Chicago School Board Forms Standing Committees, At Last
Too little, too late, or better late than never? The hybrid board has two rounds of committee meetings to prove they were worth establishing..
Yesterday, the Chicago Board of Education formed three standing committees: Finance & Audit, Operations, and Student Success. Here are the members. Each committee also has three alternate members to fill in if a member can't attend a committee meeting.
These standing committees will usually meet on the second Thursday of each month. For the rest of this board's term, the committees will meet twice: October 8 and December 3, on this schedule:
10:30 a.m. Student Success
12:30 p.m. Operations
3:30 p.m. Finance & Audit
The board is two-thirds female and one-third male. The men are heavily concentrated in the Finance & Audit Committee. "People were asked what committee they wanted to serve on, so it was more self-selection than any top-down gender bias," said Ed Bannon, the committee's vice chair. "We will be forming new committees when the new board is installed. We should definitely look at it then." Norma Rios-Sierra, the only woman on the committee, has prior experience in banking.
On Tuesday, when the agenda for yesterday's meeting was posted, Board Rule emailed the Board's communications office two questions:
1) Why now, when this board will likely see major changes to its composition after the elections?
2) What took so long to create the committees, which were announced back in 2025?
Here is their response (italics mine):
"The Chicago Board of Education (Board) is committed to effective and responsible governance. While the composition of the Board may change, it functions as a continuous governing body. Any processes or procedures that are established now will serve future Boards. The Finance/Audit, Operations and Student Success Committees are established as part of its ongoing governance structure. The Board’s priority has been to ensure these committees have the appropriate processes, administrative support, operational structure, and training to function effectively and transparently."
Board members were notified about my questions and the official answer, and some reached out to Board Rule to add context and commentary. "To have rolled out a whole new committee structure with no transparency feels like some type of last-minute maneuver," said Ellen Rosenfeld (4b). "The president has had two years to build a committee structure. There's no meaningful time to test committees."
Others Board Rule checked in with said, essentially, better late than never, and credited training from the National Association of School Boards for lighting the fire to get it done.
"They're not going to be perfect for sure, but I'm hoping that they're going to set the groundwork and the framework for when the board transitions," said Jennifer Custer (1B). "The next seated board can really dive in and get to work."
Electioneering at Pierce Elementary?
Also yesterday, two parents from Pierce Elementary in Edgewater came to the board to complain that a 501(c)4 political organization, Common Ground Collective, had a table at Pierce's back-to-school event. Parents Adam Johnson and Sarah Lazare said that CGC was passing out flyers that included two QR codes--one of which had a dead 404 link last night, while the other led to the CGC homepage, from which it's easy to click on the pull-down menu and choose "Endorsements."
Both parents requested an ethics investigation. "The return to school celebration is, I think, supposed to be about the kids and meeting the teachers, not about promoting a particular political agenda," said Johnson.
Board Rule reached out to Becky Carroll, president and CEO of C Strategies, the communications firm working with Common Ground Collective, and asked, "Does Common Ground Collective have any response to the complaints from parents brought forth at today's board meeting?"
UPDATE: At 1 p.m. on Friday, Board Rule received this official statement from Common Ground Collective: "This is a classic CTU stunt. Demonstrably false claim that never happened."
News Bites
Special education. First, an update from Wednesday's issue. Austin mom Blaire Flowers reached out to say her daughter had received a placement letter, mere hours after Board Rule was published.
Our friends at Borderless Magazine recently published an as-told-to story from recent high school graduate Froylan Suarez about his experience helping his mother advocate for his brother, a student with disabilities, and why that experience motivates him to vote in the school board elections.
Early learning. Also at yesterday's board meeting, Anusha Thotakura (6a) brought forward a resolution that would require the school district to study how families currently access preschool and look for opportunities to expand access; a report would be due by next summer. Mila Koumpilova at Chalkbeat Chicago has more details.
In July, the state of Illinois officially launched its new Department of Early Childhood. The new state agency consolidates early care and learning programs under one roof rather than scattering them across departments. The goal is to streamline services for families and help providers better navigate the complex funding systems that support the care and learning of children from birth to age 5.
Denver-based education policy expert Antonio Parés recently offered some lessons learned about how states can streamline funding for young children by counting them in the state's K-12 education funding system while allowing the money generated to flow to the wide variety of providers already supporting early learning and care. You can read his comparison of Colorado (a complex system like the one in Illinois) and Oklahoma here. (Disclosure: Parés and I are former colleagues.)
Uncontested races. South Siders in Districts 9a and 10a will see only one school board candidate listed on their ballots in November. Newcomer publication The VP looked at what that means for their representation.
Seen
In the second week of school, the Austin CAC sponsored a Principals' Breakfast that connected school leaders with community resources for social services, arts and STEAM programs, and more.
From the campaign trail: On Tuesday night, about 75 people attended a school board candidate forum at Bethany Union Church in Beverly, sponsored by the local progressive group Politics and Coffee. The event featured the four candidates for school board president, plus Therese Boyle and Katherine Dunneback, candidates for the District 9B seat.
Grant Opportunity
Applications are open for The Creative Schools Fund, sponsored by arts education nonprofit Ingenuity. The deadline is September 25. Scan the QR code for details, links to the application, and to register for an information session or 1:1 consultation.
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