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Chicago residents voted for president of the district’s school board for the first time today.
Their options were former Chicago Public Schools principal and current board member Jessica Biggs, former CPS educator and teachers union organizer Hilario Dominguez, and attorney and charter school board member Victor Henderson.
The president plays a key role in setting the board’s agenda and direction, and, come January, will also be a full voting member after only being able to cast tie-breaking votes until now. As a result, the race drew millions in campaign cash, a flurry of vicious attack ads, and a gauntlet of forums and debates at which the candidates questioned each other’s records and stances.
Biggs vows to run a well-organized board that focuses on students and restores financial stability to the deficit-plagued district. She was backed by the SEIU Local 73, the union representing support workers in CPS, and by the Common Ground Collective, a political action group heavily funded by billionaire and Democratic philanthropist Michael Sacks.
Dominguez, a former CPS teacher on leave from the district and his role with the union, promised to continue pushing for more state dollars and to pursue new initiatives such as offering preschool to all city 3-year-olds. His campaign was almost exclusively funded by the CTU, which is looking to hold onto an 11-member majority on the board. If elected, Dominguez would have to resign from CPS because state law prohibits school board members from working for the school district.
Henderson, whose campaign was largely self-funded, pledged to push for more transparency. He said he would seek to conduct a forensic audit of CPS to rout wasteful spending and to bring in outside academic experts to better understand how the district’s students are doing.
All three candidates had to defend their backgrounds during the campaign. Biggs was fired from the district in 2018 after its internal watchdog said she misreported student attendance and sent staff to pick up students from their homes without proper documents on file — a move she has argued was retaliation for speaking out about CPS missteps.
Dominguez faced allegations that he acted inappropriately toward a teen involved with a nonprofit where he worked roughly a decade ago. He has held up a recent district inspector general’s report that concluded there is not enough evidence to substantiate those claims.
And Henderson pushed back on allegations from his divorce proceedings two decades ago that he abused his sons and wife, insisting he disciplined his children appropriately.
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
