This fall, Chicagoans will vote for members of the city’s first fully elected school board. Every eligible Chicagoan can cast two votes (yes, two!) — one for a candidate in your school board district, based on your home address, and a second time for school board president.
How can I vote in school board elections?
All voters, whether they have students in Chicago Public Schools or not, can cast ballots in the school board elections.
They are on the ballot in the Nov. 3 general election. Online voter registration is available until Oct. 18 and same-day registration is allowed at the polls. Check your voter registration status here. You must be 18 on election day, a U.S. citizen, and have lived at your current address for 30 days.
Early voting began Oct. 1 at the Downtown Voting Supersite at 137 S. State St. and the Chicago Board of Elections Offices at 69 W. Washington St., Sixth Floor. Additional early voting sites in all 50 wards open Oct. 19.
On Election Day Nov. 3, polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Find your assigned precinct polling place here.
How many school board seats are up for election?
All 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education are on the ballot. Each voter can pick their local representative on the board and the person they want to be school board president.
There are 41 candidates, plus four write-ins. Four people are running for school board president.
The city is divided into 20 electoral districts — 1a, 1b, etc.. You can look up which one you live in here. The president is elected citywide and will serve a four-year term until 2030.
When the new school board is seated in January, it will replace a board that is partially elected and partially appointed. That hybrid board, launched after elections in November 2024, was the first step toward the fully elected school board.
Half of the board members will serve four-year terms and the other half will serve two years. Per state law, members elected to replace mayoral appointees will serve two years, while those in districts that had elections in 2024 will serve four years. The term lengths will swap starting in 2028.
What does the school board do?
School board members are responsible for the education of about 305,000 children at more than 600 schools and set priorities for Chicago Public Schools.
Chicagoans are probably most familiar with one of the board’s core functions: making financial decisions. The school board can raise local property taxes and decide how to spend state and federal funding.
In the last year, the board stepped into new territory when it amended the budget prepared by CPS leaders, bucking their warnings. A narrow majority of members voted to rescind hundreds of staff layoffs and instead build in a revenue assumption that Illinois lawmakers would provide $150 million more than they had already allocated.
Another key board power is hiring a CEO/superintendent and later evaluating their performance.
The board also votes to close and open schools, the academic calendar, and on which buildings get upgrades. It also approves contracts, including collective bargaining agreements, and contracts with charter school operators.
In Chicago, the board now has power to gather community input through referendums.
Board members are not paid.
Why didn’t Chicago always vote for school board members?
Since 1995, the mayor has appointed Chicago’s school board members. Before that, there was typically a nomination process to place members on the board.
Outside Chicago, most school boards in Illinois and across the U.S. are elected.
But over the last two decades in Chicago, demand for an elected board grew with prominent organizations such as the Chicago Teachers Union championing the change to hold the board accountable to families and educators. Several decisions by the appointed board had soured public perceptions of the governing body, including its unanimous vote approving former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close about 50 schools.
The bill creating the elected school board passed in 2021.
The implementation was rocky in Springfield, and it faced pushback from some local groups and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as it slowly got off the ground. As part of the path to a fully elected board, lawmakers required half the board to be elected in 2024. The other half remained mayoral appointees, with the mayor retaining a majority.
Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Makiya Seminera is a Chalkbeat reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Emmanuel Camarillo is an education reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.