Candidates for the Chicago Board of Education’s District 2 want to change what they called the board’s history of not accomplishing much at meetings and finally put public concerns first.
“A lot of the conversations feel performative, and I don’t think that’s what the public wants,” candidate Kate Doyle said, adding that the public is more interested in whether the district has achieved its goals.
Four candidates vying for a seat on the board met Tuesday to discuss issues plaguing the district at a debate hosted by the Hollywood-North Park Community Association.
The topics ranged from school choice, increased funding for neighborhood schools and hiring more bilingual teachers to the turmoil between Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, the Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The candidates agreed on new rules and a different approach to decision-making for CPS by the new board, which will be elected in November and take office in January.
They also agreed on prioritizing providing teachers who meet students’ needs, including additional bilingual staff members to serve the migrant community and other English learners.
Voters in the audience said they’re looking for someone who will finally prioritize neighborhood schools that have been “dramatically underresourced” and end unequal treatment throughout the district.
“Neighborhood schools are the heart of the community,” North Park resident Kyla Klein said. “I’m looking for a candidate who values and understands the role that schools can play in creating stability and health and a sense of community for a neighborhood.”
As a product of a neighborhood school, candidate Ebony DeBerry said it prepared her for high school and college. While school choice is important, she said investments in neighborhood schools is necessary.
“I don’t want to starve charter schools, but I think that we need to figure out how to balance what we have with what kind of future we want,” DeBerry said.
School choice should remain to achieve social equity, according to candidate Bruce Leon. “Pitting special enrollment schools against neighborhood schools is absolutely ridiculous,” he said, calling it “a battle that doesn’t need to be waged.”
Candidate Maggie Cullerton Hooper disagreed, saying that what families have now is “not a real choice.”
School choice would be a network of fully funded, invested and supported neighborhood schools that every child could walk to, or the option to do something else, Cullerton Hooper said, adding: “That is not what we have now … and it’s something we should work for… (but) not at the expense of other students.”
“We have teachers who are not certified … who are doing their best using translation and assistive devices to translate up to 12 different languages in their classroom,” Doyle said. “We need to think about priority … and we have to do it with urgency because our students really need it.”
With Martinez under fire from the mayor to step down, an audience member asked the candidates to describe the characteristics they’d like in a school chief. Cullerton Hooper said she would prefer to see a Chicagoan and CPS alum in the position.
“I think that this is a unique city with a unique history and that it is very difficult to understand why we are so incredible if you have not been here for a long time,” she said.
Addressing the conflict with Martinez head-on, Doyle said student stability is important, and she hopes the district will move past this moment. Martinez’s fate, she added, should ultimately be decided by an elected board.
Some candidates said they wouldn’t bend to Mayor Johnson’s will if they’re elected, claiming their lack of affiliation with the mayor and other special interest groups makes them prime candidates for the board.
“I think it’s really important that we put an independent community member on the board representing us, and that’s what you’re getting out of me in this race,” Doyle said. “I’m the only candidate in this race that a special interest group doesn’t have a special interest in electing and I think that independence is going to be key to a healthy governing body.”
With the mayor selecting 10 candidates to fill out the 21-member board after the election, Leon said that if he loses, he would decline a seat offered to him by the mayor.
“I am not running close to the mayor or the CTU, I don’t think that’s healthy,” Leon said. “He’ll choose anybody else at this table, he will not choose me.”