After years of the Chicago Teachers Union and broader coalition pushing Chicagoans to have a larger say in the city’s school district by being able to elect their school board representatives, that moment is finally coming to fruition and the union’s members have made their choice for which candidates to support in the election this November.
“The choice for school board is extremely clear,” explains CTU Political Action Committee’s legislative committee chair Kat Zamarrón. “Chicagoans can choose public school champions who will move the district forward for Chicago’s students and families or can hand the district over to billionaire-backed candidates who are campaigning to bring back the era of Rahm’s cuts and closures.”
The first-ever full school board elections are already coming under attack by Paul Vallas’ Urban Center which recruited candidates to be “anti-CTU” and has reduced Chicagoans’ choices by using technicalities to kick candidates off the ballot and billionaire Michael Sacks who has pledged to spend endlessly to defeat candidates backed by the district’s teachers.
The Chicago Teachers Union members pointed to the advances made in its 2024 contract: implementing mandatory recess for elementary students, reducing caseloads for counselors, increasing support for IEP’s and special education staff, and reopening and expanding libraries, sports, art, music, and dual language on the west and south sides of the city so that every neighborhood has world-class education for its students.
And they say that progress is in peril due to the Governor and General Assembly’s delay in complying with the evidence-based formula that has promised but not delivered $2 billion dollars to the district.
“Some candidates see the debt the state owes our students and are saying their job is to get our families to accept being shortchanged,” explained CTU Political Action Committee Chair Kim Walls-Kirk. “We’re endorsing candidates who will roll up their sleeves and deliver full-funding for our students. We’re reconstructing our schools from the time of Rahm’s closures to make the third largest city in the country into a sustainable community schools model for the whole country. The candidates we’re supporting have a vision for Chicago’s schools and it’s not in the rearview mirror.”
At the July 13th House of Delegates meeting, the Chicago Teachers Union voted to endorse the following candidates and committed to knocking doors, contacting voters, and educating Chicagoans about the choice ahead in the historic school board elections:
- School Board President: Hilario Dominguez (Endorsed in June)
- 1a: Ed Bannon
- 1b: Claudia Peralta
- 2a: Ebony DeBerry
- 2b: Deborah “Debby” Pope
- 3a: Norma Rios-Sierra
- 3b: Jason Dones
- 4a: Karen Zaccor
- 5a: Aaron “Jitu” Brown
- 5b: Michilla Blaise
- 6a: Anusha Thotakura
- 7a: Emma Lozano
- 9b: Katherine Dunneback
- 10a: Tameka Walton (write in)
- 10b: Connie Anderson
