Senate backs Mayor Johnson, CTU-backed plan to elect 10 city school board members in November

In a very lukewarm stamp of approval, the Illinois Senate on Tuesday cleared a measure that would allow for the election of only 10 of 21 school board members in Chicago this November.

The 37-20 passage of the plan, backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union, came after the mayor urged state Senate President Don Harmon to support an election for 10 seats this year.

That leaves the mayor to appoint the other 11, with Johnson in control of Chicago Public Schools nearly through the end of his term. The first elected board members would serve four-year terms, and voters would be able to choose who should fill the appointed seats in 2026 to create a fully elected board in January 2027.

That structure matches the original 2021 legislation that created the elected board for the city — and it resolves a debate that was reopened last fall with competing proposals in the Senate and House.

State Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, urged passage, despite divisions that were highlighted on the Senate floor and during an earlier committee hearing, including concerns that the CTU and other interest groups would have an advantage in selecting the 10 candidates. But Martwick said the passage allows for “implementation” and would only mark the beginning of elections for the school board.

“If you don’t like the mayor, and you don’t like CTU, and you want to know who is in control, you think there should be more elections, well, let’s get this thing implemented,” Martwick said. “Let’s start putting the power in the hands of the people, so they can vote and create a government that they like. And if there’s problems, we’ll come back and fix it. I’ll join you.”

Just before the vote,Harmon, D-Oak Park, told senators, “Doing nothing is not an option.” Earlier, during an Illinois Senate Executive Committee hearing, Harmon called the bill a “compromise,” and said, “I imagine I might agree with many of the opponents who are here to testify.

“This is not a perfect bill. There is no such thing. I still think the superior bill is the bill that the Senate passed in the fall that sits in the House Rules Committee,” Harmon said. “If the House had a change of heart, they could send that to the governor today. I don’t expect that they will.”

That measure would have allowed the board to be fully elected as soon as this year.

The measure that the Senate passed Tuesday includes ethics provisions Harmon requested last year, including who can serve as a board member. The Oak Park Democrat had publicly said he looked forward to getting “clear direction” from Johnson after an unresolved dispute over how many seats would be elected this fall.

Several opponents spoke out during the committee hearing, with 36th Ward Ald. Gilbert “Gil” Villegas calling it a “CTU PAC bill,” and insinuating that the process laid out in the bill would give the union a leg up in choosing who to run and helping to fund their races.

“This process started out as transparent. Believe me, we had hope. Now the final stages have been led by the CTU PAC behind closed doors and with little to no transparency,” Villegas said. “CTU PAC wants 1,000 signatures for a school board seat. This doesn’t benefit the community that has been asking for a fully elected school board. The number of signatures required favors a group like the CTU, that has the infrastructure to mass collect signatures, a well-funded group of personnel, as opposed to everyday parents and real community activists.”

That may also help other groups, such as charter organizations and wealthy education reformers, who have the infrastructure to collect signatures.

Kids First Chicago, a business-supported education advocacy nonprofit, said the signature rule would “favor candidates with political connections, interest group support and the financial means to navigate these stringent criteria.”

Jessica Cañas, director of programs and partnerships at Kids First, said the elected school board “signifies a monumental step forward” for the city’s education, but the group has reservations about the Senate version.

The organization said it is worried that Black and Latino families will be underrepresented in the election map that has four predominantly white districts with only three predominantly Black districts and three Latino ones. And Kids First continued to push for noncitizens to be allowed to vote and serve on the board and for provisions that would introduce campaign finance caps and allow board members to be paid.

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said the election process would be complicated and “not good public policy.”

The Illinois House must still approve the measure. The CTU declined to comment on the legislation.