Budget Vote Back Story: LSC Relations in Turmoil

Last night, the Chicago Board of Education approved the 2026 budget proposal as submitted by Interim Superintendent/CEO Maquline King. The 12-7-1 vote in favor of the budget, which avoided borrowing and made a $175 million pension payment contingent on additional revenue, came as a surprise to many observers.

In the run-up to the vote, reporters for various media outlets (including me for the Chicago Reader) put the count at nine in favor of the budget as proposed. That count included all but one of the elected members. Meanwhile, 10 staunch mayoral allies, most of whom were mayoral appointees, had expressed a desire to amend the budget to include the pension payment and open the door to borrowing. Newly appointed member Ángel Vélez joined the board at the last minute, adding another mayoral ally to their ranks.

But when the roll was called, three mayoral appointees – Ed Bannon, Anusha Thotakura, and Cydney Wallace – voted to approve the budget as proposed. Mayoral appointee Debby Pope abstained.

What happened?

Certainly, both external and internal pressure were involved. Externally, SEIU Local 73 members emailed board members and canvassed neighborhoods to encourage the community to tell their board members to approve the budget as proposed. While other groups, from the Urban Center and the Illinois Policy Institute to the Chicago Teachers Union, also lobbied board members, SEIU's ground game appears to have been the most extensive.

Internally, board members who favored the proposed budget waged a relentless campaign to sway their colleagues. Ahead of the meeting, some members told Board Rule they expected a floor amendment to include both the pension payment and the loan. But no such amendment was proposed.

"Going into the meeting, it wasn't clear whether we had enough votes to make an amended budget. Once I found out we didn't...this was the best budget we were going to get," board member Bannon told reporters afterwards.

Board member Wallace did her homework before the vote. To prepare, she said, she reviewed information from a wide variety of sources, looking for "the overlaps." Once she had a common set of facts, she was ready to vote for the budget as proposed. "My first duty is to look out for my children – all 300,000-plus of them," she said.

Board Rule was unable to reach Thotakura or Pope for comment.

Parent Legend Wanda Hopkins Calls for Changes to Office of LSC Relations

Another surprise last night: legendary parent advocate Wanda Hopkins took the mic during public comment. "I came out of retirement just because of this budget," she told the board. She came to oppose taking out a loan to contribute toward the city pension fund that includes non-teaching CPS staff. "I'm saying to you, board members, especially Jitu [Brown], that you have the power to say not one dollar go to the City of Chicago."

Hopkins, the longtime associate director of Parents United for Responsible Education, grew up in Cabrini-Green and continued to organize parents there after moving to the West Side. A former chair of the Sojourner Truth Elementary Local School Council, she stayed on as a consultant through three tumultuous years when seven principals churned through the building. [The Board of Education closed Truth at the end of the 2003-04 school year.]

A staunch defender of the rights of LSCs, Hopkins was also deeply involved in efforts to prevent school closures. In February 2009, she joined Brown and the Chicago Teachers Union's Jackson Potter, among many others, in an overnight vigil in front of the Chicago Public Schools headquarters, then located at 125 S. Clark Street. The vigil was organized to highlight grassroots opposition to Renaissance 2010, Mayor Richard M. Daley's effort to create 100 new schools in Chicago, which was accompanied by dozens of school closures.

In recent weeks and months, LSC members from across Chicago have spoken to the board about the Office of Local School Council Relations' failure to resolve disputes between councils and principals. Hopkins called on King to take steps to address complaints made against Kishasha Ford, the office's current director. "There has been more complaints for this person than I've ever seen in my entire life." Hopkins' statement aligns with reports from veteran LSC members currently serving at schools across the city.

Hopkins pointed to Marshall High School as an example of a school where the district should step in and remove the principal. "You all have a right to remove a principal if they've been in office for two years and the school continues to fail. My grandchildren went to Marshall. They was failing then and they failing now."