The three candidates vying to represent the Chicago School Board’s Southwest Side District 7 have been heavily funded by outside groups hoping their candidate pulls out the win.
Raquel Don, Yesenia Lopez and Eva Villalobos are battling it out in the city’s first school board election to represent the district that includes Pilsen, Little Village, Gage Park, Brighton Park and the Near West Side, along with parts of Bridgeport, Chinatown and McKinley Park.
Don is a parent of Chicago Public Schools students, and Lopez and Villalobos are CPS graduates. Lopez is an executive assistant in the office of the Illinois Secretary of State and has worked with several area schools. Don and Villalobos are stay-at-home parents who volunteer at schools, and Don serves on two Local School Councils.
The race and campaigns have been marked — and funded — by the Chicago Teachers Union, which endorsed Lopez, and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which has financially backed Villalobos.
Villalobos is an advocate of school choice and charter schools while Lopez’s focus is neighborhood schools. The district has crafted a five-year plan that bolsters neighborhood schools, which Lopez supports. Villalobos and Don both have said that school choice is necessary to provide options for families.
All three candidates say CPS CEO Pedro Martinez should keep his job, diverging from Mayor Brandon Johnson, who Martinez said asked him to resign after a clash over how to resolve a budget deficit.
Lopez and Villalobos both say the mayor’s suggested short-term loan isn’t the way to handle the district’s shortfall, and while both say CPS needs more state and federal funding, Villalobos urges an audit of the district’s finances to track where money is going.
Don said she needs more information to form an opinion.