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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.
