Less than 24 hours after the news broke that the entire Chicago Board of Education planned to resign, more than 40 family members of Chicago Public Schools students filed into Lane Tech College Prep’s auditorium to hear some candidates pitch why they should serve on the city’s partially-elected school board in January.
The previous day’s revelations were top-of-mind.
Many said they decided to attend the forum at the last minute after Friday’s bombshell news that all seven members of the current school board would resign next month.
“It feels really icky; it feels like a move in a political game,” said Stacie Phillippi of the mass resignations.
The turmoil between CPS’ board, Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson feels “much more personal” to her as the mother of a 1st-grade student in the district.
Organized by Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, the candidate forum held Saturday morning at the Roscoe Village high school featured candidates from the North Side districts 2 and 4. All six candidates from District 4 were in attendance, while only two of the four candidates in District 2 – Ebony DeBerry and Maggie Cullerton Hooper – attended. A campaign staffer for Kate Doyle delivered a statement as the candidate was attending her brother’s wedding, while Bruce Leon’s absence was not commented on.
Next month, Chicago residents can vote for candidates for the city’s first hybrid appointed and elected school board. At Saturday’s forum, many spoke of their hopes for the upcoming election as an opportunity to shape the future of CPS — and take power back from the mayor’s office when it comes to education policy in the district.
Charles Tocci, a former CPS teacher and the father of three CPS students who now teaches at Loyola University Chicago, said he hopes the “crazy uncertainty” on the Board of Education will generate more interest in the upcoming school board election. However, with the elections on the horizon and so much change coming, Tocci said, “It now feels like chaos.”
“This will probably raise the profile of the election, and it might give backing to some of the candidates,” Tocci said, describing how candidates may try to capitalize on widespread frustration with Johnson.
Some attendees were left frustrated and asking for more answers after the two-and-a-half hour forum, as buzzy issues — including the board resignations, Chicago Teachers Union negotiations and budget issues faced by the district — rarely came up directly in the questions asked of the candidates.
“There are just some big topics that weren’t covered,” Ryan Jagnandan said.
Jagnandan, who has children in 1st and 3rd grade at the Alexander Graham Bell School in North Center, said that she had explicitly wanted the candidates to discuss the district’s budget shortfall. Moderators had asked the candidates to discuss the largest issue in the district “besides” the budget, and Jagnandan said she was disappointed that the subject was deliberately passed over in this way.
Yet starting as early as their introductions, school board candidates began to independently choose to address their relationship with Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union, with many alluding to the recent board resignation announcement.
“It’s clear that Mayor Johnson will not wait for Chicagoans to place their vote for an elected school board,” District 4 candidate Ellen Rosenfeld said. “We must elect candidates who are independent of the mayor’s office and special interests.”
District 4 candidate Thomas Day said he would fight “the insane agenda of Mayor Johnson and CTU president Stacy Davis Gates,” warning that the mayor would appoint “a bunch of allies” to the board to fire Martinez and agree to the take on the high-interest $300 million loan and an additional $175 million the mayor wants to pay for non-teacher pensions.
Meanwhile, CTU-endorsed District 4 candidate Karen Zaccor defended her relationship with the union in her opening remarks.
“They want to suggest that I’m receiving support from CTU, that means I will just do CTU’s bidding,” Zaccor said. “But I’m doing the work I have always done for 45 years, and I answer to no one except the voters in my district. I’m proud to be endorsed by CTU.”
District 2 candidate DeBerry also directly acknowledged her own CTU endorsement in response to a question about how candidates would ensure transparency and accountability in district governance.
“I admit I’m not independent,” DeBerry said. “I don’t want to be independent, I want to be accountable.”
DeBerry emphasized that she would work to incorporate student, teacher and parent feedback, adding that she wants the community to “decide together” what the priorities for CPS should be. Later, she said it was “not only appropriate but well-appreciated” for CTU to get involved in a school board election.
Candidates not endorsed by CTU, on the other hand, consistently mentioned their “independence” as an important factor for voters to consider in light of recent events.
As the candidates spoke, some in the audience took notes by hand about each individual’s platform.
During the audience question period, former CPS parent Mike Rubin asked whether the board members would agree to Johnson’s wishes for the district to take out a high-interest loan to cover budget gaps — one of the key issues in his clash with CPS chief executive Pedro Martinez. District 4 candidate Kimberly Brown then called for a vote among those on stage regarding their thoughts on the loan.
All six non-CTU endorsed candidates immediately raised their hands to oppose the loan.
Zaccor voted “neutral,” saying that she needed more information. DeBerry did not raise her hand at all.
“The mayor needs to step aside in this decision-making process, and I think that the resignation of the existing board members should speak volumes,” Brown said of the loan. “I disagree with a high-interest loan on a short-term solution to solve a union contract. That is asking for a lot very, very quickly when we need a long-term financial plan.”
While about to bike home from the forum, Kurt Hirsch, whose son attends Lane Tech, said he was surprised and concerned that “the two CTU-endorsed candidates don’t have a position on what’s the most important issue right now for the fiscal stability of the schools.”
He added that he felt the “biggest issues” of the budget and fiscal stability hadn’t been nearly addressed. He’d decided definitively to attend the event after Friday’s resignation announcements and said that he was troubled by the fact that major decisions regarding the future of the district may now be decided before the elected board is seated.
“This school board seemed like they were trying to be responsible, but now they’re gone,” Hirsch said. “It seems like a lot is going to be done between now and when there’s a new school board, with both this loan and the CTU contract, which is going to potentially render this election a little bit moot.”
