Illinois Senate passes plan for ‘hybrid’ elected Chicago school board backed by CTU

SPRINGFIELD — The Democratic-controlled Illinois Senate on Tuesday passed a plan that would create a hybrid elected school board in Chicago this fall, with half of the members voted in by residents and the rest appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Legislators failed last fall to resolve the contentious issue of shaping Chicago’s first elected school board, and some Senate Democrats made it known that they still had problems with the latest proposal, which is backed by Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union. It ultimately passed in a 37-20 vote.

The bill now goes back to the House, which approved a similar plan last fall.

Lawmakers are up against a self-imposed April 1 deadline to implement the process, which includes putting a school board map in place, ahead of the November general election.

The plan passed by the Senate on Tuesday aligns with the 2021 law that created the school board. After the initial round of elections for half the board, Chicago Public Schools would transition to a fully elected board after the 2026 election under this proposal.

Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park agreed to the plan after pushing last fall for the election of all 20 board members in the first round of voting. During a Senate Executive Committee hearing Tuesday, he said that he went along with the House plan because it had the endorsement of Johnson, a former CTU organizer and a Harmon ally.

“Our solution in the fall was to propose an immediate election of all 20 members of the school board,” Harmon said. “I still think that’s the better opportunity, the better option. The House disagrees. The mayor and the city of Chicago disagree and we’re running up against a deadline.”

“There’s no perfect solution,” Harmon said before the committee advanced the bill to the Senate floor in a 9-4 vote.

Sen. Mattie Hunter, a Democrat representing Chicago’s South Side, said during the committee hearing that the bill was “a very difficult vote for me today.”

“I know the disparities and the inequities that have existed with the Chicago Public Schools system all of my life, and I thought that this would be an opportunity for Chicago to finally get on a fair ground with all the other school systems within the state of Illinois,” Hunter said, before voting for the bill in the committee and on the floor.

Also speaking at Tuesday’s committee hearing was Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, who slammed CTU’s support for the bill and alleged the legislation was decided on “behind closed doors.”

“A hybrid school board is not a fully democratic process. Make no mistake, this is a CTU PAC bill,” Villegas said, referring to the union’s political action committee. “I have not heard that this bill will help parents, students and teachers. They don’t want to spend, or have the money to spend on 20 elections. Well too bad. Make no mistake, this hybrid CTU PAC bill is not for the residents of Chicago.”

A CTU spokesperson declined to comment.

Johnson sent a letter to Harmon in late January urging the adoption of the hybrid model, saying the issue “is personal for me.”

“As you already know, I worked on the issue for a decade alongside community organizations across the city knocking on doors, educating voters, and assisting with successful ballot measures in 2012 and 2015,” Johnson wrote. “Additionally, over the years I worked closely with General Assembly members to ensure the passage of an elected school board bill through multiple attempts.”

Johnson’s predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, had unsuccessfully fought the shift to an elected school board in Chicago. The legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in July 2021 included an immediate moratorium on school closings until 2025.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Robert Martwick, a Chicago Democrat who worked on the legislation creating the elected school board, noted the plan all along had been for a “transitionary phase,” which ended up being the hybrid model.

“That was what we agreed to. That’s what the Senate passed. That’s what the House passed. That’s what this represents. Is that what I wanted? No. But that was the compromise that I agreed to,” Martwick said. “Is it perfect? No. But when you figure out what perfect form of democracy is, would you let me know?”

Under the proposal approved by the Senate, the city would be divided into 10 districts, each of which would elect a school board member in the November general election. Johnson would appoint 10 additional members, one from each district. Johnson would also be required to appoint a school board president. All 21 members, including the board president, would serve two-year terms.

Each of the 10 districts would be divided into two subdistricts, which in 2026 would hold elections for a fully elected school board that would be seated in January 2027.

Beginning with the 2032 general election, board seats would be up for election three times over a 10-year period, two of the times for four-year terms and then for a two-year term.

The bill also includes a district map that lawmakers from both chambers have previously agreed on. It would create seven majority-Black districts, six majority-Latino districts, five majority-white districts and two in which no group has a majority.

The new plan also resolves unanswered ethical questions concerning how to address conflicts of interest among board members “considering any contract, work, or business of the district,” according to the bill.

Like Hunter, Sen. Willie Preston, a Democrat from Chicago’s South Side who once served as a Local School Council member, said he voted yes reluctantly, and that he still thinks electing all 20 school board members right off the bat “is the best policy we should be putting forward today.”

“But political weight has been pushed to water down this bill,” said Preston. “I will vote ‘yes’ on this bill because it is the best-case scenario.”

All 18 Senate Republicans who voted on the bill were in the no column, as were two Democrats, Sara Feigenholtz of Chicago and Laura Fine of Glenview.

Feigenholtz said after the vote she’s spoken to her constituents about the issue and remains concerned that “their voices will not be heard” under the hybrid plan.

“There’s been some alarm bells going off and a lot of parents are very concerned about the conversations that the board is internally discussing about selective enrollment,” said Feigenholtz, whose district covers a swath of Chicago’s North Side. “They have reservations about process but certainly about substance.”

Senate Republican leader John Curran of Downers Grove suggested an independent commission “free from politicians, free from political influence, free from power” should’ve been chosen as part of the process for implementing the elected school board.

“We have not removed this process from politics. It’s a missed opportunity,” he said. “The Senate Republicans oppose maps drawn by politicians. We’ve been very consistent on that.”

Community opposition to the hybrid plan sparked a rally outside a South Side high school on Monday, where Dwayne Truss, a Chicago Public Schools board member from 2019 to 2022, called the legislation “reckless.”

“Voters are going to be disenfranchised and they’re making ballot access overwhelming for prospective candidates,” said Truss, a resident of Chicago’s Austin community and a member of the group Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting.

“Half the voters can’t choose the candidate of their choice,” Truss said. “CTU is trying to maintain as much power as possible — and the mayor is a CTU member and now he gets 10 seats.”

Harmon, while acknowledging his own reluctance to go along with the House plan, tried to take an optimistic view on Tuesday’s outcome.

“For all of the frustration that I have felt and I know all of you have felt, I take comfort in one final truth,” he said at the committee hearing. “No matter what happens in 2024, in 2026, the second election, all 20 members will stand for election. The presiding officer will run citywide and we will, at long last for the first time, have a fully elected representative school board in the city of Chicago.”

Tribune’s Zareen Syed contributed from Chicago.