School board elections are generally the sleepiest of contests, with turnout as low as the single digits — the national average is 5% to 10%, according to one estimate — and race that are often uncontested and decided by a small number of voters.
We hope Chicago can beat those odds, and holding school board elections at the same time as a high-interest presidential election is a good way to try to accomplish that.
With so much at stake for Chicago Public Schools, every voter — not just parents and guardians — needs to get involved in choosing the best people to grapple with the many vexing problems facing CPS.
Among them: How can CPS close its budget deficit without decimating programs? How should CPS reinvigorate neighborhood schools while maintaining the charter and selective-enrollment schools that City Hall and the Chicago Teachers Union have been hostile to, but that thousands of students and families depend on?
Will CPS eventually have to consider closing schools with very low enrollment? And while higher graduation and college acceptance rates are welcome news, what more can be done to better prepare young people to make it through college once they’re enrolled?
With so much at stake, voter awareness and education are essential. Early voting began Monday in the city’s 50 wards and continues until Nov. 4, with Election Day on Nov. 5. So if you’re among those who didn’t know school board elections are taking place, or you need information about candidates in your district, check out our Sun-Times/WBEZ/Chalkbeat Chicago school board voter guide at chicago.suntimes.com/education/chicago-school-board.
“The biggest thing is, a lot of parents don’t know about the elections,” as Blaire Flowers, chair of the Elected School Board Task Force for the education advocacy group KidsFirst Chicago, told us. Flowers said she believes local schools ought to have an abundance of posters and signs to alert parents to the upcoming election, but she hasn’t seen any at the schools she’s visited recently.
CPS “isn’t encouraging [voting], letting people know about the election,” she said.
Wanted: Independence and expertise
Full disclosure here: This editorial board was not a fan of creating a fully elected school board because of the politics that would inevitably emerge and because of the size of the new board: 21 members is simply too many compared to other major districts with elected boards.
But lawmakers gave Chicago what a lot of fully elected school board advocates, including many parents, wanted. Now it’s up to the city to make the transition work to make schools better for kids. If not — well, Chicago will see continued dysfunction and turmoil, more of what we’ve seen already in the political battle between Mayor Brandon Johnson and his CTU allies vs. schools CEO Pedro Martinez.
Parents “want to be heard. They don’t care about politics, about the mayor and Martinez,” Flowers says. “They care about the buses being taken away, the high schools that don’t have extracurricular activities, the quality of teachers, about [school] buildings falling apart around them.”
In this election, voters will elect one board member from each of the city’s 10 school board districts. The mayor will appoint 10 more members, plus a board president. The new hybrid board will take their seats in January. In 2026, the board will be fully elected, with members taking their seats in 2027. (We hope lawmakers eventually amend the school board legislation to set aside some seats solely for parents on the fully elected board.)
It’s not easy to set the course for a big-city school district, but the job is exponentially harder when the district is headed for a fiscal meltdown, facing leadership uncertainty, and has an expensive teachers contract hanging in the balance. We urge voters to support candidates who have solid experience (as in, they’ve actually accomplished something significant) in education, finance or management; who are dedicated to the well-being of children and families, not to any political agenda; and who, most of all, won’t be afraid to speak up.
The mayor will have control of the hybrid board, with his 11 picks. The board will need a strong counterweight of members who will act independently of City Hall. Replicating the board’s rubber-stamp past makes no sense.
Besides, every family, no matter what type of school their children attend — neighborhood, magnet, selective-enrollment or charter — deserves a voice in how CPS operates and what its future will look like.
Get educated — then vote.
In addition to a voter guide, the Sun-Times has a list of upcoming forums and links to videos of past forums here.
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