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Less than a week before Election Day, school board member Carlos Rivas is facing criticism for a 2018 incident in which records show he was disciplined for excessive drinking and unwanted touching of a colleague while working at UIC College Prep, a Noble charter high school on the Near West Side.
Rivas was elected in 2024 to represent District 3, which has now been divided into 3a and 3b. He is running for reelection in District 3b, which covers Humboldt Park and Hermosa, against Jason Dónes, who works at an education nonprofit. This year, voters are electing all 21 members of the school board after a two-year period in which 11 were still appointed by the mayor.
The revelations about Rivas’ past conduct surfaced this week in campaign mailers funded by Our Schools PAC, which is heavily funded by the Chicago Teachers Union and is backing Dónes. The Chicago Sun-Times also reported on the allegations earlier this week. Rivas is backed by SEIU, the union representing school support staff, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, Urban Center, a pro-school choice political organization, and Common Ground Collective, an anti-CTU political action committee heavily funded by billionaire Michael Sacks.
Rivas declined an interview request but said in a statement that events in question happened “during an incredibly difficult period while caring for my mother, who was suffering from end-stage renal failure and dementia.” In a statement, he said he “took responsibility” for the incident and received support through Noble’s Employee Assistance Program.
“I believe in accountability, growth, and second chances,” Rivas said, adding that he went on to serve at Noble for another four years. He also said his past motivates him to focus on improving mental health for employees.
On Friday, a few parents who live in or send their kids to school in District 3b spoke during a press conference near Chicago High School for the Arts, or ChiArts, and called for Rivas to step down.
“He shouldn’t be sitting as a board member with this pattern of behavior,” said Rousemary Vega, a mother of a sophomore at ChiArts, who has previously criticized Rivas for what she described as a lack of advocacy to help save ChiArts when it was under threat of closure last year. Rivas voted with the rest of the board to make ChiArts a CPS school.
In August 2018, when Rivas was alumni counselor at UIC College Prep, he allegedly “engaged in an inappropriate, unwanted touching of another employee without consent” at a work event while intoxicated at the Robey Hotel in Wicker Park, according to a disciplinary notice obtained by Chalkbeat. It was written by Audrey Borling, then principal of UIC College Prep.
The notice also says that Rivas couldn’t deny these allegations “due to an inability to remember events of the evening,” and that he’d been warned before by Noble officials “about getting intoxicated at work-related events.”
“Rivas’ actions have caused employee complaints, have violated Noble’s policies, have put Noble in jeopardy of legal action by his co-workers,” Borling wrote.
Rivas was given a “last opportunity” to continue working at Noble by agreeing to a ten-day suspension without pay, according to the notice.
While Rivas’ signature is not on the disciplinary notice obtained by Chalkbeat, he did not deny its contents.
Rivas left Noble Schools in June 2022 and that same month took a job as director of public affairs of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, according to his LinkedIn.
In a statement issued Friday, Rivas’ opponent Dónes, who is also endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, did not call on Rivas to step down, but described the allegations as “disqualifying.”
“Families deserve better than a Board Member who makes excuses for their bad behavior,” Dones’ statement said.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
