Chicago adults found that two-thirds didn’t know the school board will be fully elected next year. Several voters in Rosenfeld’s and Gutierrez’s districts who spoke with Chalkbeat for this story couldn’t remember who they voted for in 2024 or didn’t know there was an election this year.

Being on the school board is an unpaid job with long hours, which could deter people who can’t afford not to work or don’t have flexible jobs that allow them to take on the extra responsibilities of board member.

Nicole Woods, whose 4-year-old daughter will soon attend Francis Parker, a private school in Lincoln Park, was surprised to hear no one else is running, given how strongly the community pushed back this spring against Parker’s plans to expand.

“With so many people fired up about that, it’s kind of interesting that no one is fired up about being on the school board,” she said.

But as Woods and her young daughter hustled to a piano class on a recent weekday afternoon, she considered her packed schedule and said with a laugh, “I mean, I don’t think I would want to do it.”

It’s costly and labor intensive to run a campaign. Even if a candidate collects enough signatures to get on the ballot, they may face a challenge alleging their signatures aren’t eligible, which can require hiring expensive attorneys, causing some people to drop out. And if candidates make it on the ballot, they must spend months hosting events, talking to voters, and collecting donations to pay for mailers, websites, and campaign staff.

It can also be difficult to run without the backing of special interest groups with money and resources, like charter school advocates and the teachers union.

Voters say they want a choice

About half of the residents Chalkbeat spoke with said they either recognized Gutierrez or Rosenfeld or found the names familiar. None knew about the candidates’ track records or voting history while in office.

Rosenfeld said she thinks voters view her as accessible and saw the lack of a challenger as “a big compliment.”

“I believe that’s because the voters have watched me on this board the last couple of years and seen me remain moderate, remain reasonable, remain calm,” she said.

Gutierrez said he tries to represent all kinds of interests. He highlighted his “yes” vote on last year’s budget plan that the union and mayor’s office opposed and his approval of the latest teachers union contract.

“I represented this district, and everybody, everyone — the unions, my residents — very well, I think,” Gutierrez said.

Voters in Gutierrez’s district, he said, value local elected officials who are responsive and can deliver on “constituent services,” like making sure the streets get plowed after a snowstorm.

One of those voters is Rose, a mother of three in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood near Midway Airport, who said she met Gutierrez on election day in 2024.

Rose, who declined to share her last name, said she told Gutierrez about her concerns with safety at Kennedy High School, where her daughter was a junior at the time. Gutierrez told her he’d look into those concerns if he was elected.

Since then, Rose’s daughter graduated, but Rose doesn’t feel that safety at the school has improved.

Gutierrez said he’s heard some reports of bullying at Kennedy and it’s “on his list” to think about solutions. He noted, however, that his job is to help set the direction for the district and “not really interject myself into the day-to-day operations of schools.”

What matters to Rose is that she doesn’t feel like her safety concerns were addressed. As she stood on her porch with a Class of 2026 Kennedy High School sign piercing her front lawn, she said, “I think we should have another voice.”

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

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appoints Connie Anderson to CPS school board

2026-07-30T01:48:51+00:00

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is appointing Connie Anderson to the school board, giving her an incumbent advantage ahead of November’s election when all 21 seats are up for grabs.

Anderson filed candidacy paperwork in May to run to represent District 10b on the city’s Far South Side. Now, she’ll fill the vacancy left by Olga Bautista, who stepped down in March. Anderson is one of five candidates still facing a challenge to her petition signatures.

The appointment is likely Johnson’s last one as 30 years of mayoral control comes to an end in Chicago. Currently, the city’s school board is made up of 11 mayoral appointees and 10 people elected in 2024.

It is not clear if Anderson will be sworn in at Thursday’s school board meeting when the board is poised to take a critical budget vote. The board office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Chicago Tribune reported that a spokesperson said Anderson would be sworn in at a later date.

However, Johnson appointed Ángel Vélez on the eve of last year’s budget vote and board records show he voted on the budget the next day. Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anderson is the parent of CPS graduates, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. She spent 12 years involved with Friends of Ogden, the parent fundraising arm of a public school in the city’s Gold Coast.

The mayor’s office said she was involved at the school during a controversial 2018 merger between the relatively high-income, racially diverse school and Jenner Academy of the Arts, a majority Black, low-income school that long served families in public housing.

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

Chicago school board ballot will have five choices for citywide president, but five districts get just one pick

2026-07-29T01:26:40+00:00

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As Chicago shifts to a fully-elected school board, voters along the south lakefront will see only one candidate on their ballot after the city’s Board of Elections removed the only challenger.

District 10a candidate Tameka Walton said she would still mount a write-in campaign against incumbent Che ‘Rhymefest’ Smith. After some of Walton’s signatures were ruled ineligible, she fell below the 500-signature requirement, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ruled Tuesday.

“It does a disservice to the citizens of Chicago, the folks in my district, to not have my name appear on the ballot,” Walton said.

Walton said running as a write-in candidate is different from having her name on the ballot, but she’s continuing her campaign in her district.

“Just because your name doesn’t appear on the ballot doesn’t mean that it stops there for you,” Walton said.

Of the 51 candidates who filed petitions in May for the 21 school board seats up for election in November, 28 faced objections alleging improper or fraudulent signatures, among other issues. Candidates can be removed from the ballot if enough of their signatures are invalidated.

The board ruled Tuesday on cases involving 11 school board candidates. Two candidates for school board president, Hilario Dominguez and Victor P. Henderson, were deemed to have enough valid signatures and will join Jessica Biggs, Jennifer Custer, and Sendhil Revuluri in the citywide race.

Eight other candidates also survived challenges and are set to be on the Nov. 3 ballot. They are: Brenda Lee Anderson (6a), Michael Neal (6b), Norma Rios-Sierra (3a), Ed Bannon (1a), Jason Dónes (3b), Anusha Thotakura (6a), Hector Morales (2a), and Yesenia Lopez (7b).

These candidates join seven other candidates who previously overcame their challenges. However, like Walton, five other candidates fell below the signature threshold and were dropped from the ballot.

Five candidates — Claudia Peralta, Karen Zaccor, Kernetha Jones, Michilla Blaise, and Connie Anderson — are still awaiting decisions. Zaccor said in an interview that she believes she will remain above the signature threshold to appear on the ballot after the dual-circulator challenge was dropped.

“Collecting signatures was a good reminder of why we fought for an elected school board in the first place, ” Dominguez said.

The meeting also covered two appeals of decisions from earlier preliminary hearings.

Attorneys Stephen Fine and Ed Mullen, who worked together on many cases against candidates supported by the Chicago Teachers Union, debated each other before the electoral board over whether a challenge against Brenda Lee Anderson should invalidate her candidacy. Anderson said that Anusha Thotakura, a candidate in District 6a, is behind the challenge.

Mullen said Anderson was ineligible to appear on the ballot because she had not updated her address before filing her statement of candidacy. He cited a past case involving a candidate who was not a registered voter at the address listed on her filing documents.

Fine argued that Anderson’s change of address did not invalidate her voter registration.

“[Anderson] lived in 6a, resided in 6a, and never left 6a,” Fine said.

General counsel Adam Lasker determined that even though Anderson had changed addresses, she is still a registered voter and is therefore eligible to appear on the ballot.

The board voted 3-0 to dismiss the challenge. Anderson will run against Thotakura, who was endorsed by the CTU, and Isaiah White, whose campaign has contributed to some petition challenges.

Anderson, who attended the hearing, said the building she moved to was only one block from her previous address.

“From my understanding, lots of people told [Thotakura] to drop the challenge, and she refused to,” Anderson said. “And it’s sad because, again, this is supposed to be about kids.”

Anderson said the CTU will pay the legal fees she incurred fighting the objection. CTU made that offer to any candidate, whether the union was backing them or not, shortly after petition challenges were made public.

The second appeal hearing concerned the spelling of Rios-Sierra’s name on her candidacy and petition forms. The opposing counsel said her candidacy should be invalidated because her name was spelled “Norma Rios-Sierra” on her voter registration but “Norma Rios Sierra” on other official documents.

The electoral board voted unanimously to dismiss the challenge.

Lasker said the remaining cases would likely be decided at the next electoral board session on Aug. 11.

Chicago school board presidential candidate Hilario Dominguez accused of breaking campaign finance rules

2026-07-23T22:10:26+00:00

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Hilario Dominguez, a candidate for Chicago school board president, is facing a formal state complaint from a challenger who claims Dominguez ignored campaign finance rules.

State election authorities received a complaint last Friday from Hugo Jacobo against Dominguez’s campaign committee, Friends of Hilario, arguing his latest campaign filings reporting nothing raised or spent “cannot be accurate.” Jacobo is working for Dominguez’s opponent Sendhil Revuluri, whose team shared the complaint with Chalkbeat.

Dominguez, who is also the political director of the Chicago Teachers Union, did not directly address the complaint or the allegations but said he’s spending time with “parents, students, and communities.”

“Unlike the billionaires who fought against giving Chicagoans a vote like this, they don’t have a lot of money,” he said in a statement.

His campaign treasurer Kat Zamorran said in a statement that the “campaign is in compliance and more activity will be in the next report.”

Candidates running in the Nov. 3 election were required to file campaign finance reports for the year’s second quarter with the state on July 15. Candidates for school board have raised $1.8 million, $1.2 million of that in the board president’s race alone. Dominguez is one of five candidates for board president and has the CTU’s endorsement.

According to state election law, candidates are required to register a political committee with the Board of Elections when it raises or spends $5,000 in a 12-month period, but candidates can create the committee before reaching that threshold. While Dominguez’s committee was registered with the state on June 4, it does not have to report campaign contributions or expenses until either hits $5,000, so it’s possible the campaign hasn’t reached that number yet. Neither Zamorran or Dominguez answered questions about whether they’ve hit the threshold.

Matt Dietrich, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections, noted that contributions aren’t considered “received” by a committee until they’re deposited to the bank. For example, if a fundraiser happened in June, but donations weren’t deposited until after July 1, that money wouldn’t show up on campaign finance filings until the next round of reports are due in the fall. There’s one exception: Contributions of $1,000 or more must be reported within five days of being deposited, Dietrich said.

The complaint likely won’t be addressed until the Illinois Board of Elections’ Oct. 20 meeting, according to Dietrich.

The board can “prescribe corrective action immediately” or hold a public hearing over the case if it agrees with the complainant. Dominguez could face a financial penalty, but first-time penalties are waived unless a committee commits another violation within two years, Dietrich said.

Revuluri said he doesn’t think it’s “reasonable” that Dominguez could have run his campaign so far, including with printed materials and a fundraising event, and not have exceeded $5,000 in expenses.

“My concern is less with some kind of punishment, but more restorative action, where the campaign starts telling the truth, where the campaign is being honest about how it’s being financed (and) what they’re doing with that money because voters deserve to have that information,” Revuluri said.

The complaint laid out several spending claims, including that Dominguez’s campaign has created campaign materials, such as fliers and banners, and has a campaign website containing a note saying it was “paid for by Friends of Hilario,” which was visible on the website Thursday. The complaint also names people who helped Dominguez collect signatures to get on the ballot, noting that those people are known paid circulators whom other campaigns have also hired and are paid per signature. WBEZ reported that Dominguez had collected about 9,000 signatures.

The complaint noted that Dominguez held a fundraiser last month but didn’t report receiving any funds in the latest required campaign finance disclosures.

Both CTU’s and Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ PACs are expected to spend big in the campaign but haven’t yet poured money into races. The union’s PAC did report spending money on fending off petition challenges for some candidates.

The state will assign Jacobo’s complaint to a hearing officer, who will hold a hearing with both parties, Dietrich said in an email. After that, the hearing officer will make a recommendation, which the board’s general counsel reviews and adds her own recommendation. The board makes the final decision in a closed session.

“The burden of proof in these proceedings is on the complainant,” Dietrich wrote.

Dietrich noted that the complaints don’t become public unless the board decides they’re justifiable.

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

Union representing Chicago school support staff makes Board of Education endorsements

2026-07-23T21:03:39+00:00

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The union representing Chicago school support staff is splitting with the teachers union in its support of candidates in several key races, including school board president.

SEIU Illinois State Council announced Thursday morning its endorsing Jessica Biggs in the race to lead the first fully elected 21-member school board. The union already donated $10,000 to Biggs’ campaign last December. SEIU announced last week it would endorse more than a dozen candidates running as school board district representatives.

The SEIU’s endorsements diverge from the Chicago Teachers Union, which is backing their own political director Hilario Dominguez for school board president. That means two unions are backing opposing candidates in 10 school board races and are aligned on five.

The split between SEIU and CTU is significant: Both unions give money to their endorsed candidates and provide boots-on-the-ground to canvas, phone bank, and get out the vote. These endorsements also carry weight with union members when they vote. SEIU represents more than 16,000 CPS staff and more than 100,000 workers statewide. CTU represents 30,000 educators.

“Sometimes our interests align. Sometimes they don’t,” said Trumaine Reeves, executive vice president of SEIU Local 73, the chapter representing CPS support staff, including janitors, crossing guards, bus aides, and special education classroom assistants.

Reeves noted the alignment with CTU on candidates Ed Bannon, Ebony DeBerry, Norma Rio Sierra, Claudia Peralta, and Anusha Thotakura. He said choosing Biggs for the president role came down to her experience.

“She knows firsthand the impacts of the budget, how fully funding or underfunding at a school-based level impacts the school community. She lived it firsthand,” Reeves said. “We felt like out of the five candidates running, she’s the most qualified.”

Biggs is a current school board member representing parts of downtown and the south lakefront. She’s also an organizer with Southwest Organizing Project and has been since she was let go by CPS in 2018 from her job as principal of Burke Elementary. WBEZ reported her termination came after the Inspector General said she altered attendance data and allowed staff to transport students without proper paperwork.

Biggs, who has successfully appealed being placed on the CPS do-not-hire list, says she was targeted because she was a critic of the district’s move to privatize janitorial operations. SEIU represents school janitors and pushed CPS to end their agreement with Aramark in 2024, a decade after the initial privatization.

Tensions rose between SEIU and CTU in 2024 when the teachers union put a proposal on the table in bargaining that could’ve taken work away from SEIU members. It would’ve given CPS administrators the ability to use teacher assistants represented by the CTU and special education classroom assistants, or SECAs, represented by SEIU almost interchangeably.

Mayor Brandon Johnson won his seat in 2023 with the help of SEIU. But in 2025, that union’s support appeared to be waning. Johnson faces reelection in 2027.

On Wednesday, the CTU posted on social media to label Biggs as a candidate backed by billionaires and people who closed 50 schools in 2013. The union highlighted $17,300 in donations Biggs received last year from Michael Sacks, a donor to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as well as a $1,000 donation from David Vitale, who served as school board president in 2013, and $2,900 in donations from former CPS CEO Janice Jackson. Jackson was a high school principal in 2013.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to note SEIU Local 73 represents school bus aides, not bus drivers.

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

More than $1.8 million raised in Chicago school board election, as contribution caps are lifted in race for board president

2026-07-17T20:25:10+00:00

This story was published in partnership with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.

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Campaign fundraising in the race to serve on Chicago’s first fully elected school board is picking up momentum, with $1.8 million raised since last October and contribution caps now lifted in the competition for president.

A WBEZ and Chalkbeat analysis of money candidates received from Oct. 1, 2025 to June 30 found the majority of that total – $1.2 million — went to people running to lead the 21-member board. The board president is the only member who is elected citywide.

Attorney Victor Henderson gave himself half-a-million dollars in loans, which lifted donation limits for all five candidates vying for the president role. These candidates have done the most fundraising, with the exception of former Chicago Teachers Union organizer Hilario Dominguez, who has reported no donations so far. The other candidates for president are Jessica Biggs, Jennifer Custer, and Sendhil Revuluri.

Seventeen school board candidates have brought in less than $10,000 and nine did not file a report for the period from April 1 to June 30. Illinois law requires that candidates begin reporting campaign money once they’ve raised or spent $5,000.

The sizable early donations point to the historic nature of the race. In November, for the first time, Chicago residents will elect all 21 members of the school board, which is currently half-appointed by the mayor and half-elected. For three decades before that, the mayor controlled the board.

Although the school board president does not get to vote on board decisions unless there is a tie, that person plays an outsize role in helping set the board agenda and the tone during meetings. Sean Harden, a Mayor Brandon Johnson appointee who serves in the role now, is not running for the seat.

It’s no surprise that fundraising for that role is heating up, said Hal Woods of the education advocacy group Kids First Chicago.

“You need to be able to build a ground game and campaign infrastructure that covers the entire city, and you have a competitive race with really credible candidates,” he said. By looking strong early, Woods said, “You are showing the donor class you are the horse to get behind.”

Meanwhile, the CTU, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and other organizations that have said they plan to spend big on school board races are largely holding their fire for now, as several candidates are still facing challenges to their attempt to get on the November ballot.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ war chest is by far the largest among political action committees with a stake in the election at more than $4 million. That’s fueled by sizable checks from wealthy residents, including some outside of Chicago. The charter advocacy group, which got outspent by the CTU in the 2024 school board election, hasn’t yet thrown its support behind a candidate for president or made formal endorsements in the 20 district races.

The teachers union, which is backing Dominguez for board president, brought in $500,000 since April 1. It spent about $250,000, some of it on defending candidates, including Dominguez, against challenges intended to knock them off the ballot. The CTU’s coffers get replenished with union dues.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools and two other political committees, the Common Ground Collective and The Urban Center, have been bolstered by big donations from Paul Finnegan, the chairman of the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.

Since April, campaign records show Finnegan, whose address is listed in Evanston, has given almost $1 million to seven school board candidates, including Custer and Biggs, and a handful of political groups interested in the school board race.

Fundraising push heats up in board president race

Illinois campaign law limits individual contributions to candidates to $7,300, while corporations and labor unions can contribute up to $14,600. But if a candidate contributes more than $100,000 to his or her own campaign, like Henderson did, or if a super PAC spends more than that amount in support of a candidate, those donation limits fall away for all contenders in that race.

Henderson said he decided to make a sizable loan to his campaign because “if I’m asking other people to invest, they want to know that I’m doing the same thing.” Henderson also said his campaign staff suggested that he do it and, since he’s never run for elected office before, he listened to them. He now has a commanding fundraising lead with about $659,000 between his loans and donations from supporters.

Henderson, who is a member of the Urban Prep Charter School network’s board, said he has met with some of the political action committees, including those of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and CTU, and would be happy to take donations from them.

But he wants special interest groups to know that, regardless of whether they donate to him, he wants to work “with them” not “for them.”

“I’m not going to carry anybody’s water,” he said. “There’s too much politics in CPS, and that’s not the right thing to do.”

Other candidates for president said they are not daunted by Henderson’s campaign cash.

Biggs, a current board member, raised just over $154,000 as of June 30, most of it in smaller contributions from individuals. She said she didn’t think the lifting of contribution limits in the hotly contested race would shift the dynamics considerably.

“I’m continuing to build the broadest coalition possible,” she said. “It’s what this moment calls for.”

Biggs was outspent roughly 10-to-1 in her South Side district in 2024, but handily won her current seat representing district 6b, which includes Bronzeville, Hyde Park, and other neighborhoods.

Sendhil Revuluri, a former vice president of the board appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, also said he didn’t expect the lifting of the spending cap to make a major difference. He has raised more than $311,000 so far, including $68,000 that he loaned to his own campaign. He said he tapped his broad professional network to get other donations from across the country.

Still, Revuluri said his campaign is focused on student outcomes and experiences.

“The money is not the goal,” he said. “It’s a means to reach voters and get my message across.”

Custer, an incumbent board member who represents parts of Chicago’s Far Northwest Side, also raised mostly small amounts from individual donors. She says she was surprised the limit was blown so early, but she expected the race would be an expensive one.

“To commit in a citywide race, you are going to need a significant amount of money,” she said. Like other candidates, she says she’ll take money from PACs as long as they know that her “north star is always what’s good for the children”

Dominguez, the CTU’s pick for president, has not reported any donations or expenses. He said he’s going to do his best to raise enough money to compete, but, in the end, he’s hoping that “people power” will fuel his campaign. He said he and his team will be “hitting those doors hard.”

“We’re always going to have to rely on the organized power of moms, of educators, of students,” he said.

Special interest groups prepare to spend big

A number of organizations with connections to Chicago Public Schools are gearing up to jump into the political fray, including the race for school board president.

Andrew Broy, executive director of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said the group plans to make endorsements in August and then start spending more.

“We want to be competitive in all the races where we see a pathway to victory,” he said.

He said the citywide presidential race will be expensive, estimating that the cost of mailers and other outreach to voters across the city would easily surpass $1 million.

In the 2024 school board race, the CTU’s two political action committees spent $4.3 million on races, but rather than donate directly to candidates, they spent a lot hiring companies to create mailers, conduct surveys, and organize canvassing in support of particular candidates. CTU announced 15 endorsements earlier this week and chose to sit out six races.

Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents support staff in CPS, also announced their endorsements this week. After decades of being seen as allies, SEIU has recently had some public disagreements with CTU, including over who represents school support staff.

In the 13 races where SEIU endorsed candidates, only four are also endorsed by the CTU. Some, like Che “Rhymefest” Smith and Angel Guiterrez, have consistently voted against the current school board majority, which is aligned with CTU.

Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, one of three SEIU local affiliates in Illinois, said the union was not going to endorse a presidential candidate, but they are now considering backing someone. She’s hopeful her union can help balance some of the big-money interests getting involved in the race with door-knocking and member donations.

“The amount of money is mind-boggling,” she said.

SEIU’s two PACs had about $719,000 on hand at the end of June.

Other groups are starting to dip their toes in the school board races. The Common Ground Collective, led by staffers from former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s cabinet, has made some donations to incumbents who are up for reelection, including Biggs and Custer.

Rooted & Ready, a PAC affiliated with U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a CTU ally who represents parts of Chicago and the west suburbs, cut $3,500 checks to school board candidates Claudia Perlata, Jason Dónes, and incumbent Norma Rios Sierra, all endorsed by the CTU. The group hasn’t yet made contributions in the president’s race.

Correction 6/17/26: This story has been corrected to include contributions that were inadvertently omitted in the process of analyzing campaign finance data from the Illinois State Board of Elections website. It was also corrected to include the accurate school board district that Jessica Biggs represents.

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

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Contact Sarah at skarp@wbez.org.

Five Chicago school board candidates removed from ballot in upcoming election

2026-07-14T20:56:22+00:00

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Five candidates running for seats on Chicago’s 21-member, fully-elected school board got removed from the ballot Tuesday by the city’s Board of Election Commissioners.

Krista Nichols Alston (10a), Marlo Barnett (9b), Rosita Chatonda (10b), Angel L. Velez (9a), and Cydney Wallace (8b) all have five days to appeal the electoral board’s ruling.

The latest removals mean districts 8b and 9a join districts 4b and 8a as races where voters will only have one choice on the ballot. Juan Ignacio Gonzalez (8b) and Brittany Bailey Preston (9b) the only candidates left in those races.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Teachers Union said Tameka Walton would be running a write-in campaign in district 10a, but the electoral board has not yet ruled on her case. If she is removed, that district would also be uncontested.

The electoral board also voted to keep five candidates on the ballot by dismissing challenges to their petitions. The fates of the remaining 16 candidates facing challenges are expected to be decided later this month.

In May, 51 candidates filed petitions to appear on the ballot for the 21 school board seats to be voted on this November. Since then, 28 candidates faced objections , claiming they contained improper or fraudulent signatures.

If enough of these signature objections are upheld, a candidate may not have enough signatures left to secure a spot on the ballot.

Since the challenges were raised, multiple objectors have withdrawn their objections. The board moved to dismiss these dropped challenges, confirming Jessica Biggs and Sendhil Revuluri for board president, and three candidates for seats: Daniel Basco (2b), Debby Pope (2b), and Emma Lozano (7a).

Those five candidates will join Jitu Brown (5a) and Katherine Dunneback (9b) on the ballot, who have also beaten their challenges following decisions in June, as well as the 23 candidates who did not have their petitions challenged.

Presidential candidate Victor P. Henderson and District 6a candidate Brenda Lee Anderson have both had some — but not all — of the objections against them withdrawn. The board voted Tuesday to dismiss the withdrawn objections, but will decide the rest after the hearing officers in charge of the cases make their final recommendations to the board.

General Counsel Adam Lasker said this doesn’t necessarily mean the end for the dropped candidates. Each candidate will have five days to file a petition for judicial review to the circuit court to appeal their case. Candidates can also decide to run write-in campaigns.

The electoral board’s meeting concluded with a brief appeal hearing of oral statements on several objections involving candidate Marlo Barnett.

Dr. Marlo Barnett asks the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to overturn the recommendation given by her hearing officer to end her candidacy.

Barnett’s cases concerned the information on her nominating papers, on which she stated she was running in district 9, not 9b. Other paperwork from the filing process for candidacy did specify 9b.

Barnett, who is running as a school board candidate for the first time and represented herself in all official legal hearings, told the board that the paperwork didn’t make clear that she needed to specify which subdistrict she was running for.

Barnett said that the switch from unified districts to subdistricts, a change made between the 2024 and 2026 election cycles, was confusing to voters and candidates in her community.

“When you start knocking good, qualified candidates off the ballot, then you don’t leave voters a choice,” Barnett said.

Board of Election Commissioners Chairwoman Marisel A. Hernandez told Barnett that the instructions were clearly stated in the materials provided.

Lawyers representing the objectors argued that without a specified subdistrict on the petition, voters could not make an informed decision to endorse Barnett’s candidacy.

Following the hearing, Lasker gave his recommendation on the cases, citing past case precedent that determined not specifying one’s district on candidacy petitions was grounds for invalidating those signatures.

In a 3-0 decision, the Board of Election Commissioners moved to uphold the recommendation to invalidate Barnett’s petition papers. Barnett will not appear on the ballot this fall.

Lasker said he hopes to have most of the objection cases decided by the next electoral board meeting, scheduled for July 28.

CTU endorses 15 school board candidates, throwing weight behind incumbents, mayoral picks

2026-07-14T01:16:22+00:00

This story was published in partnership with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.

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The Chicago Teachers Union announced Monday it will endorse only 15 candidates in the upcoming school board race in which all 21 seats are up for election — a decision that could make it difficult for the union to hold onto its majority.

The union will back 10 incumbents who they supported in the election two years ago or were appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Johnson, a former organizer for the CTU, is an ally of the union.

Notably absent from their list of endorsements is Yesenia Lopez, who won in 2024 with the union’s endorsement, but occasionally voted independently of other CTU-aligned school board members over the past year and half.

CTU last month endorsed their political director Hilario Dominguez in the citywide race for school board president. There are four other people running for that seat.

In the six districts where the CTU did not endorse anyone, it was because the race had only one candidate or there’s no candidate aligned with the CTU.

One of the five non-incumbents getting CTU’s nod is Tameka Walton, who the union said is mounting a write-in campaign. Walton’s petition signatures were challenged and the Chicago Board of Elections is expected to make decisions on petition challenges Tuesday.

Angel L. Velez, the incumbent vice president of the board who was appointed by Johnson and filed to run for his seat in district 9a, also announced on social media last week that he did not have enough valid signatures to stay on the ballot. That leaves Brittany Bailey Preston, the wife of state Sen. Willie Preston, as the only candidate in the race.

Juan Rangel, the CEO of the Urban Center, a political action committee paying for many of the petition challenges, said Cydney Wallace, a Johnson appointee running in 8b is also expected to be removed from the ballot. CTU did not include Velez or Wallace in their endorsements.

The CTU has been seen as a politically powerful force, especially after getting Johnson elected, but it remains to be seen how much their endorsement matters.

In the first school board election in 2024, the union endorsed in all 10 races and only four of their candidates were victorious. Still, the union had a friendly school board because Johnson appointed 11 people, giving them enough backers to have a majority on the 21-member board.

CTU-backed candidates would have to win 11 races to hold onto a majority. The CTU’s two political action committees had a balance of less than $200,000 as of March 31, the last time quarterly filings were due. New reports are due out on Wednesday.

The union also boasts more than 30,000 members that can knock on doors and get out the vote, which will be important in the Nov. 3 election where turnout could be low.

Kimberly Walls-Kirk, chair of the CTU’s political action committee, says the union’s endorsements carry weight with voters because they trust teachers.

“I’m the parent of a child who graduated from a Chicago Public School. I’m a teacher in Chicago Public Schools,” she said. “So if I have a vision of what learning conditions look like for my child, then I, as a teacher, am one of the best people to endorse a candidate.”

A handful of other political action committees have already raised more than a million each and have already started donating money to candidates.

Rangel said he was surprised that the CTU wasn’t more organized as they approached this election. The Urban Center PAC is supported by centrist billionaires and pro-charter groups.

“The CTU has a reputation of having first-class, first-grade political operations, but I think they’ve been kind of sloppy on this this time around, and I’m not sure the exact reason why,” he said.

Dominguez, the CTU’s endorsed presidential candidate, blamed the lack of challengers in some races on the fact that it is a volunteer position that is essentially a full-time job, he said.

Andrew Broy, the president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said that based on 2024 election results, the power of a CTU endorsement is a “mixed bag” — more helpful in some well-to-do or gentrifying areas such as the North Side and Logan Square, and less so on the Southwest and Northwest Side. Overall, he said, recent opinion polls suggest the union’s popularity has dipped.

“That might blunt the positive impact of a CTU endorsement,” Broy said.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter. Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board says candidates can’t accept donations from district vendors

2026-07-08T20:30:13+00:00

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As Chicago’s school board election heats up, the current Board of Education voted Wednesday to not allow candidates to accept campaign donations from current or prospective vendors of Chicago Public Schools.

School board members — nearly all of whom are running in the Nov. 3 election – approved a resolution over the matter in a 16-1 vote during a meeting to review the agenda for the board’s full meeting later this month.

Elected board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith voted no.

Board president Sean Harden, who isn’t running, introduced the resolution.

“This resolution seeks to inoculate the board from any sense of impropriety or give vendors the sense that they have to pay to play,” Harden told board members last month when he first introduced the resolution.

On Wednesday, Harden said he asked the Better Government Association for its feedback on the resolution, and the good-government group described it as meeting a “high water mark.” BGA president David Griesing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The district relies on vendors for a range of services, from academic intervention to student assessments to school lunch.

City law prevents entities that do more than $10,000 of business in a 12-month period with city agencies from donating more than $1,500 a year to a political candidate. Harden’s resolution goes further: It calls on school board members to not accept any donations from current vendors, vendors who have applied to win a CPS contract, or outside lawyers who contract with CPS.

If board members accepted donations from vendors before Wednesday’s resolution, they should either recuse themselves from future votes involving those vendors or return the donation and notify the district’s general counsel and ethics officer, the resolution says.

In a text message, Smith said he voted no because the resolution appears as if it’s “targeting certain donors while allowing the most egregious political financiers and influencers go unchallenged,” referencing PACs and super PACs.

A spot check of Smith’s most recent campaign finance filings show a $250 donation from Cozen O’Connor, a law firm that has a contract with the board. Jessica Biggs, an elected board member who is running for board president, also received a $1,000 donation from the firm on April 30. Both Smith and Biggs had previously voted against increasing payments to the firm last year.

During last month’s meeting, some elected board members said the resolution should include labor unions that have contracts with CPS. The Chicago Teachers Union, through two separate political action committees, has been a major donor in school board campaigns. Harden said his focus was on vendors, and if others want more restrictions, they should introduce additional resolutions.

Smith has also received money from the SEIU Illinois Council PAC, as recently as December. The political arm of that union, which represents support staffers in CPS, also gave to Jessica Biggs, Yesenia Lopez, Jennifer Custer, Carlos Rivas, and Therese Boyle in December.

“I’m saying if we’re going to change the rules to limit the appearance of impropriety, there’s more authentic, effective ways to do it,” Smith said over text.

Illinois campaign finance records also show both Smith and elected board member Carlos Rivas each recently received $1,000 from Anthony Fiore, vice president of Open Kitchens, one of two food service companies with a multimillion dollar contract to provide free school meals in CPS.

Last fall, Fiore gave to a handful of other school board members, including Ellen Rosenfeld, Therese Boyle, and Jessica Biggs, according to state campaign finance disclosures.

Smith said he hasn’t yet decided whether he will recuse himself from future votes or return donations, and Rivas said he must consult with his attorney. Biggs said she won’t return the donations. She will recuse herself from a future vote on the law firm but will consult with ethics officials on whether she should recuse herself from future votes regarding Open Kitchens. Rosenfeld and Boyle did not immediately return a request for comment.

Biggs added that the resolution, which references vendors, feels “performative” and does not prevent individuals like Fiore from personally donating to campaigns. Fiore owns a 49% stake in Open Kitchens and his mother owns the other 51%, according to board records.

School board policy establishes several ethics and conflict-of-interest rules for board members, including that they should recuse themselves from voting on matters that involve contracts with entities that a board member may have an economic interest in. Board members must also file statements of economic interest every year.

Harden said he’s also trying to prevent a situation where so many board members recuse themselves from a vote due to a vendor’s campaign contribution that it becomes impossible for the board to do its job and decide on a given contract.

Still, resolutions are nonbinding, and this one involves the honor system: Board members themselves would be responsible “for confirming that potential donors are not CPS vendors or prospective CPS vendors or outside counsel serving the Board.” Campaign contributions are, however, publicly available on the state board of elections website.

The resolution doesn’t outline possible repercussions for board members who accept donations from vendors.

“I would encourage us to work together again on a comprehensive legislative proposal, take it to Springfield and get it passed, and then it would actually be binding,” Biggs said during last month’s meeting.

Becky Vevea contributed.

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

Chicago school board candidates won’t be removed from ballot due to ‘dual-circulation’ argument

2026-06-30T22:25:07+00:00

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A decision Tuesday by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners prevents dozens of school board candidates from being removed from the ballot.

In a 3-0 motion, the board ruled against multiple objectors who said the candidates collected signatures improperly by working with petition circulators who had also circulated petitions for partisan candidates in Illinois’ March primary — known as “dual-circulation.” Chicago’s school board races are nonpartisan.

Adam Lasker, general counsel for the board, said this ruling is not technically final, but the board members do not intend to change their opinion.

For the first time, all 21 seats on Chicago’s Board of Education are on the ballot in November’s general election. In May, 51 people filed nominating petitions, but 28 now face challenges that argue they don’t have enough valid signatures to have their name printed on the ballot.

Many of those challenges made the “dual-circulation” argument. The Electoral Board met at 10 a.m. on Tuesday to hear arguments on the dual-circulation objections questioning the legality of 22 school board candidates’ petitions.

What is the “dual-circulation” argument?

By Illinois election code, a circulator cannot petition for candidates from two different parties in the same election cycle. Another section states that unless it creates some inconsistency, nonpartisan candidates are treated as independent candidates, which counts as a party affiliation.

Ed Mullen, an election lawyer representing multiple candidates, argued that the dual-circulation law should be judged on its intentions, which were to prevent a candidate from switching party affiliation during a single election cycle. He also noted that candidates had no choice but to run as nonpartisan in the school board election.

Candidate lawyer Ed Mullen delivers an argument against sustaining the dual-circulation objections.

“You’re not switching party affiliation,” Mullen said. “Democrats run against independents, New Party, and Republicans. Nonpartisan runs against nonpartisan. They are not adverse to each other.”

Mullen also addressed voter confusion, saying that since the circulations were months apart and for different offices, it would not be confusing to voters to have the same circulator distributing a partisan petition in the primary and a nonpartisan petition for the school board.

Michael Kasper, lawyer for the petition objectors, argued that an Illinois Supreme Court ruling, McCaskill v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board for the City of Harvey, that held dual-circulation prohibition does not apply to nonpartisan elections applied only to consolidated elections in odd-numbered years. It doesn’t apply to the general election on which the school board ticket will be run, and thus nonpartisan candidates should be treated as independents, Kasper argued.

Kasper also argued that having petitioners circulate for nonpartisan candidates was confusing to voters, since petitioners would be asking for signatures for nonpartisan candidates when they’d previously been doing so for partisan candidates.

“The voters are confused when this circulator shows up at the doorstep with an independent petition,” Kasper asked. “But they’re not confused when that same person shows up at the same door on the same day with a nonpartisan petition? Come on.”

Objector lawyer Michael Kasper diagrams his argument that petitioners need to maintain party alignment throughout an election cycle.

What did the board decide?

After hearing the statements, the electoral board’s general counsel Lasker said that even if the objectors’ arguments stood, they were bound by legal precedent established by cases like McCaskill.

Lasker also said asking candidates to keep track of whether circulators were previously affiliated would have placed a tremendous burden on their campaigns.

After the statements were made, all three members of the board voted in favor of dismissing the dual-circulation challenges.

The Board of Election Commissioners will resolve the other objections on a case-by-case basis. Hearings are scheduled per-candidate with hearing officers, with the last on July 8. The final decisions are made by the Board of Election Commissioners after those hearings are complete.

Lasker says those hearings won’t change the board’s ruling on this decision.

The final decisions may still be appealed after they are made, in which case the objection would be retried in an appellate court.

Most candidates who have received the dual-circulation objection will have signatures above the threshold required to earn a place on the ballot, even if all other petition objections stick. Candidates who are facing other objections that could place them below the threshold still may not have enough, but will no longer face the dual-circulation objection.

“I think this is really an objection that was created to sow chaos in the election,” Mullen said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “And in that respect it worked, but on the legal perspective it didn’t.”

The board also moved to drop objections against three candidates after two objections were withdrawn and another was overruled.

This means Aaron “Jitu” Brown (5a) and Katherine Dunneback (9b) will appear on the ballot this fall. Rosita Chatonda (10b) still has one objection case pending, but another objection against her petition was dropped.

In this fall’s Chicago school board elections, many voters may only have one candidate to choose from

2026-06-12T22:05:12+00:00

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For three decades, Chicago voters have not had a direct say in who represents them on the city’s Board of Education.

And many may not have much of a choice again this fall, despite an otherwise historic election in which all 21 school board seats are on the ballot in November’s general election.

That’s because 17 races could end up with just one candidate if challenges to their petition signatures are successful. That’s on top of the two seats up for election that have just one candidate.

This year, 28 candidates — more than half the current field of 51 candidates — are at risk of getting knocked off the ballot. The Urban Center, a pro-school choice, politically centrist organization, is behind at least 14 of those challenges.

Most of the candidates facing challenges — including four of the five people running for board president — could be wiped from the ballot due to a claim that the way they collected signatures violated election law. Most of The Urban Center’s challenges include this claim.

Known as a dual circulator argument, the challengers say that some people who helped candidates collect signatures were not allowed to do so because they had already circulated petitions for other candidates during the March primary election. Chicago’s school board races are nonpartisan and were not part of the primary.

If the electoral board agrees, they could make a single ruling that would result in thousands of voters across 14 districts having just one school board candidate on their ballot.

For candidates, fighting petition challenges can be time-consuming and expensive, which can cut into campaigning or cause them to withdraw from the race and leave voters with fewer choices. Election attorneys and challengers, however, say the process ensures candidates are following the law and are people who voters want on the ballot.

In 2024, 47 candidates filed to run, and 31 remained on the ballot.

In Chicago, petition challenges are often backed by powerful special interests as a tactic to narrow the race.

The Chicago Teachers Union was behind many of the challenges in 2024, when 10 of 21 board seats were up for election. This year, other special interests are employing the tactic.

Robert Sylvester, vice president of The Urban Center and chair of their political action group, told Chalkbeat and Board Rule his group is working with other political organizations and longtime elections attorney Mike Kasper on their challenges — more than half of which target candidates who are current mayoral appointees on the school board, have previously been backed by the union, or lean politically progressive.

“The democratic process is important to me and Urban Center,” Sylvester said in an interview. “We challenge to make sure people play by the rules.”

Asked if The Urban Center targeted candidates who don’t ideologically align with it, Sylvester said, “We challenged anybody we thought didn’t have the requisite signatures or that they didn’t follow the rules around the circulators.”

The basis for challenging candidate petitions

Candidates for school board running to represent the district they live in were required to collect between 500 to 1,500 signatures on a form known as a nominating petition. Those running for board president, which is a citywide office, were required to collect 2,500 signatures.

But there are very specific rules for what counts as a valid signature: Signers must be registered to vote at an address in the same district as the candidate, they cannot sign multiple petitions for the same race, and, though it may be obvious, the signature can’t be forged.

Victor Henderson, a newcomer candidate running for board president, is facing one of the more serious challenges: Two objectors have accused him or someone on his team of fraudulently altering his signers’ addresses in order to make the signatures valid.

A handful of objections are over more technical matters. For example, one objector claimed that current appointed board member Norma Rios-Sierra, who is running in district 3a, should be knocked off the ballot because she didn’t include a hyphen in her last name on her nomination paperwork. Candidate Marlo Bennet faces two challenges arguing they did not identify the subdistrict they’re running for and should therefore be disqualified.

Nearly two dozen challenges include the “dual circulator” argument and cite a part of election law that says “no person shall circulate or certify petitions for candidates of more than one political party, or for an independent candidate or candidates in addition to one political party, to be voted upon at the next primary or general election, or for such candidates and parties with respect to the same political subdivision at the next consolidated election.”

Another section of election law says that where applicable, the law also applies to nonpartisan candidates.

The point of the law is to prevent “political gamesmanship” or a “sore-loser” situation, such as someone switching to run as an independent in the same election season, said Ross Secler, an elections attorney and partner at Odelsen, Murphy, Frazier and McGrath, who cited previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings over the issue.

Secler, who is representing objectors in two challenges but is not making the dual circulator argument in either of them, said he doesn’t see how dual circulators violated the spirit of the law in this situation. The March primaries were unrelated to local school board races.

Normally, a challenge is resolved once a hearing officer reviews the case, issues a recommendation, and the electoral board takes a final vote on whether the candidate gathered enough valid signatures to be on the ballot.

Connie Anderson is running in district 10b and is one of the candidates facing the dual circulator argument. Anderson’s husband, Clifton, has also challenged the petitions of Anderson’s opponent, Rosita Chatonda.

Anderson is getting legal help from the CTU to defend her petitions — an offer CTU leaders made to all candidates shortly after challenges were made public.

“We are blessed that an organization came in and said, ‘We will help you even if we haven’t endorsed you because we believe in your vision,’” Anderson said. “We align in that way.”

During the 2024 school board races, the union was behind challenges against 19 candidates. A CTU spokesperson said the union did not back any challenges this cycle and could not immediately confirm which candidates the union has offered legal help to.

Julie Metea, a spokesperson for the Electoral Board, said that attorneys involved in cases with the “dual circulator” argument asked the Electoral Board to rule on the issue once instead of having several different hearing officers decide on individual cases.

Metea said that the board is tentatively planning to hold one hearing to decide on this issue, but that isn’t final.

Candidates who escaped challenges breathe sigh of relief

Several candidates facing these objections didn’t return calls or declined to comment on the record about their cases.

Some current and former candidates said they escaped challenges because they did a lot of research or didn’t rely on paid circulators, who candidates pay per signature.

Jennifer Custer, a current elected board member who is running for board president, escaped a challenge, meaning she’s guaranteed to be on the ballot.

“We made sure to just check everything before we even started petitions and make sure that we were following the law,” Custer said in an interview.

When Anthony Hargrove ran for school board in 2024, he largely relied on a paid circulator who was tasked with securing 500 signatures. Then, Hargrove faced a petition challenge and was knocked off the ballot after many of his signatures were deemed invalid. Last time, it cost the father of four expensive attorney fees and time to fight the challenge.

Chicago elections, he said, can feel “like a frat that’s really, really impossible to get into.”

Hargrove is running again this year for district 5a on the West Side, and he changed his strategy for getting on the ballot. He got advice from retired politicians. He read the law. He said he didn’t pay anyone to collect signatures, and instead, he, his wife and others spent evenings and weekends knocking on doors and attending community events to collect hundreds of more names than he needed. Then he went to the county building to make sure his signatures were valid.

Last week, after repeatedly refreshing the Board of Elections website, he saw that no one had challenged his petitions.

“It was like, ‘Oh my god, I made it. Oh my god, I’m a candidate,’” Hargrove said.

Isaiah Pinzino and Norah D’Cruze contributed to this report.

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

Maureen Kelleher is the founding editor for Board Rule. Contact Maureen at maureen.boardrule@gmail.com.

Dozens of Chicago school board candidates could get knocked off the ballot

2026-06-04T16:31:47+00:00

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More than half of the 51 people who filed to run for one of 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education may not make it on the ballot.

That’s after 28 potential candidates had the validity of their petition signatures challenged.

Petition challenges allow registered voters in a candidate’s district to challenge the validity of signatures on their petitions. If the Chicago Board of Elections invalidates enough signatures, it can remove a candidate from the list. This year’s deadline to certify the ballot is Aug. 27.

Four of the five people hoping to be elected at-large to serve as school board president are at risk of being removed. Jennifer Custer is the only unchallenged candidate and will secure a spot in that race.

All nine of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointees currently serving on the school board running to keep their seats are facing challenges to the validity of their signatures. Two elected members aligned with Johnson — Aaron “Jitu” Brown and Yesenia Lopez — have also had their petitions called into question. Johnson’s appointed school board president Sean Harden is not running for election.

Elected incumbents Therese Boyle, Ebony DeBerry, Angel Gutierrez, Carlos A. Rivas Jr., Ellen Rosenfeld, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith escaped challenges and will all be on the ballot in November. Both Rosenfeld and Gutierrez are running unopposed in district 4b and 8a, respectively.

Only two of 21 races — in districts 2a and 4a — are currently guaranteed to have more than one candidate. Incumbent Ebony DeBerry and Bruce Leon, who ran in 2024, went unchallenged and are set to compete in 2a, while Ellen Sherratt and Angel Alvarez made it on the ballot in 4a. Hector Morales could survive a challenge to compete in 2a, as could 4a incumbent Karen Zaccor.

Surviving a petition challenge can require an attorney and take multiple weeks. The time-consuming and costly nature raises questions about ballot access for less resourced candidates. Removing political opponents through petition challenges has also been held up as an example of old-school, Chicago-style politics and were famously used by former President Barack Obama during his first campaign for state senate in 1996.

Chicago school board candidates were required to collect 500 to 1,500 valid signatures from voters in their districts and those running for board president had to collect 2,500 signatures from registered voters in Chicago.

In 2024, 47 people filed to run, but only 31 candidates remained by election day.

This November’s election marks the first time all 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education will be up for election, ending 30 years of mayoral control. Since 2024, the board has been half-elected and half-appointed.

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

Here are the 51 people who filed to run for Chicago Board of Education

2026-05-27T16:39:54+00:00

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Fifty-one people are running for a seat on Chicago’s Board of Education this fall — the first time city voters will elect all 21 members.

Candidates had to file petitions with signatures from voters in their district by Tuesday night to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.

This November’s election will complete Chicago’s transition to an elected school board, ending 30 years of mayoral control in the nation’s fourth-largest school district.

All 10 of the people elected in 2024 are running for re-election and two face no challengers. Ellen Rosenfeld and Angel Gutierrez are the only candidates in 4b on the North Side and 8a on the Southwest Side, respectively. All current mayoral appointees besides Board President Sean Harden are running to keep their seats. Several ran unsuccessfully in 2024.

Harden, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson in 2024, has long said he wouldn’t run in this year’s election.

Five people are running for the citywide position of school board president: elected board members Jessica Biggs and Jennifer Custer, Chicago Teachers Union political director Hilario Dominguez, former appointed board member Sendhil Revuluri, and attorney Victor Henderson.

But there’s no guarantee that all 51 current candidates will make it onto the ballot. That’s because of petition challenges, which allow registered voters in a candidate’s district to challenge the validity of signatures on their petitions. If the Board of Elections invalidates enough signatures, it can remove a candidate from the list. Candidates for board president must collect 2,500 signatures of registered voters in Chicago; all other candidates must collect 500 to 1,500 signatures of voters in their districts.

The challenge process, which typically runs about six weeks, can also be time consuming and involves hiring costly attorneys, which can push newer or less resourced candidates out.

In 2024, more than 45 candidates initially filed to run for school board. By the fall, 31 candidates remained due to petition challenges or people withdrawing on their own.

The deadline to object to a candidate’s petitions is June 2. The Board of Elections will finalize the ballot in late August.

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

Chicago school board elections kicks off with the first day of candidate filing. Who is trying to run?

2026-05-18T18:23:03+00:00

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The first step toward Chicago’s historic school board elections is officially underway, as candidates lined up early Monday to file paperwork to enter the races.

By 8:30 a.m., a line of more than 20 people buzzing with excitement to file paperwork had already formed in downtown Chicago. Some hopefuls were accompanied by family or campaign staff, while others clutched their documents alone.

But showing up to the Board of Elections site wasn’t just about submitting paperwork in a punctual fashion. Many of those early risers were after something they see as an added bonus: Those who arrive by 9 a.m. on the first day of candidate filing are entered in a lottery to be the first name listed on November’s ballot.

For the first time, all 21 members of Chicago’s Board of Education will be up for election. It’s the last step of a multi-year process — kickstarted by the state legislature — to transition away from having Chicago’s mayor appoint members to the board. Chicagoans got a taste of that shift in 2024 when they voted for half the board’s members. Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed the remaining 11 members, including the board’s president.

Candidates are vying for seats representing 20 districts across Chicago, in addition to another spot for president of the board. Term lengths vary by district, with some expiring every two years while others — including the board president — last four years.

People running for a school board need to collect between 500 and 1,500 valid signatures from voters who live in the hopeful candidate’s district. In the case of the Chicago Board of Education president, candidates need at least 2,500 valid signatures. Not all candidates who showed up Monday will end up on the Nov. 3 ballot, as they can be challenged on the validity of their signatures and possibly disqualified.

Candidates walk inside the Chicago Board of Elections Supersite in downtown Chicago to file paperwork on Monday, May 18, 2026.

From Monday’s showing, the races are already shaping up to showcase a mix of familiar faces and newcomers. The contest for school board president so far includes former board vice president Sendhil Revuluri, and current elected board members Jessica Biggs and Jennifer Custer.

Several current board members — some who are facing election for the first time — submitted their candidate paperwork in hopes of continuing to represent their district come November. Other current board members already had campaigning experience under their belt.

Collecting signatures for this year’s election was much easier for Anusha Thotakura, who represents District 6A, because her district is much smaller than when she first ran in 2024. Another big difference Thotakura has noticed is the engagement from Chicagoans in the race.

“Before, a lot of people in the city didn’t even know we had a school board or what the school board did,” she said. “And now, more people know about what’s going on. They have issues they want to get involved with, and a lot of that is sparking this increase in participation.”

Realtor LaPamela Williams, who filed to run in District 5A, poses for a portrait inside the Chicago Board of Elections Supersite on Monday, May 18, 2026.

For others waiting in line, winning election would mean the first time serving on the board. Personal experience in Chicago schools was the primary motivation for LaPamela Williams, a realtor looking to represent District 5A. Growing up, Williams said her mother sent her to a high school outside her neighborhood so she could get a better quality education. Williams doesn’t want other families to continue having to make that choice.

“I want to see a different run school system, especially in my district,” Williams said.

The filing period ends May 26. That’s when another long line of candidates will likely form to snag the last spot in the ballot order, which is also determined by a lottery.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

More than $550,000 has poured into historic Chicago school board races

2026-04-17T21:45:03+00:00

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Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

More than six months ahead of Chicago’s historic school board races, candidates are starting to ramp up fundraising — and political action committees are gearing up to spend big.

About 40 active school board candidate committees have already raised roughly $555,000 as of March 31 since last October, according to data Chalkbeat analyzed after a deadline this week to file campaign cash disclosures for the first quarter of 2026 with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

More than a third of that total represented the haul of Sendhil Revuluri — a former school board vice president running for the at-large role of board president — giving him a commanding fundraising lead so far. Two incumbents also running for board president — Jessica Biggs and Jennifer Custer — raised about $60,000 and $50,000, respectively, in the same period.

For the first time in the city’s history, Chicagoans this November will elect all 21 members of the school board, which has long been handpicked by the mayor. In 2024, residents chose 10 members, and Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed the rest, including the president. These latest races come at a high-stakes time for Chicago Public Schools, which faces swelling budget deficits, declining enrollment, and other challenges.

The 2024 races drew more than $13 million in campaign cash, an analysis by Chalkbeat Chicago found at the time. With all seats up for grabs, spending on this year’s races is expected to handily outpace that amount, which dwarfed that spent on school board elections in cities such as Denver and Detroit.

The last time around, heavy spending clearly helped propel some candidates to their seats on board, whose members serve without pay. But the races also showed the limitation of campaign cash. Some of the candidates with the most modest war chests, such as Biggs, bested much better funded opponents. Of the nine candidates in contested races backed by the Chicago Teachers Union — the biggest spender on those board elections — three made it onto the board.

The teachers union is once again poised to clash with charter and other school choice proponents, though these groups are waiting until the candidate field is more complete. Candidates will formally file to run between May 18 and 26. The Illinois Network of Charter Schools had more than $3.2 million in cash on hand as of March 31, by far the largest amount among super PACs expected to get involved in the school board races. Super PACs can spend without limitation on races, but they are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidate campaigns.

“We’ll be a very substantial part of the outside spending for sure,” said Andrew Broy, the network’s executive director. “We’ll try to be involved in as many districts as possible.”

Now that the state’s primary elections are over, school board candidates are starting to kick off their fundraising in earnest.

A $68,000 loan to his own campaign makes Revuluri the biggest donor to school board political committees so far. Trailing him are billionaire Michael Sacks and Allstate Corporation CEO Thomas Wilson, who both late last year donated the legal limit of $7,300 to each in a group of elected school board members who have banded together to parry the influence of a Johnson-aligned majority.

Sacks also donated to the Common Ground Collective, a new political action committee led by cabinet members of former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was pushed out by Johnson. The Sacks donations were previously reported by WBEZ.

Broy, the charter network’s head, said its focus for now is identifying candidates aligned with its pro-school choice mission and helping them get on the ballot. The network’s super PAC has drawn large checks from big-pocketed donors such as James Frank, the executive chairman of the board of Wheels Inc. As in 2024, the group will hold off on spending in earnest until closer to the election. But Broy said he expects spending to ramp up earlier this time around.

“Incumbents are going to want to get a jump on their opposition,” he said. “They’ll try to get an advantage by striking first.”

Broy expects the network will again back several members it funded heavily in 2024, such as Carlos Rivas and Angel Gutierrez.

Following heavy spending on primary races, the CTU’s cash on hand is now paltry in comparison, at about $126,000 at the end of March. But it’s poised to get replenished with member dues in the coming months.

A spokesperson for the union said the CTU will follow its customary process in which members review candidate questionnaires and other information to determine “who are champions for public schools and who are serving billionaire donors set to close schools.”

SEIU Illinois Council PAC, affiliated with the union representing support staff in CPS, made contributions to some elected incumbents late last year. The union has been a close ally of the CTU in previous years, but following disagreements last year might diverge in which candidates it backs.

The March primary races dominated political giving so far this year, making it hard to gain fundraising momentum for fall contests, said Custer, the school board member who is running for the districtwide board president role. She said her committee has been able to raise about $25,000 in the past couple of weeks, an amount that’s not reflected in her Board of Elections filing.

“It is definitely ramping up now,” she said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time on the phone.”

Custer said she is approaching “people prominent in the education spaces in and around Chicago” and circling back with donors to her 2024 campaign, including friends and family members. Custer was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union in 2024 but has clashed repeatedly with the union during her time on the board. “I don’t think they’ll come to me,” she said.

Custer said her major campaign expenditure so far has been child care, a permissible expense for candidates for office. Lining up care for her children has allowed her to visit schools, meet with potential supporters, and attend board meetings, she said.

With about $236,000 raised so far according to his campaign, Revuluri, who served as school board vice president during the pandemic, has pulled ahead among candidates who have formed committees to run in November.

Besides the loan to his campaign, his haul comes almost exclusively from individual contributions from across the country. He said he has tapped his extensive professional network, but the bulk of donations are from Chicagoans who have responded to his message of “effective governance that really puts our students at the center.” He said the current board has been too mired in political struggles, which he believes gives him an edge over incumbent rivals.

Revuluri said he is focused on low-cost campaigning, including meeting a goal of speaking with more than 10,000 voters, so he will hold off on most spending until the months leading up to the election.

“We have to meet voters where they are — once they have really tuned in,” he said.

Chalkbeat Chicago reporter Reema Amin contributed to this report.

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

Chicago school board names Angel Vélez as new vice president

2026-04-08T17:28:52+00:00

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In a split decision, the Chicago school board on Wednesday chose a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant appointed to the board last year by Mayor Brandon Johnson as its new vice president.

The board voted 9-7 for Angel Vélez to replace former board vice president Olga Bautista, an appointee who stepped down last month. The vice president performs the duties of the board president, such as presiding over meetings, if the president is absent.

Johnson appointed Vélez — who has also studied education policy — last August to fill a vacancy ahead of a pivotal budget vote. Vélez represents subdistrict 9a, which covers South Side neighborhoods that span from Canaryville to Auburn Gresham.

Vélez earned support for his vice presidency from other board members who have been more aligned with Johnson, including appointees Cydney Wallace, Debby Pope, Norma Rios-Sierra, Ed Bannon, Michilia Blaise and Karen Zaccor, as well as elected members Jitu Brown and Ebony DeBerry.

Elected board member Yesenia Lopez was also nominated for vice president and earned votes from elected board members who have been more critical of the mayor’s office: Che “Rhymefest” Smith, Therese Boyle, Ellen Rosenfeld, Carlos Rivas, Jennifer Custer, and Jessica Biggs.

Vélez and Lopez each voted for themselves.

The board did not discuss the vote further.

In a recent interview, Vélez spoke about his desire for more unity on the board. Vélez, who is Black and Latino, said he didn’t sign on to a letter last week pushing soon-to-be permanent CEO Macquline King to hire more Latinos in her cabinet because he felt it was more divisive than helpful. He said it would have been better for board members and organizations to first speak with King about the demands.

“If we unite, we can ask for more funding,” Velez said. “If we stay divided, not a lot is going to get done.”

The mayor currently appoints 11 of the board’s 21 members, including the president. He has not yet named a replacement for Bautista, and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

All 21 seats on the board will be up for election this November, and the board will be a fully elected governing body starting next January.

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

Macquline King, interim CEO of Chicago Public Schools, hired as permanent leader

2026-03-30T18:55:05+00:00

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The Board of Education voted Monday to name Macquline King as Chicago Public Schools CEO, ending a rocky yearlong search for the district’s permanent leader.

The board voted 18-1 to hire King, who has been the district’s interim leader since last June, when former CEO Pedro Martinez left after being fired without cause. Elected board member Jennifer Custer voted no.

The board officially picked King last week over Sito Narcisse, the former superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools in Louisiana who was named another finalist earlier this month.

King is poised to face a $520 million projected budget deficit. She’ll also be in place through school board elections this year and when a new, fully elected board is seated.

As interim chief, King has been forced to navigate some major issues during her nine months on the job, including closing a $734 million budget deficit that sparked a fight with the mayor’s office, the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, and upheaval in the district’s charter sector.

In remarks following the vote, King emphasized that she would build relationships in government and communities and would center students in her decisions. She highlighted bright spots in the district, including more recent student achievement in math, but also acknowledged problems ahead and said she’ll be “the most vocal advocate” in pushing for more state funding for CPS.

“We cannot and we will not allow financial headwinds to jeopardize those hard won victories and our students’ confidence,” King said.

Later, during a press conference, King said that in order to close a budget deficit that could rise as high as $1 billion, “everything has to be on the table so that we don’t compromise the progress that CPS students have made.”

King hasn’t rolled out major policy changes in her time so far, though last fall she was interested in reorganizing the district’s network offices, which help manage principals.

Several board members spoke in support of King ahead of the vote, saying that she’s a homegrown candidate who has earned the full-time role by displaying calm leadership over the past nine months. Board members raised a number of issues they want to work with King on, including budgetary pressures, supporting Black students, and addressing the district’s underenrolled schools.

“What mattered most to me — the fact that there are so many pressures on you, but you’ve always centered students,” said elected board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith.

Appointed board member Ed Bannon nodded to the rocky search for a new CEO that lasted about a year — but said that “the trip was worth it.”

“The path might have seemed a little rough at times, but as the saying goes, this is what democracy looks like,” Bannon said.

In an interview following the vote, Custer told reporters that she voted no because school leaders in her community said they did not feel like King has been communicative enough with them. She said she informed King of her vote ahead of time and wants to “figure out how to move forward.”

King started in CPS as a teacher in 1994, ultimately becoming a principal in 2007 until 2022. During that time, her work was both highlighted in the news and scrutinized by district officials in two incidents, once for failing to immediately report allegations of abuse and another time for failing to do a background check for a volunteer. She has said those critiques, which did not result in formal discipline, are the result of her not having enough staffing and support at the time.

She began working for Mayor Lori Lightfoot as an education policy advisor in 2022 and stayed in that role under Mayor Brandon Johnson until taking the job as interim schools chief last summer.

Union leaders and organizations share support for King

Unions, community organizations and elected officials welcomed King to the permanent CEO role as someone who navigated major challenges in the past year, has been willing to engage with them and, unlike other previous CEOs, rose up through the district’s ranks.

During public comment ahead of the board’s vote, Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, lauded King for overseeing the unprecedented, midyear transfer of students out of two shuttering ASPIRA charter network high schools. He noted other challenges ahead of CPS, including the projected budget deficit and a federal government that has pulled funding from the district.

“We can’t stave off the harm that is on the horizon without being in lockstep in our advocacy and vision,” Potter said. “I look forward to doing more of that transformation together in a moment that requires all of us to do more.”

The city’s principals union has previously shown public support for King. That union’s president, Kia Banks, said Monday that she knows King and the union will not always agree but that King has so far “demonstrated a willingness to engage directly with school leaders,” creating a solid foundation for their relationship going forward.

In an interview last week, Dian Palmer, president of SEIU 73, the union that represents thousands of school support staff workers, said she’s most excited about stability for the district with a leader who worked her way up through the system and understands Chicago’s complexities. Palmer said King has been “patient and kind” about her union’s concerns, even when they didn’t agree.

For example, last summer the district’s budget cuts included laying off hundreds of unionized custodians. At the same time, the union supported King’s plans not to include a short-term loan in the budget in fear that future high-interest repayments would result in staff layoffs.

“I am really looking forward to her working with the union — at least that’s what she says,” Palmer said. “She wants to work with us and really have a positive atmosphere for education, for the students, not just the service workers, who we represent, the custodians, the [special education classroom assistants], but also for the teachers.”

Daniel Anello, CEO of education advocacy group Kids First Chicago, welcomed King’s appointment, noting in a statement that she “has already navigated a number of complex challenges related to the district’s finances, attendance, and more” and has shown “a clear commitment to putting students’ interests first, without yielding to political pressure.”

Anello also supported a three-year contract, which he said will mean stability for CPS as the board transitions to a fully elected body next year.

The national search process started last year with community meetings and a detailed wishlist for what the board would look for in a candidate, including “significant” experience in public education that involves working with students, a record of focusing on equity and improving student outcomes, experience working with labor unions, and financial management experience — an area King doesn’t have formal experience in but oversaw the district’s budget proposal last year.

But after finalist names leaked and one of the candidates dropped out in the fall, the board decided to conduct more interviews. By February, as the board narrowed down candidates, the board’s search firm, Alma Advisory Group, departed and six elected board members said they’d lost confidence in the search, accusing the mayor of meddling, which he’s denied. Those board members called for retaining King as the interim chief until the new board is seated.

King had applied for the job of CEO in 2021, but the board at the time, appointed by Lightfoot, picked Martinez. Then several months into her time as the interim chief, she again applied last fall for the permanent job amid the board’s search to replace Martinez but was not advanced as a finalist.

By then, at least seven board members who are also mayoral allies disagreed with her budget proposal that was ultimately approved. And separately, other board members appeared caught off guard after she pitched a plan to reorganize network offices.

In recent months, some organizations called on the board to keep King in place until at least a new elected board is seated in January. King was then added back into the mix in recent weeks.

Remel Terry, president of the West Side branch of the NAACP, said her organization is “excited” that King will stay. The organization has felt left in the dark about the search process, Terry said, and asked the board twice to pause the search and retain King permanently through next school year. It was disappointing that King was taken out of consideration in the fall even though “she has already demonstrated her ability to lead this district under pressure,” Terry said.

The group will keep a close watch on how the district’s Black Student Success Plan — which has been under federal scrutiny — will be implemented, Terry said. She also expects King to stay as communicative as she has been with organizations like hers, as well as parents, as she takes on the permanent role.

“Having access and being able to speak directly to concerns and issues is a very important piece,” Terry said.

This story has been updated to include comments from Macquline King and members of the Chicago Board of Education.

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

5 things to watch in 2026 in Chicago Public Schools and across Illinois

2026-01-16T12:00:01+00:00

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2026 is a big year for Chicago Public Schools.

The school board is looking for a new CEO as it stares down a possible half-billion-dollar budget deficit. And later this year, the city will hold school board elections — this time for every seat.

On the state level, there are questions about what education funding and child care will look like as the Trump administration threatens to withhold federal funding for Illinois child care services.

Here are five things we’re watching this year.

Who will be the next leader of Chicago Public Schools?

When Chalkbeat previewed 2025, we wondered who the next CEO would be. That question remains more than a year later.

The school board began searching last spring for CPS’ new CEO, who is charged with carrying out the board’s vision for the district’s schools and recommending policy changes for board approval.

The board was expected to choose one of two finalists by the end of 2025. But the process appeared to come to a halt in November after the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ, and Chalkbeat revealed finalist names. Later that month, one board member said they were “reconsidering the process,” while another said they were rescheduling finalist interviews. A November statement from the board said the process is “ongoing.”

Whoever is hired will face thorny issues like chronic absenteeism, budget problems, and declining enrollment. Notably, that person will be less than a year into the job before a new, fully elected school board takes over in January 2027.

Who will Chicago elect to be on the school board?

Chicago voters will elect a new school board on Nov. 3. But unlike the last election in 2024, voters will choose all 21 board members, including an at-large president.

Currently, the mayor appoints people to 11 of the seats, including board president.

Many board members have said they plan to run, but board President Sean Harden has said he won’t. Candidates who win seats currently held by mayoral appointees will have two-year terms; those who win seats held by elected members will have four-year terms.

It will also be key to watch who is donating to candidates’ campaigns. Last election, some of the biggest spenders were political action committees tied to the Chicago Teachers Union, Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and Urban Center.

Prospective candidates can begin Feb. 24 to collect petition signatures from registered Chicago voters – a requirement of getting on the ballot. The lists of signatures must be submitted to the Chicago Board of Elections between May 18-26.

By Aug. 27, the Board of Elections will have a final list of who will appear on the November ballot.

Are we in for another budget fight at CPS?

The short answer is, probably.

Chicago Public Schools and its school board navigated a bruising budget process last summer as it grappled with a $734 million deficit, or about 8% of the operating budget. Board members argued over whether to take out a short-term loan to cover expenses and whether to forgo a pension payment to the city. They ultimately avoided a loan and direct cuts to classrooms but slashed elsewhere, including vacant positions at central office, custodians, and hot meals.

For the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, CPS officials have so far projected a $520 million deficit, and it’s unclear if more federal cuts are coming. Board members may need to consider cuts right as many run for election. Some may try to find more revenue, such as lobbying the state for more money or changes to help alleviate the district’s structural deficit.

But the state is also facing a challenging financial picture.

What can we expect from the state budget?

The Illinois State Board of Education wants a $350 million increase to the main funding stream for school districts. The 4% increase, if ultimately approved by state lawmakers, is in line with past years, but some organizations say that increase is not enough, especially in the face of possible federal cuts. Roughly one-third of Illinois school districts are considered 90% or more adequately funded, according to state figures.

The state is facing a $2.2 billion deficit. Still, the legislature is unlikely to provide much less than the amount ISBE requested.

Illinois House Speaker Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, wants a new tax on millionaires. And some groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union, have been pushing since last year for state leaders to impose new taxes on Illinois’ wealthiest residents and corporations. If such proposals go through, it’s possible some of the additional revenue will flow to schools.

But the state has many other areas of government to focus on, including a possible loss of federal dollars for child care and social services assistance.

What will child care look like?

There are fresh concerns about child care after the Trump administration announced a plan to freeze about $1 billion in federal assistance for Illinois child care for low-income, working families and other social services programs.

Tens of thousands of Illinois children are in programs supported by those federal funds, including 152,000 kids who attend programs partially funded by the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant, according to Pritzker’s office. Thousands of other children go to licensed child care providers who receive federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, dollars, the governor’s office said.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from withholding that money. But if the Trump administration is successful, the loss of these funds could mean a drastic drop in the state’s child care providers and could leave many families without help, advocates and policy experts have said.

Some unions and state lawmakers are calling for Illinois to expand funding to keep those programs afloat through new taxes on corporations and billionaires. It’s unclear if there is broad appetite on the state level to do so.

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

Poll: two-thirds of respondents unaware of Chicago’s elected school board

2025-12-12T20:25:56+00:00

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Roughly two-thirds of Chicagoans surveyed don’t know that the city now elects school board members, according to a new poll commissioned by the parent advocacy group Kids First Chicago and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Of 1,361 Chicago adults surveyed, just 10% could name their school board representative, the poll results showed. Awareness of the shift to an elected school board was higher among Chicago Public Schools parents and lower among young people and those who identify as Black and Latino. It was also lower in certain parts of the city, particularly on the west and south west sides.

The findings come two months before potential candidates can start circulating petitions to get on the ballot for Chicago Board of Education in 2026. All 21 seats will be up for election on Nov. 3, 2026; 20 are elected from specific districts and one school board president will be elected citywide.

A former school board appointee and CPS parent has already declared his candidacy for the board president seat and a handful of current board members have told Chalkbeat they plan to run.

Chicago held its first school board elections in 2024 with voters choosing 10 members to join 11 mayoral appointees on a new 21-member Board of Education. More than half of registered voters cast ballots for a school board representative, which some observers considered “pretty impressive” in the context of school board elections, which often suffer from very low turnout.

Micaelan Valesky, manager of data science for Kids First Chicago, said the results indicate “a major information gap around one of the most significant changes in CPS governance in decades.”

“This highlights a need for both targeted and widespread outreach, providing bilingual resources that explain when the election is, how the transition works, what power the Board of Education has, and who the prospective board members are,” Valesky said.

According to the Chicago Board of Elections, people interested in running for school board in 2026 can begin collecting signatures from voters in their district on Feb. 24. They must file at least 500 valid signatures between May 18 and 26 in order for their name to be printed on the ballot. Candidates for school board president must collect at least 2,500 valid signatures from across the city.

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

Sendhil Revuluri running for Chicago Board of Education president

2025-10-15T20:43:31+00:00

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Sendhil Revuluri, a former vice president of the Chicago Board of Education under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, announced Wednesday that he will run for board president in next year’s election.

Revuluri, who is also an education consultant, is the first person to announce he’s running for school board president in the 2026 election, when 21 school board seats will be up for election. In last year’s inaugural school board races, 10 seats were elected; the mayor appointed people to the remaining 11 seats, including the role of board president.

The board president presides over the board and after Jan. 15, 2027, will have voting powers just like any other board member, according to state law. Currently, the president only votes to break a tie. The current board president leads meetings, discussions with board members on various issues facing the board, and helps craft meeting agendas.

Rumors have floated for months about who is considering throwing their name into the race for school board president. Candidates are not able to circulate petitions to get their names on the ballot until Feb. 24, 2026. Those running for president must collect 2,500 valid signatures from Chicago residents registered to vote in the city by May 26, 2026. All other school board members must collect between at least 500, but no more than 1,500 from who live in and are registered to vote in their district.

Revuluri said he was hopeful about the new, hybrid board when it was sworn in and has been in touch with current board members. But he decided to run after feeling like the current board focuses only a “very small fraction” of time on district goals or academics.

“What I’ve seen this year since they were seated in January has convinced me that we need different leadership,” Revuluri said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “We need leadership that’s going to focus the board on student learning and on board work, rather than getting involved in political actions and district operations, and that’s really why I’ve decided to run.”

This year, the school board has navigated a gaping budget deficit, clashes with the mayor’s office, the looming closure of several charter schools, and the searching for a new CEO.

He detailed some of his ideas for effective governance in a piece he wrote for Chalkbeat Chicago before he stepped down at the end of 2022, shortly after Mayor Brandon Johnson was elected.

Revuluri said his vision for an effective school board involves having a CEO selection and evaluation process that the board is aligned on and adopting a budget “if and only if there’s clear and compelling evidence” that it will improve student learning.

In addition to improving student achievement, Revuluri said in a press release that he wants to “stand up to special interests,” who he defined as groups that focus primarily on adult-centered needs rather than student priorities.

Asked if he was referring to organizations such as the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, who were among the biggest campaign spenders in last year’s election, Revuluri said both are among groups that “have engaged in rhetoric and advocacy that’s really put adult interest and adult comfort first.”

Revuluri served on the school board during the 2019 CTU strike and the 2022 CTU walkout over COVID safety protocols.

Asked if he would decline campaign donations from special interest groups, Revuluri said he’ll “welcome support from anyone, any people, any groups who agree” with putting “student learning first.”

Lightfoot appointed Revuluri to the Board of Education in 2019, and he served on the board as CPS navigated the coronavirus pandemic and remote instruction. From 2018 to 2022, Revuluri was the managing director for strategic development at investment firm PEAK6 Capital Management, according to his LinkedIn page and biography online.

Before that, Revuluri worked at the University of Illinois at Chicago for roughly seven years, with most of that time helping to lead the Suburban Cook County Mathematics Initiative, which was meant to improve mathematics education across 40 public school districts.

Revuluri also worked for CPS’ Office of Mathematics for one year as an instructional specialist, according to his LinkedIn page. Before that, he was the math department chair at a New York City high school in the Bronx.

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

Pressure and time: Chicago navigates its elected school board era

2025-09-17T10:00:00+00:00

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In the eight months since Chicago’s partially elected, partially appointed school board was seated, many of its members have had to exercise a muscle their predecessors weren’t required to flex: Figuring out what the public wants.

The 21-member Chicago Board of Education has already navigated most of the core functions of a school board, including picking an interim leader, approving the Chicago Teachers Union contract, balancing a budget with a $734 million deficit and grappling with the hotly protested proposed closure of seven charter schools. The board members have worked through these issues while wrestling with time constraints, internal politics, and external pressure that hasn’t existed before, according to interviews with 15 current and one former board member.

Take, for instance, Ebony DeBerry’s journey from community activist to elected school board member. After easily winning the race to represent a diverse, progressive pocket of the North Side with the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union, DeBerry faced a pivotal vote on Chicago Public Schools’ $10.2 billion budget proposal.

The budget plan had drawn opposition from the CTU and Mayor Brandon Johnson because it didn’t include a pension reimbursement to the city and a loan. DeBerry ultimately split with her allies and cast a vote in favor of the proposal, despite her own “strong distaste” for some of the district’s calculations, she said.

She did so because she wanted to listen to the people she represents, DeBerry said.

“It just keeps coming back to the constituents,” DeBerry told Chalkbeat the week before the vote. “That’s what I would love to do as an elected official: Do as I’m asked.”

Elected board member Ebony DeBerry said she is planning to run for reelection next year.

Previous Chicago school board members appointed by the mayor mostly did as the mayor asked. But now, school board members must consider what the broader public wants to see in schools, especially those who want to keep their seats through the next election in November 2026, when all 21 members will be chosen by voters.

The way board members navigate these major decisions and the political divide on the body provides a window into how this experiment in Chicago democracy is going so far — and how it could impact policymaking for the nation’s fourth largest school district for years to come.

Chicago school board members are unpaid

The 21 people leading Chicago’s transition to an elected school board are doing so on a volunteer basis. They’re working without pay and clocking at least an average of 25 hours a week, according to school board members interviewed by Chalkbeat.

Some are juggling the role with full-time jobs, and others have quit their day jobs. They go on school visits, host office hours, attend meetings, take phone calls, and read materials that are supposed to inform their votes, which multiple board members described as detailed and lengthy.

Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden, a mayoral appointee who also runs a consulting firm, said he spends an unlimited amount of time on board business. His responsibilities also include communicating with board members and keeping in touch with the mayor’s office.

“It really never turns off,” he said. “It’s a Monday through Sunday scenario.”

Elected board member Jennifer Custer, a mom of three, including one under the age of 1, said she has a supportive husband and community of relatives and friends who can help with child care in a pinch. But her responsibilities at home mean she can’t make every obligation and often must get creative.

“Sometimes I take my kids with me to school visits, and schools are very welcoming and very warming to that when I have no other option,” Custer said. “I take my daughter to the board office all the time. You do what you have to do to do the work.”

Elected board member Yesenia Lopez and appointed board member Norma Rios-Sierra both said they quit their full-time jobs in order to have more flexible schedules to serve on the board. Rios-Sierra, a single mom, is earning some money through freelance artwork; Lopez said she will probably need to find another, more flexible job soon.

Angel Gutierrez, an elected member who works full-time, said he wishes he could hold town halls like other legislators, but “I have bills that I pay at home, I have a family to support.”

Former appointed board member Frank Niles Thomas said despite enjoying his time on the school board, he won't run in next year's elections.

Frank Niles Thomas was retired when he was appointed to the board last fall after the mass resignation of the mayor’s first appointed board. Thomas converted his dining room table at his South Side home into his office, and his days filled up with phone calls, answering emails, reading documents, and attending meetings.

Thomas loved serving on the board, he said, but he needed to earn money to support a relative in need.

”You got to have income to deal with it — and I didn’t,” Thomas said, who resigned in June.

Illinois law prohibits paying school board members beyond reasonable reimbursements related to their role. A push to provide pay for Chicago’s new board has so far been unsuccessful in Springfield.

“When we first fought for the elected school board, we definitely were talking about compensation, because we view it as an obstacle to parents if they couldn’t have this be their job,” said appointed board member Karen Zaccor, a retired teacher who was part of the decades-long effort to create an elected board. “That really is asking a lot.”

Factions and alliances emerge in key Chicago school board votes

In addition to the time demands, trying to bridge the board’s political divide can cause a level of “emotional pressure” that elected board member Jessica Biggs said she did not anticipate.

“The stakes are really high,” Biggs said. “Where I thought that there would be some more consensus around things that I see as sort of obviously in the best interests of kids, schools, and the system, everybody else doesn’t see it that way all the time or there are competing interests at play.”

Elected board member Jessica Biggs said she tries to create boundaries, such as an hour of "Do Not Disturb" time on her phone, in order to balance personal and board responsibilities.

Divisions on school boards are nothing new, but public debate and disagreement is unfamiliar when it comes to school governance in Chicago.

From 1995 through 2024, Chicago’s mayors picked people to serve on the city’s school board. By design, board members were aligned with City Hall and were often criticized for being rubber stamps for the mayor, who earned the credit or backlash for the state of the public school system.

That’s partly why observers of the school system were stunned when Johnson’s entire first appointed school board stepped down over disagreements with his office in October 2024, just three months before the new 21-member board was seated.

Several of the newly appointed members stayed on when the new board was sworn in this past January and tensions carried over. Five appointees who remained had voted in late December to fire former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who had sued those board members and would stay in his job for another six months. But many newly elected board members opposed Martinez’s firing.

Together, they faced an onslaught of problems that are at the heart of a school board’s responsibilities: the decision on who would replace Martinez, souring negotiations over the Chicago Teachers Union contract, and the planned closure of seven charter schools run by Acero, which the CTU, staff, and families protested for months.

In interviews for this story, several board members cited their decision in February to save five of the Acero schools and absorb them into CPS as a major accomplishment that maintained stability for families and students.

That vote was also one of the board’s early splits. Some board members wanted language that would allow CPS to check in one year if it was financially viable to absorb the schools. Without that language, three members who are often aligned voted against saving the schools — drawing backlash from organizations like the CTU and some Acero families.

But divisions and new political alliances continued to emerge.

In March, CPS needed to amend its budget in order to pay for upcoming labor contracts, including the new CTU deal. The mayor’s office wanted CPS to consider taking on a loan so the district could also reimburse the city for a $175 million municipal pension payment that had been debated for months.

Following the advice of CPS leadership at the time, seven elected board members signed a letter opposing paying the pension reimbursement amid CPS’s financial challenges. Because budget amendments require 14 votes — or two-thirds approval — the pension payment never happened.

Choosing an interim replacement for Martinez also proved divisive. Roughly half of the board wanted someone other than interim CEO Macquline King, a mayoral advisor who had been investigated multiple times by CPS without facing formal discipline during her time as a principal. Eleven board members — elected member Jitu Brown and 10 appointees — voted for King, while eight other elected officials voted no. DeBerry abstained and told Chalkbeat recently that if her vote had been decisive, she would’ve voted no in line with what she heard from her constituents.

Mayor Brandon Johnson and CPS CEO Dr. Macquline King smile for a photo during the first day back to school for CPS students at Mary E. Courtenay Language Arts Center, 4420 N. Beacon St., in Uptown on Aug. 18, 2025.

Despite the divisions that have played out in public, several board members pointed to a handful of issues they’ve agreed on, including ensuring the next schools CEO has a superintendent’s license — and sticking to that goal even after Harden reportedly wanted Johnson’s chief of staff to be considered for the job. They also supported establishing a Black Student Success Plan committee and unanimously passed the new CTU contract.

Multiple board members expressed frustration that they haven’t been able to dig more into education policy, and said many members agree on wanting to center the needs of children. Their disagreements are rooted in how to pay for things.

“It’s been about the money since we came on,” elected board member Therese Boyle said in an interview weeks before the budget vote. “The money is why the original board stepped down; the money is why Pedro [Martinez] had to go; it’s about the money now.”

Most board members interviewed said it’s difficult to have robust discussions with more of their colleagues because of the size of the board. They said it’s difficult to coordinate schedules, and additionally, board members can’t meet or talk in groups of six or more without providing notice of an official meeting, in order to comply with the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

That law is meant to ensure public bodies don’t conduct business in secret. But in practice, some board members argued, it means that by the time they get to a public meeting where the entire board can debate an issue, they’re sometimes already facing a vote. By then, they say, many board members have made up their minds.

Multiple board members also said they’ve tried to work with people they don’t typically align with. Boyle and appointed member Debby Pope, who have voted differently on some hot issues, both said they work well together on special education issues.

During the pension dispute this spring, appointed member Ed Bannon reached out to elected member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who had signed the letter opposing it, to better understand his view, Bannon said. The two had a “great” discussion about the issues they could collaborate on, such as getting more parents involved in CPS, Bannon said. Smith confirmed the account.

“I do try to reach out to people I disagree with,” Bannon said. “I’m not saying I’m a saint about it and I do it all the time or that I’m expressing myself all the time to all these people, but I hope people think I’m making an effort.”

Who do Chicago school board members answer to?

Many board members said major interest groups and unions, as well as parents, push them on many issues, such as special education services, charter schools, and labor matters.

When asked if they felt pressure from any one group or person, including the mayor’s office, to vote a certain way, no one said yes.

In politics, money often translates into influence. Now, in Chicago, money can be spent on directly backing board members. More than $13 million was spent on Chicago school board races last fall. The top spenders, apart from candidates’ direct spending, were the Chicago Teachers Union’s political action committees, followed by two school choice PACs, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center.

“It’s politics now. There’s factions,” said appointed board member Michilia Blaise, a longtime political consultant who served on the city’s last fully appointed board but also ran against Jitu Brown in the last election before dropping out. “There’s people who have to, like, take care of people who gave them money for their campaigns. It’s people positioning themselves for whatever they’re gonna do later.”

On hot button issues, board members have often voted in line with those who supported their campaigns or appointed them. Of the seven board members who opposed CPS’s budget, six, including Blaise, were mayoral appointees.

On a resolution aiming to increase oversight of charter schools, five elected members abstained. Of those, two — Carlos Rivas and Gutierrez — were endorsed and got campaign donations from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which opposed the resolution. The other three abstentions were Ellen Rosenfeld, Smith, and Boyle.

But board members have also broken ranks with their supporters or voted in surprising ways.

Custer was endorsed by the CTU during the election but has not voted in line with the union on some major issues, such as the Acero closures or in favor of a short-term loan.

Blaise proposed extending the renewal term for West Side charter school North Lawndale College Prep, which is in her district, for one year longer than what CPS proposed. Blaise was appointed by the mayor, who has been critical of charters in the past.

Charters make up about a quarter of the 105 schools in District 5, which Blaise and Brown represent.

Brown, who is also an ally of the mayor, is known for his decades of advocacy opposing the expansion of charter schools and the closure of neighborhood schools. He voted in favor of the resolution to tighten oversight on charters. But he also supported the renewals of a slew of charter schools in the spring, including Blaise’s proposal to lengthen the renewal term for North Lawndale College Prep.

Elected board member Jitu Brown ran unopposed in his election last year. He's unsure if he's going to run again next year.

“I have to get over my disdain for the charter industry,” Brown said. “I went to a few charter schools that were clearly schools that were doing the right thing, and I will support those schools, because at the end of the day [I ask], are you doing right by children?”

Appointed members said they don’t feel undue pressure from the mayor’s office to vote a certain way.

Still, elected member Rosenfeld, who represents wealthier North Side neighborhoods of Lake View and Lincoln Park, said the hybrid structure of the board “is a bit of a problem.” She said she knows her votes won’t make everyone happy, but her decisions are based on public feedback. When she considers how appointed members vote, “It’s like, is that how you really feel, or is that how somebody who appointed you told you to feel?”

More Chicago school board elections coming in 2026

Boyle represents part of District 9, including South Side neighborhoods with high voter turnout. The retired school psychologist said she can no longer go on her weekly trip to her neighborhood grocery store without someone recognizing her, which she credits, in part, to two old billboard ads with her face on them.

People have stopped her to talk about special education, the budget, and the former CEO, she said.

“Now I put on a little makeup before I go,” Boyle said, laughing.

Other board members, however, are working to introduce themselves to more people.

Zaccor, who ran unsuccessfully for the board last fall and was instead appointed by the mayor, said she knocked on neighbors’ doors this summer to ensure people know she’s their representative. Zaccor said she’s “probably” running again.

Rios-Sierra, who spent years working for a community organization, said she feels like a political “nobody” and wants to gain recognition.

“I think for me, it’s been a little bit of invisibility still,” she said. “I feel like I should take a little bit more time to get out there and connect with people and do my rounds and really have people see me and understand that I listen and that I can be of service.”

Nine of the 15 current board members Chalkbeat spoke with said they plan to run in next year’s school board elections: elected members Biggs, Boyle, Custer, DeBerry, Gutierrez, Lopez, and Rosenfeld, as well as appointed members Blaise and Bannon.

Another five — elected member Brown and appointed members Zaccor, Rios-Sierra, Pope, and Cydney Wallace — said they’re considering it. School board President Harden and former board member Thomas both said they will not run in 2026.

Wallace, a working mother of four, said she wants to see what kind of “grassroots help” she can get for a potential campaign.

“If I were to run, and my neighbors decided they didn’t want me on the board anymore, obviously I’d be bummed that I lost, but it would be like, ‘Oh no, not all of this free time and not doing all of this work for no money! Whatever will I do?’” Wallace said, laughing.

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